Jamaica's Folk Music

Extract

The written history of Jamaica goes back only 477 years, starting with the coming of the Spaniards under Christopher Columbus in 1494. Columbus and his men were greeted on arrival by a party of Arawak Indians, including a Chief and musicians. The Arawaks were gentle peace-loving people who had lived in Jamaica for about 800 years before Columbus came. However, they were unable to endure the enslavement and the harsh treatment which they suffered at the hands of the Spaniards and by the 16th century, with the help of European diseases against which they had no resistance, they seemed to have become extinct. They left no written records that have yet been discovered and very little of their way of life survived. No sure remains of their music culture have been found. We have looked for our remote roots from other sources. The Spaniards replaced the Arawaks with enslaved Africans, the first of whom arrived in about the year 1517. These people formed the beginning of the present day population of Jamaica, and when the Spaniards were driven out by the English, (between 1655 – 1660) they and a handful of Portuguese Jews, were all that remained. Under the English the island quickly became a slave colony dedicated to the production of sugar. Increasing numbers of Africans were brought in as slaves, and continued to be until 1807 when the slave trade was abolished. The Africans came mostly from the West Coast of Africa and were made up mostly of Fans, Akims, Ashanties, Ebos, Pawpaws and Mandingoes.