Belafonte might want/need a history lesson: The Jamaicans
A Proud, Lengthy History
The New Neighbors
newsday.com
By Merle English
Staff Writer
On the sixth of January every year thousands of overseas visitors travel to Accompong, a sleepy mountain village on the island of Jamaica, to witness a unique ritual that has been re-enacted there for 262 years.
About 5 a.m. on the celebration day, a villager in the village square blows an abeng, an instrument made from a cow's horn, alerting everyone that things are about to begin. Everyone walks toward a wooded area to pay homage at the grave of Cudjoe, a village chief, originally from West Africa, who became one of Jamaica's first national heroes.
A few hours later, the visitors and villagers gather at a big tree, where, amid drumming, dancing and singing, they wait for pig to cook with wildfowl, and yams and plantains. Anyone lucky enough to get a piece of the cooked pork, which is served on a leaf from a banana tree, will have good luck, the villagers believe.
The village chief explains to visitors that the yearly ritual marks the anniversary of Jan. 6, 1738. That was the day a peace treaty was signed, ending a long war between the villagers' African ancestors and English settlers who used them as slaves. The African ancestors had been captured in Africa and brought to the island. But they fled the plantations to form their own communities in the Cockpit Country, a densely forested and rugged area in a mountain range that forms the island's backbone. The people in Cockpit Country were called Maroons, a word derived from the Spanish word cimarron, meaning fierce or untamed.
Led by Cudjoe, in a battle against the English on Jan. 6, 1738, the Maroons ambushed members of the English militia who were sent to entrap them. A sporadic, guerilla war that had lasted for nearly 100 years ended with the Maroons victorious. Since then, they have governed themselves. Jamaica -- a mountainous country slightly larger than Long Island -- had first been colonized by the Spanish after Christopher Columbus took it for Spain in 1494. The Spanish imported Africans on a small scale to work on the sugar plantations when the Arawak Indians were wiped out by the hard labor and European diseases.
Xymaca, the Arawak name for Jamaica, means "land of wood and water.” It indicates the many waterfalls and rivers and the lush vegetation. Since then the country has been a democracy of 2.5 million people, most of whom are descendants of African slaves.
Unemployment and inflation have caused periods of political unrest on the island. Large numbers of Jamaicans have emigrated to the United States since the 1960s in search of education and jobs. But a gravestone in the churchyard of Trinity Church in the Wall Street area engraved with the name Edward Gabaudan "of the island of Jamaica” and the date, 1795, indicates that Jamaicans were coming to the U.S. much earlier.
U.S. Census data show that in 1990 there were more than 441,000 Jamaicans living in the five boroughs, with the largest numbers in Brooklyn -- particularly Crown Heights and Flatbush -- the Bronx and Queens -- largely St. Albans, Laurelton, Cambria Heights and Rosedale. From 1990 to 2000 the number of Jamaicans admitted to the U.S. was 88,808, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. On Long Island Jamaicans have settled in Westbury, Hempstead, Baldwin and Roosevelt. Jamaica is where reggae music was born. It was popularized by the late Bob Marley who practiced the Rastafarian religion which began in Jamaica. Rastafarians worship God but also believe in the divinity of the late Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie. The World Factbook indicates that about 65 percent of Jamaicans are Christian, while 35 percent have different beliefs, including some spiritual cults.
English is Jamaica's official language, but most people speak a Creole called patois, (pronounced pat-wa) a mixture of English, Irish, Spanish and West African.
Jamaican Roots
They are represented in all of the professions. Many are entrepreneurs. Some are elected officials.
Many hold positions in the U.S. government, sports and entertainment. Some famous people with a Jamaican heritage include New York City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke, a Brooklyn Democrat; Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was born in the United States of Jamaican parents; former New York Knicks center Patrick Ewing; singers Harry Belafonte and Grace Jones; and actress Sheryl Lee Ralph.
Patrick Ewing: www.hickoksports.com/biograph/ewingpatr.shtml
Yvette Clarke: www.council.nyc.ny.us/committees/index.cfm?page=members
Grace Jones: www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/GraceJones.html... also her james bond role..
Harry Belafonte: www.belafonte-asiteofsites.com/
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