Timeline for Jamaica Innovative Month

1494-1655 --

• Spanish conquest and rule; some agriculture, including sugar cane; Spanish Town capitol until 1874; island serves as stopping off point between Spain and richer colonies of the Spanish Main.
• Maroon colonies of escaped slaves begin to develop in Blue and John Crow Mountains and Cockpit Country.
  

1596-1962 -- British conquest and rule.

1600s

• by 1655 -- Taino natives wiped out by disease and Spanish encomienda system of slavery.
• Maroon colonies grow as Spanish slaves are freed to fight the British as the Spanish retreat.
• 1664-1670 -- pirates encouraged by British to use Jamaica as a base to attack Spanish ships.
• British offer land grants to settlers.
  

1700s

• Jamaica becomes largest producer of sugar in the world; vertical integration of sugar industry; plantation economy with class and race relations that continue in many ways to this day; export orientation and foreign ownership key elements of plantation economy at this time remain facets of Jamaican society to this day.
  
• Period of industrialization in Europe; workforce fueled by new stimulants and sugar; raw materials extracted from colonies; colonies serve as escape valve for growing populations of Europe; little economic diversification/development in the colonies as resources are drawn from afar to fuel the core industrial nations; cultural hegemony of the West spreads worldwide; systems of subjugation and enslavement of non-European cultures supported by imperialistic nations and the Catholic and Anglican churches; continued missionary activity.
• Slave trade begins in earnest in Jamaica; slave rebellions every few years throughout the century.
  

1720s -- Maroon threat deemed great by British; First Maroon War begins; Cudjoe is Maroon chief.
1739 -- First Maroon War ends with peace treaty; semi-independent status granted to Maroons, continues to this day.
1760 -- Tacky's Rebellion, major slave rebellion that spread island wide.
1775 -- U.S. war of independence; Jamaica cut off from markets of North America; food shortages encourage slave owners to allow subsistence gardening/farming by slaves.
1783 -- Native Baptist Church begins; syncretism of Baptist and African ceremonies and beliefs.
1795 -- Second Maroon War.
1799 -- Toussaint L'Ouverture's forces achieve Haitian independence from the French.

1800s

1807 -- British Parliament prohibits its colonies from trading in slaves.
1830s -- beginnings of indentured labor force imported to Jamaica; many indentured laborers were of Indian descent.
1831 -- Christmas slave rebellion; seriousness of rebellion and brutality with which it was crushed intensified abolition debate.
1838 -- British emancipate slaves; six year "apprenticeship" to follow for newly freed slaves; slave owners compensated for economic losses while ex-slaves receive no compensation; ex-slaves lack access to land, a fact that would persist through Jamaican history and re-emerge in the PNP's land reform efforts in the 1970s.
1846 -- British Sugar Duties Act removes price protections for Jamaican sugar; sugar beet competition for market share; Jamaican sugar industry suffers; prompts Jamaican colonists to consider diversifying the local economy; plantation economy downsized resulting in increased levels of unemployment for ex-slaves.
1860s -- Bananas become major export.
1860-1861 -- The Great Revival; recovery and celebration of African origins and practices in religion and culture.
1865 -- Morant Bay rebellion led by Paul Bogle; brutally crushed.
1866 -- Jamaica becomes a "crown colony" with more direct rule from Britain; system kept peace while preserving the status quo in class/race relations and in economic and political realms.
1872 -- Kingston becomes Jamaican capitol.
1887 -- Marcus Garvey born in Jamaica.

1900s

• Early 20th Century -- Jamaican tourism and banana industries grow rapidly.
• 1910 -- Mexican Revolution begins; fighting lasts until late 1920s; strong racial and working class consciousness underpins the revolution and permeates culture.
  

1920s -- International black consciousness movement headed by Marcus Garvey very active in this decade and the early 1930s.

1920 -- Marcus Garvey charters the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League; Garveyism, initial wave; Garvey is later deemed a prophet within Rastafarianism.
1929 -- U.S. stock market crash.

1930s

• The Great Depression; U.S. blocks immigration resulting in even more rapid growth of the urban poor in Jamaica.
• Banana crops in Jamaica decimated by disease, never to recover fully.
• Labor union activity grows.
• Rastafarianism developed and begins to grow.
  

1930 -- Haile Selassie crowned Emperor in Ethiopia; Garveyites see him as the prophesied, divine African king.
1938 --

• Bustamante Industrial Trade Union founded by Alexander Bustamante; PNP founded by Norman Manley.
• Jamaica undertakes efforts to diversify its economy in an effort to alleviate unemployment and promote growth.
  
