In 1494 Christopher Columbus lands in Jamaica.
His ship landed in the St Ann Parish in an area now named Discovery Bay but at the time Columbus named the area Horseshoe Bay. He and his crew became the first Europeans to step onto the Island and Columbus claimed the land for Spain.
This was Columbus’s second trip to the region, having found the New World in March the previous year. The Spanish crown funded his second journey and Columbus was given 17 ships and 1,000 men which set sail on the 13th of October 1493. He discovered many islands before he made it to Jamaica including Dominica, and Guadeloupe and he returned to Cuba, on the 30th of April 1494, which he had previously discovered. He left many of his men in various settlements on the way and arrived in Jamaica with a much smaller force. The inhabitants of Jamaica were Taino Indians who had settled there some 900 years before. Having promised gold which didn't materialise, to the Spanish crown, Columbus had been collecting slaves from the places he visited rather than return home empty handed. Many of these original Jamaicans were also taken as slaves. When Columbus did return, Queen Isabella ordered that the slaves be returned as they were now subjects of Spain. Those that did return didn’t survive long and within 50 years all the original inhabitants were wiped out, from starvation or European diseases that they had no resistance for. Spain created their first settlement in Jamaica in 1510 and with no real natural resources to find it was used as a plantation, with African slaves working to supply Spanish ships.
Then in 1665 the British Navy captured the island from the Spanish and set up Port Royal as the capital. Mercenaries and pirates settled there, with British backing, to plunder the Spanish ships. They were filled with gold and silver from their settlements in the Caribbean and on their way to Spain. The Island became very rich but the pirates that lived there had earned Port Royal the title of "wickedest city in the world". Britain also continued the use of African slaves on the island to grow sugar and although the tremendous wealth Britain gained from this small island, the slaves were very badly treated and lived in terrible conditions. This continued for almost two centauries until in 1833 Britain abolished slavery throughout the British Empire. On the 6th of August 1962 Jamaica gained its Independence from the UK and became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
