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II.

CHAPTER III.

JAMAICA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.

JAMAICA was discovered by Columbus on his second voyage in May, 1494. Coming from Cuba he sighted and, after opposition from the natives, landed on its northern of Jamaica shores, and formally declared the island to be thenceforward by Columbus. part of the Spanish dominions. He christened it St. Jago

Discovery

after St. James the patron saint of Spain, but the new title did not last, and the island was ever known by its native name of Jamaica 1. On his fourth and last voyage in 1503 Columbus again visited the island, this time in trouble and distress. Driven by storm and tempest he ran his foundering ships aground at St. Ann's bay on the northern coast. He named the spot where he beached his vessels Santa Gloria, and it now bears the name of Don Christopher's Cove 2. Here he remained over a year in sickness and want, deserted by Ovando, the governor of Hispaniola, with his own company in mutiny against him, and befriended only by the natives of the island, partly out of simple kindliness,

1 Xaymaca (Jamaica) is said to have meant 'well-watered' or 'wellwooded and watered.' It was also the native name of Antigua which possesses no running water, so the term apparently simply implied general fertility (see Bridges' Annals of Jamaica, vol. i. chapter 6). One derivation of it from James ignored the fact that the name was borne by the island before any Europeans, much less English, landed on it.

2 Another point, however, on the north coast of the island, between Port Maria and Annotto Bay, is also marked on maps of Jamaica as Don Christopher's Cove; and Long (book II. chapter i.), speaking of the Santa Gloria of Columbus, says, 'It is supposed, I know not upon what grounds, to have been what is now called Port Sancta Maria.'

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III.

partly from superstitious motives1. At length his emissary CHAPTER to Hispaniola was able to procure relief, and he left Jamaica for the last time in June, 1504.

under the

Before Columbus set out on his first great voyage he had History of been promised by his sovereigns the government of all the Jamaica lands which he might discover, together with a tenth of all Spaniards. their produce. The promise, like other royal promises in those days, was easily made, but as the greatness of the new discoveries gradually dawned on the world, King Ferdinand found it inconvenient to stand by his word, and Columbus died in 1506 with his just claims still unsatisfied.

His son Diego inherited his rights, and, strengthened by a decision given in his favour by the Grand Council of the Indies and by marriage with a niece of the Duke of Alva, he forced the king to recognise his claims to the extent of allowing him to go out to Hispaniola as Governor. arrival there he found that Ferdinand had divided the government of the newly-found continent between two other Spaniards, Ojeda and Nicuesa, and had assigned to them in common the island of Jamaica, from which jointly to draw supplies and slaves. To assert his rights he sent Esquimel, in 1509, with some seventy men to form a settlement in the island, and thus began the Spanish colonisation of Jamaica 2.

1 The story is well known how he worked on the fears and credulity of the natives by foretelling an eclipse.

2 Jamaica was specially connected with the family of Columbus, for Don Luis, son of Diego Columbus, who inherited the claims of his father and grandfather, compounded them for a small pension and for the titles of Duke of Veragua (on the mainland) and Marquis of La Vega (called after the new capital of Jamaica), which latter was exchanged for that of Marquis of Jamaica. The titles passed to his sister, who married into the house of Braganza; and finally, when in 1640 the Portuguese revolted against Spain and the house of Braganza ascended the throne of Portugal, the Marquisate of Jamaica with any rights appertaining to it reverted to the Spanish Crown (see Bridges' Annals of Jamaica, vol. i. chapter 5, and Washington Irving's Columbus, App. 2). According to some accounts, Jamaica at the time of the English conquest was still the property of the family of

SECTION II.

Esquimel landed at St. Ann's bay, where Columbus had landed before him, and on its shores he founded the town of Sevilla Nueva1, or Sevilla d'Oro, the latter name commemorating the finding of gold among the natives. The colony grew and flourished, and sent out offshoots to Melilla and Oristan 2, the former said to have been situated like New Seville, on the northern coast, but more to the west on the Martha Brea river, the latter on Bluefields Bay, in the south-west of the island. Sevilla, however, did not long remain the chief settlement, for between the years 1520 Founding and 1526, while Diego Columbus was still Governor of of Spanish Hispaniola, the town of St. Jago de la Vega (St. James of Town. the plains), now known as Spanish Town, was founded in the south of the island, inland on the river Cobre, and in no long time it became and remained the capital and seat of government.

Few and, for the most part, evil are the records of Spanish colonisation in Jamaica. The sites of the early settlements are hard to trace, and the history of the hundred and fifty years, during which the Spaniards bore rule in the island, is little more than a blank. The Indians, said to have been at first kindly treated, were afterwards exterminated, and the colony, which began with brightness and prosperity, gradually passed into obscurity and decay. It would seem that in early years, while Hispaniola was the centre of the SpanishAmerican dominions, Jamaica, which lay so near to its

Columbus. Long says (book I. chapter xi.), 'The island at this time belonged, as some say, to the Duke de Veragua, who was lineally descended from Christopher Columbus, so that it was the private estate of a Spanish subject and not a member of the royal demesne.' Bryan Edwards (bk. II. chap. i.) notices this view as incorrect.

1 Peter Martyr, the author of the Decades, was appointed Abbot of Sevilla, but seems never to have visited Jamaica.

2 According to Blome, Melilla was the first Spanish settlement in the island, and Long makes it older than Sevilla. It took its title from a town in Barbary of the same name, and Oristan either from Oristano in Sardinia (Bridges), or from a town in Barbary (Long). Some accounts place Melilla to the East of Sevilla at Port Maria.