• PEMEX oil industry nationalized in Mexico.

1939 -- World War II begins; shipping disruptions prompt development of small local industries.

1940s

• End of World War II; partitioning of Europe; two superpowers (U.S. and USSR emerge); Cold War and arms race begin.
• Rastafarians emerging as a recognizable entity in Jamaican society.
• Bauxite industry begins.
• JLP supports "bread and butter" issues while PNP calls for independence for Jamaica.
• Jamaican society's values oriented toward democratic practice and economic growth; labor/capital struggle the defining conflict for mobilizing the masses.
  

1940 -- Marcus Garvey dies.
1943 -- Bustamante splits from Manley's PNP to form Jamaican Labor Party (JLP); JLP elected to head Jamaican government.
1944 --

• Bretton Woods institutions formed (World Bank and International Monetary Fund).
• Universal adult suffrage in Jamaica.
  

1945 -- U.S. drops atomic bomb on city of Hiroshima in Japan; World War II ends.
1947 -- first implementation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
1948 -- South African Apartheid policy begins.
1949 -- JLP wins national elections.

1950s

• Jamaican music becoming influenced by Rastafarianism; ska, Rasta drumming.
• Gradual shift in external focus of Jamaica away from Britain and to the U.S. and Canada; upper strata of Jamaican society identifies increasingly with U.S.; identification with U.S. civil rights movement.
• Idea of Jamaican exceptionalism coming to the fore (Gray, p. 58).

1950-1953 -- Korean War.
1951 -- Jamaica adopts ten year plan emphasizing the development of the manufacturing sector.
1952 -- Bauxite exports begin.
1953 -- Cuban revolution begins.
1954 -- Elected socialist president Arbenz overthrown in Guatemala in coup organized by CIA; begins 30 years of U.S. supported state violence.
1955 -- Norman Manley elected to head Jamaican government; Jamaica still a British possession.
1956-1967 -- Jamaica actively woos foreign capital investment through tax and tariff incentives; capital intensive development doesn't promote employment; elites see national interest and economic interest as one and the same (Persaud, pp. 125-127).
1958 -- West Indies Federation launched.
1959 -- Cuban revolution brings government of Fidel Castro to power.

1960s

• Period of rapid industrialization and economic growth; subsistence economy destroyed which leads to massive rural to urban migration and unemployment; foreign investment levels increase rapidly, particularly in bauxite industry; tourism industry grows rapidly, JLP in power until 1972.
• In newly independent Jamaica, there exists a sense of cultural homelessness; three external areas of cultural focus: The United States, Britain and Africa.
  
• Social and cultural resistance begins to grow as a means for asserting identity and contesting power; rude boys rejecting cultural hegemony through demonstrated socio-cultural inversions and violence; rude boy individualistic and heroic defiance and fearlessness celebrated in popular songs; social inversion of widely held values on the rise.
  
• Political violence on the rise as a means for politicians to secure votes and to divide, undermine and demobilize the poor.
• As the social consciousness of the poor rises without material changes in their living conditions, they increasingly employ strategies to secure personal honor and power: complicity with political/cultural power, resistance to that power and pursuit of autonomous, "exhilic" existence.
  
• Government suppression of Rastafarians and other forces of resistance; Rastafarianism gaining strength.
• Tourism industry grows rapidly in Jamaica bringing mostly U.S. tourists.
  
• JLP in power in Jamaica.
• Influence of U.S. films and print media increases in Jamaica; this influence includes heroic and violent "western" movies and U.S. Cold War ideology.
• Dance hall culture/activity begins to expand as mobile sound systems carry recorded music to the poor.
  
• Major social forces in Jamaica in this decade and the 1970s listed on p. 71 of Persaud.
• Continued promotion of the idea of Jamaican exceptionalism in the face of a rising tide of nationalism and race consciousness; exceptionalism failing to interpellate the urban poor (Persaud, p. 96).
• Black civil rights movement in the U.S.; Black Power movement in U.S. gaining strength.
• Abandonment of the urban poor by the union/political party cartels (Persaud, p. 99).
• During this period of development from above, unemployment is on the rise, and the poor are losing ground.
• Violent crime on the rise in Jamaica; would double by mid-70s (Gray, p. 195).
  

1961 --

• Jamaicans vote in national referendum held by Manley government to leave the West Indies Federation.
• U.S. attempts Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba to overthrow Castro government.
  

1962 --

• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Jamaican independence.
  

