The Story of the Jamaican People

Excerpt from the Introduction: In this book the authors tell the story of the Jamaican people from an African-Jamaican, not a European, point of view. The story begins in West Africa, with many different African peoples, but chiefly with the Akan, Ashanti, Yorubas, Ibibios and with nations from the region of the Congo. The Jamaican people have never accepted what was presented to them as the history of Jamaica. By claiming Africa as the homeland, Jamaicans gain a sense of historical continuity, of identity, of roots. With this perspective they also claim a remarkable heritage of achievement on a hemispheric scale across four centuries, from the beginning of the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1518. African-Jamaicans, not Europeans, built into the story the love of liberty, and a passion for justice and quality-witness Cudjoe, Nanny, Sam Sharpe, Gordon, Bogle, Garvey, Norman Manley and Bustamante. In the nineteenth century others joined us, partners in the struggle for nationhood, from India, China, Lebanon and Syria, in addition to those who chose to make Jamaica their home when the Spanish colonists left.