Jamaica (West Indies)

JAMAICA (WEST INDIES). Jamaica was one thousand miles to windward of the principal British and French possessions in the Caribbean. It unquestionably was the largest and richest British possession in the Caribbean, and its capture ranked as Spain's primary objective in the New World. Only sixteen thousand white colonists occupied the island, barely enough to maintain control over the sugar plantations' restive slaves and to deal with hostile Maroons in the mountainous interior. As with other island possessions, Jamaica's planters and British merchants lobbied in London to have large forces of regular troops and Royal Navy vessels sent out, but they used their control of the colony's assembly to oppose spending local money for defense. While the Royal Navy's squadron commander based in Port Royal had the responsibility to protect West Florida, his army counterpart had no connection with Pensacola or Mobile. On the other hand, Governor John Dalling aggressively sought to use Jamaica for operations against Honduras and Nicaragua.

Until Spain entered the conflict upon declaring war with Britain in 1779, Jamaica's role was that of naval base (it had only about five hundred troops in garrison), principally focused on intercepting American trade in the Caribbean and protecting its own semi-annual commercial convoys from privateers. But 1779 changed the picture dramatically, and the North ministry began dispatching large reinforcements to protect the island. The climate, however, had a devastating effect on Europeans. Between 1 August and 31 December 1780, the seven and a half battalions at Jamaica lost eleven hundred men dead, and half of the remaining three thousand were sick. Dalling looked to the southern colonies, where conditions matched Jamaican weather, as a source of troops better suited to defend the island and operate along the coast of the Spanish Main. Although unable to obtain Loyalists, he did get permission to recruit a unit from the American prisoners captured in the fall of Charleston by promising that they would only serve against the Spanish.

SEE ALSO Honduras; Nicaragua; West Indies in the Revolution; Yorktown Campaign.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Floyd, Troy S. The Anglo-Spanish War for Mosquitia. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967.

Mackesy, Piers. The War for America, 1775–1783. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964.

McLarty, Robert. "Jamaica Prepares for Invasion, 1779." Caribbean Quarterly 4 (1955): 62-67.

O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson. An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.

Rowbotham, W. B. "The West Indies Hurricanes of October, 1780." Journal of the Royal United Service Institution 106 (1961): 573-584.

Syrett, David. "The West India Merchants and the Conveyance of the King's Troops to the Caribbean, 1779–1782." Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 45 (1967): 169-176.

                        revised by Robert K. Wright Jr.