1963 -- President John F. Kennedy assassinated; Lyndon Johnson takes office.
1965 --

• Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel formed; succeeds in wresting a great deal of control away from the major oil companies as oil fields and infrastructure are nationalized by exporting countries.
• U.S. involvement in Vietnam War underway.
• Anti-Chinese riots in Jamaica symptomatic of racial and class tensions.
  

1966 -- Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia visits Jamaica; publicly advises Jamaicans to liberate themselves in Jamaica before repatriating to Africa; Rastas engage in politics as a result of this statement.
1967 -- Six Day War; Israel seizes additional territory; results in tensions with Arab world with U.S. aligning with Israel and USSR aligning with Egypt in a potential superpower conflict; results in OPEC oil embargo of U.S.
1968 --

• U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy assassinated.
• Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated.
  

1969 -- Richard Nixon assumes office of president in U.S.

1970s

• South African system of Apartheid receiving increased international criticism.
• 1970s through mid-1980s -- international recession resulting from oil embargo, among other factors.
• Poverty, rural to urban migration and unemployment strains poor family units in Jamaica.
• Value of personal sacrifice being replaced by consumerist values in Jamaican society; corresponds with growing influence of the United States.
  
• Tourist industry contracts in Jamaica due to worldwide recession and political clashes with U.S. interests (which resulted in much "bad press" for Jamaica).
• Very active period for Rastafarians and Reggae music; internationalization of Black Power ideas expressed in music; revival of pan-Africanism and Garveyism; international audience for Reggae music develops.
• Popular culture and music affirm rights of poor Jamaicans to act outside the law to obtain social goods and material benefits they have been denied; unfair system, not individuals, deemed the outlaws; racial pride increasingly fused with outlaw identities.
  
• Continuing African wars of independence to end colonial rule.
• Garrison communities (captive voting blocks) first established in Kingston; politicians seeking secured votes, political henchmen and supplicants seeking benefits and protection from political parties.
  
• Outlawry as the most prominent identity assumed by alienated, poor youth in Jamaica; outlawry as compensatory vehicle for respect in a culture that values individualism and personal achievement of upward mobility.
• Late 1970s sees Jamaica becoming an increasingly important transshipment point for illegal cocaine trade to the United States.
• Heavy airline traffic from the United States to Jamaica as well as cheap consumer goods imported in barrels offer opportunities for high levels of illegal guns to be smuggled into Jamaica.
  
• Poor Jamaicans undertaking "land captures" and looking to the PNP for land reform; PNP looks to large land holdings by multinational bauxite corporations as source for land.
• Street vendors begin to complete with business class importers as they import and sell products without paying taxes.
  
• Jamaican politics is internationalized; Jamaica a leader in the Non-Aligned movement, in Third World cooperation and in promotion of the New International Economic Order.
• Contest for power between the JLP and the PNP in Jamaica is conceptualized, in part, in Cold War terms with each side being accused of influence by hostile foreign powers.
• Political power shifts toward the disenfranchised in Jamaica.
  

1970 --

• U.S. peak in oil production.
• Michael Manley visits Ethiopia and is given the "rod of correction" by Haile Selassie; symbolic use of the rod through the 1972 election.
  

1972 --

• 1972 election campaigns are infused with appropriation of the symbols of Rastafarianism and the playing of reggae music.
  
• Michael Manley's PNP government elected by voters representing a multi-class alliance.
  
• The Harder They Come is produced; focuses international attention on Jamaica.
  

1973 --

• U.S. troops withdrawn from Vietnam.
• Socialist President Allende of Chile overthrown in military coup supported by U.S.
• Jamaica second in the world in bauxite production.
  

1973-1974 -- oil embargo triggers worldwide fuel shortages and recession; negatively impacts Jamaica's already weak earnings of foreign exchange.
1974 --

• Beginning of Democratic Socialism.
• Jamaican government unilaterally imposes bauxite production levy and, thereby, dramatically increases government revenues from bauxite extraction; bauxite corporations respond by going elsewhere, to some degree, for bauxite; Jamaica gains increased knowledge and local control regarding the industry (Persaud, p. 144).
• In the face of rising crime rates, PNP government passes both the Suppression of Crime Act and the Gun Court Act, both of which infringe on basic civil liberties and provide cover for state violence.
  

1975 --

• Emperor Selassie of Ethiopia dies.
• Capital flight escalating as many among the Jamaican ruling classes leave the country.
• Cuba sending troops to fight in Angola; flights land on Jamaican soil in demonstration of Jamaican support for Cuban efforts.
• Formation of International Bauxite Association, a "resource diplomacy" organization following the model of OPEC; aluminum industry increases purchases from countries outside IBA.
• Depressed world market for sugar.
• Reduced ability to afford imports in Jamaica.
• Food and other product shortages; capital goods shortages enrages capitalist classes in Jamaica.

