Jamaica

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History
Christopher Columbus was the first European to ever set foot on Jamaica, even though he called it Santiago. In 1510 the Island was settled by the Spanish, which made a great impact on the natives in the area. The Spanish brought with them farm animals, sugar, slaves and last but not least, diseases. The natives suffered greatly and at the end of the 16th century the natives were completely wiped out. Jamaica later on became base for buccaneers (a type of pirates). The Spanish made Villa de la Vega (now Spanish Town) the capital. Because Jamaica was the base for buccaneers they got attacked by a lot of buccaneers and they even held their parties there. This weakened the Spanish’s forces on the island and in May 1655 the English attacked, and managed to take control of the island. The Spanish tried to retake the Island in 1657 and 1658 but they failed. Just like under the Spanish rule, there were a lot of buccaneers stationed on the island. The English invited them to move to Port Royal. This reduced the attacks against the English. They were attacked, but to a lesser extent than the Spanish. Port Royal was destroyed in 1692 by an earthquake and that lead to the founding of Kingston, Jamaica’s current capital. Because of Jamaica’s sugar and coffee resources it became one of the world’s most valuable resources. In 1834 slavery was abolished by the British. They paid compensation to 225 290 slaves, which ended up on a total of $29 269 875. This led to the Jamaican people starting to work toward independence and in the late 1930s Jamaica gained some local political control. Their first election was in 1944. In 1962 they finally became independent, though remaining as a member of “the Commonwealth”, and they still are. The Commonwealth is an organization of countries, most of them former colonies. It’s not like a political union where one of the countries has control of another; it’s more an organization where countries with economical, cultural and political differences work together for common goals and values. In the first 10 years of their independence they had rapid economic growth with about 6 % growth each year.

[[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/LocationJamaica.svg/800px-LocationJamaica.svg.png width="407" height="206" align="right"]]Geography
Jamaica lies in the Caribbean Sea and is a part of the Greater Antilles archipelago. The Greater Antilles is an archipelago consisting of Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Cuba and Hispaniola (The Dominican Republic and Haiti). Jamaica is the third biggest island there, after Hispaniola and Cuba, which lies 190(Haiti part) and 145km away from Jamaica. Jamaica is divided in three landform regions: the coastal plains, the central valleys and plateaus and the eastern mountains. Noteworthy geographical records on the island are the highest mountain: Blue Mountain Peak – 2 256m and the longest river: Black River – 70km. Current environmental issues include deforestation, coral reef damage, air pollution in Kingston and coastal waters being polluted from industrial waste. Because of its localization in the Caribbean Sea, Jamaica has a warm and humid climate. The climate is one of the greatest reasons for the danger of hurricanes. Between July and November is the time that Jamaica is mostly threatened by hurricanes, because of its location, the Caribbean. Hurricanes hitting land on Jamaica usually cause massive damage and deaths. Noteworthy hurricanes in the last years include Hurricane Ivan and Dean. Both of them caused a great amount of damage and some deaths, in 2004 and 2007, respectively. The temperature on Jamaica is stable through the whole year with an average of 25 °C -30 °C in the lowlands, and 15 °C - 22 °C higher up in the mountains.

Culture[[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Bob-Marley-in-Concert_Zurich_05-30-80.jpg width="360" height="297" align="right"]]
Jamaica is a country rich in culture which includes music, dance, a growing film industry, sport and a lot more. Their culture includes a lot of different topics, with influences from Africa, China, India and Europe, which I think is interesting. The music part includes genres like mento (Jamaican folk music with a lot of similarities with calypso from Trinidad and Tobago, though mento has a lot less Spanish influence), rocksteady (Reggae’s precursor) and of course Reggae. Reggae is the most famous music genre from Jamaica, at least for us Europeans. Reggae became popular outside Jamaica mostly because of Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley in the 1970s. Bob Marley is a name you really can’t avoid to mention while talking about Jamaican culture. The term Reggae is often used as a general genre for Jamaican music, though these have less known names like ska and rocksteady, and associated with the Rastafari movement, which was Bob Marley’s religion. Some characteristics of the Rastafari movement include spiritual use of Cannabis, acceptance of Jesus as messiah and Haile Selassie I as an incarnate of God. Reggae lyrics often discuss and contain material related to love, injustice, poverty, faith, social criticism and a lot more. Some popular sports on Jamaica are athletics, football and cricket, though they have a great variety in sports played. We saw an example of a great Jamaican athlete under the Olympic Games in Beijing. Now I’m talking about Usain Bolt’s world records on 100m and 200m and he actually took the 100m record away from another Jamaican runner, Asafa Powell. Football also has  a strong position in Jamaican culture, and it’s probably the most played sport there. This is after British influence and now I’m of course talking about what the Americans call soccer, not American football. Their national team is ranked as 105th in the FIFA ranking and 2  players of the main squad plays for Norwegian club teams, Rudolph Austin and Luton Shelton, play for Brann and Vålerenga respectively. Cricket is also played a lot and is probably the second most played sport on Jamaica. Jamaica shares the fanatic excitement for cricket with the rest of the Caribbean and Jamaica’s national team won 6 titles from 1986 to 1992.

Conclusion
Jamaica has been influenced by the UK in sports like football and cricket, religion (Christianity is the largest religion there) and the obvious, language. I chose Jamaica because I thought it would be an interesting country to write about. Most people think of Jamaicans as marihuana smoking Rastafarians, but I’ve learned that there is so much more to Jamaica than just the Rastafarians. I believe the reason for this prejudice is mostly from Bob Marley’s huge popularity, both when he was alive and after his death.

Sources Wikipedia, both English and Norwegian but the majority is from English. http://www.historyofnations.net/northamerica/jamaica.html http://www.my-island-jamaica.com/