Jamaica: Colonial Period

Jamaica entered the colonial era in 1494, when Christopher Columbus reached the island during his second voyage. Spanish settlement began in earnest after Juan de Esquivel founded Sevilla la Nueva in 1509, with the colonial capital later relocated to Villa de la Vega, present-day Spanish Town.

Spain regarded the island primarily as a supply post and ranching outpost rather than a strategic prize, since it lacked the gold and silver deposits found elsewhere in the empire. Colonization nonetheless devastated the island's indigenous Taíno population through disease, forced labor, and violence, and within a few decades their numbers had collapsed.

England seized Jamaica in 1655, and Spain formally ceded the island under the Treaty of Madrid in 1670. British rule brought an expansion of sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans, alongside recurring conflicts with Maroon communities who resisted colonial authority from the island's interior. Jamaica remained a British colony until it gained independence in 1962.