1976 --

• Tourism down; further losses of sources of foreign exchange.
• Manley re-elected on more radical platform; class alliance behind PNP breaks down; PNP supported by urban poor, Rastas and other disenfranchised groups; loses support of Jamaican ruling classes.
• The platform of Manley's political victory poses problems for Jamaica striking a deal with the IMF.
• PNP government declares state of emergency in Jamaica; continuing crime and disorder both undercuts PNP government's legitimacy and makes effective governance all but impossible.
  
• Carter elected president in U.S.

1977 --

• People's Plan for rehabilitation and increased domestic control of the Jamaican economy; Manley government basically ignores People's Plan due to conservative influence within the party and Carter's election in U.S.; PNP seeks IMF aid for failing Jamaican economy; Jamaica narrowly fails IMF test resulting in increased structural adjustment; devaluation of Jamaican currency; wages fall in relation to costs of imports; food and other import product shortages.
• PNP reluctantly reaches a borrowing agreement with the IMF.
  
• Increasingly reduced state spending makes political gunmen increasingly dependent on crime for direct material gain (rather than political crime) for their survival.
  
• President Carter expresses views sympathetic to developing countries' treatment in the global economy; expresses a desire to re-examine international lending policies.
  
• World inflation rates average 8.5%.

1978 --

• Jamaican economy worsening as IMF policies are implemented: forced job cuts, reduced imports, Jamaican currency devaluation, declines in Jamaican buying power relative to external currencies, restricted public spending, state inability to use resources to alleviate domestic suffering.
  
• Five JLP political gunmen killed by the state.
• In recognition that political violence is self destructive for the poor, peace truce organized with cooperation of political criminals in Jamaica; poor increasingly under economic pressure in the face of IMF policies; state unable to compensate gunment for relinquishing their weapons or to create conditions that would alleviate poverty; peace disintegrates resulting in return to garrison boundaries, disillusionment and violence.
  
• State policy of extermination of gunmen who are increasingly acting beyond the control of the state; Jamaican police kill 19 of 24 wanted men in the first 11 months of the year (Gray, p. 248).
  

1979 --

• Jamaica fails another IMF test resulting in even harsher measures of structural adjustment; self-reliance strategy of PNP collapses under weight of IMF deals.
  
• Sandinista victory in Nicaragua.
• Leftist revolutionary fighting by FMLN in El Salvador.
• Iranian Islamic revolution overthrows the U.S. client government of the Shah; gas, diesel and kerosene prices skyrocket in Jamaica, further impacting the already suffering poor.
• Massive demonstrations against increased costs of living spread island wide in Jamaica; bauxite mine workers walk out in support of the demonstrations; businesses, banks and schools forced to close their doors.
• JLP criticizes and blames PNP government for economic and social problems.
  
• USSR invades Afghanistan.
• Iranian hostage crisis begins (ends in 1981, after Carter leaves office).
• Neoliberalism on the rise in the U.S.
• President Carter pulls back sympathetic backing of Jamaica at IMF.
• PNP caught between domestic and international hegemonic forces.
• Homicides and felony woundings in Jamaica reach high levels: 1965-1966 -- 228 homicides and 898 woundings, 1979-1980: 1,299 homicides and 36,540 woundings.
  

1980s

• High level of growth in the informal economy represented by street vendors and drug dons.
• Slackness begins to emerge as a form of cultural inversion.
• U.S. supports Contra fighters in Nicaragua attempting to overthrow the Sandinista government.
• Sandinista government allies closely with Cuba and conducts literacy crusades and cultural revolution efforts based on the Cuban revolutionary model; great strides made in literacy, public participation in the arts and health.
• U.S. supported Caribbean Basin Initiative launched (aid for Caribbean nations in return for free elections and cooperative governments).
• Crime becomes major public concern in Jamaica.
• State cracks down on street vending by forcing vendors to pay import taxes and to locate themselves in designated areas.

1980 --

• PNP government breaks off negotiations with IMF for increased assistance.
• Carter Doctrine on oil states that U.S. will use military force to protect its access to foreign oil.
• FMLN established in El Salvador.
• Anti-PNP rhetoric in foreign and domestic media.
• JLP's Edward Seaga elected Prime Minister of Jamaica, backed by U.S. interests; reverses many PNP policies and follows neoliberal economic policy of integration of Jamaica into the global economy.
• Jamaica cuts diplomatic ties with Cuba.
• Jamaica is increasingly integrated into the international drug trade as former political gangsters, left to their own devices, seek new avenues for material reward; Jamaican drug posses established in the U.S.
• Fear of emboldened poor black Jamaicans, who increasingly act independently of the political classes, on the rise among politicians and the middle and upper classes; these fears lend support to state repression.
• Slackness on the rise as a new form of cultural inversion; slackness is an option for women as well as men; slackness as resistance to racist and classist notions of civility and respectability and as an act of throwing off the moral sway of the middle and upper classes.
  
• Cocaine use on the rise in the U.S.

1981 --

• JLP's Seaga elected Prime Minister of Jamaica with backing from U.S., Jamaican and international capitalists.
• Reagan assumes presidency in U.S.
• U.S. and IMF aid to Jamaica.
  
• Bob Marley dies of cancer.
• Drug industry grows; rise of Jamaican drug dons and international posses.
• Support for PNP rises as neoliberal policies of JLP government negatively impact Jamaican producers and consumers.
  

1983 --

• U.S. invasion of Grenada ousts leftist President; Jamaican troops participate on U.S. side; JLP government rallies support anti-communist ideology and calls for national election during anti-communist fervor following Grenada invasion; Seaga is re-elected Prime Minister.
• Jamaican currency devalued 77% as a condition for securing a standby agreement with the IMF; Seaga's reputation suffers measurably; PNP calls for his resignation.

1985 -- Fuel price protest in Jamaica; militant poor who sparked the protest are not joined by other classes, marking the retreat of political and other alliances with them in support of their concerns.
1987 -- USSR peaks in oil production; world oil price collapse due to overproduction in response to 1970s oil shocks and Saudi attempts to regain market share.
1988 -- Another peace truce in Jamaica.
1989 --

• PNP's Michael Manley returned to office as Prime Minister.
• U.S. undertakes "Operation Just Cause" in Panama to oust military ruler Manuel Noriega.
• Election in Nicaragua ends Sandinista revolutionary government.
• George H.W. Bush assumes presidency in U.S.
  

1990s

• Early 1990s, formal system of Apartheid ends in South Africa.
• Nations increasingly losing authority and control in comparison to multinational corporations and the global elite.
  

1991 --

• Soviet Union collapses.
• Persian Gulf War.
  

1992 --

• Manley resigns as Prime Minister; P.J. Patterson takes office and continues as Prime Minister to this day; PNP continues neoliberalist policies begun under the JLP in 1980.
• Peace treaty in El Salvador.
  

1993 --

• Bill Clinton assumes presidency in U.S.
• Monsanto's bovine growth hormone approved in U.S. to inject into cattle to increase milk production -- industrial world overproducing milk already; effects on milk industry worldwide.
  

1994 --

• North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in effect.
• Zapatistas begin fight in Chaipas, Mexico.
  

1995 --

• WTO replaces GATT.
• Price supports for Jamaican sugar and bananas in European markets dropped; dumping of imported food products further destroys local food economy.

1997 -- Danchall Queen film is produced.

2000s

• JLP and PNP in Jamaica publicly denouncing their sponsorship of political violence.
• Neoliberal policies in Jamaica serve elitist goals, in part, by promoting professional, technocratic, managerial efficiency in government rather than governance to redress and heal the injuries of long term class and race oppression.
• Neoliberal policies exploit contradictions of global economic peripheralization still resident from the colonial experience in Jamaica.
  

2001 --

• George W. Bush assumes presidency in U.S.
• 9/11 terrorist strikes on World Trade Center in U.S.
  

2003 -- U.S. invades Iraq.
2005 -- U.S. ratifies Dominican Republic -- Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) which now awaits approval by a number of other signatory states.

Definitions in Persuad

Historical materialism.
Hegemony and hegemonic strategies (pp. 37-41); transnational hegemony (p. 52).
Organic intellectual (p. 37); Jamaica as an organic intellectual at the international level.
Overdetermination.
Passive revolution (pp. 42-43).
Historic bloc (p. 45).
Social force (p. 48).
Dialectic.
Hegemony and counter-hegemony as a dialectic (p. 49).
Domestic and foreign policy as part of a whole (p. 50).
Bretton Woods institutions (p. 53).
Structural adjustment programs (p. 53).
Vertical integration in an industry.
Import substitution development (p. 75).
Jamaican "exceptionalism."
Signifying chains (p. 159).