The Governorship of

Jamaica: 1670Background Guide

Chair: Mariatu Hamid Mansaray

Crisis Director: Liam Kraft

Dear Delegates,

It is an honor to invite you to the 21st Virginia International Crisis Simulation, the University

of Virginia’s annual collegiate Model United Nations conference. VICS XXI will be held at

the University of Virginia in Charlottesville from March 31 to April 3, 2016.

VICS offers nineteen innovative and interactive crisis committees, both historical and

contemporary. We are committed to expanding the scope of what a crisis committee can

do. As I write this letter in early November, our chairs are crafting their committees around

topics ranging from the Space Race of the 1950s to a Summit of the American Gun Lobby.

We are committed to expanding the scope of what a crisis committee can do, especially in our

famous ad-hoc, the Secretary General’s Good Offices, and in our pilot ad-hoc, the Directors

General's Good Offices.

I can think of no better setting for the conference than the Grounds of the University of

Virginia. VICS provides you with opportunities to interact with the University’s rich history

and with the many resources it has to offer. For example, on Friday morning, VICS

encourages delegates to explore Charlottesville. VICS offers a series of tours of the city's

attractions. These events extend discussion outside of committee and they give you the chance

to meet members of the International Relations Organization and of the university

community.

We also invite you to explore Charlottesville, one of the country’s most exciting college towns.

VICS hosts four social events in the city, which take you beyond a typical Model UN

experience and provide opportunities to get to know delegates outside of committee.

I look forward to welcoming you to the University of Virginia and Charlottesville in March. If

you have any questions, please reach out to me or the Chargé d’Affaires, Leah Day,

atvics.charge@gmail.com or by phone at (703) 344-4275.

Sincerely,

Michael Treves

Secretary General

VICS XXI

Dear Delegates, It is our distinct pleasure to welcome you to the 21st Virginia International Crisis Simulation! We are extremely excited to have you in the Governorship of Jamaica, 1670.

Your Chair, Mariatu Hamid Mansaray, is a fourth year at the University of Virginia majoring in Foreign Affairs and Women, Gender, & Sexuality. In addition to the International Relations Organization, she is involved with the Jefferson Literary & Debating Society, the Gamma Phi Beta sorority, and NAACP at UVA. In her free time, she enjoys putting ignorance on blast on social media, listening to EVERY genre of music, and being the best intersectional feminist known to man. Mariatu has been involved in Model UN for 6 years and hopes to make this conference, her last conference, the best she has ever experienced. Your Crisis Director, Liam Kraft, is a second year from New Fairfield, Connecticut, majoring in Foreign Affairs and Economics. Liam is actively involved with the International Relations Organization (IRO) at UVA, and currently serves as Head Delegate of the Model UN team. He had a blast crisis directing the German Imperial Summoning at VICS XX last year and looks forward to engaging delegates in dynamic and intriguing crises again this year. When not doing all things MUN, Liam can be found in the library buried under an unfortunate pile of textbooks, playing a racquet sport, or traveling. In the second half of the 17th century, Jamaica had great international consequence in Caribbean affairs. It was the island of Jamaica, under English control, from which countless buccaneer attacks on Spanish and Dutch assets throughout the Caribbean sprung. The capital and center of activity on the island, Port Royal, developed a reputation both as a spider which darted out at rivals of the English Crown and as the “wickedest” place in Christendom. The streets of Port Royal gave every opportunity to buccaneers, naval officers, and merchants to spend their newly acquired silver and gold on rum, music, dance, prostitution, and gambling. This seeming frivolity, however, does little to undermine the salience of the Jamaican colony to the building of the English commercial empire in the 1600s. In the few decades that ensued after the English capture of Jamaica, Port Royal quickly became the locus of shipping, commerce, and piracy in the Caribbean, while the burgeoning African slave trade began to introduce a plantation-based economy on the island. Jamaica lay witness to an astounding pace of change in the mid-16th century, and this committee lies at the heart of that change. We look forward to meeting and working with you as the residents of the colony of Jamaica attempt to ensure prosperity and mercantile supremacy in the Caribbean. Sincerely, Chris Blair Research Chair cwb3up@virginia.edu Mariatu Mansaray Chair mhm5wc@virginia.edu

Liam Kraft Crisis Director lak8st@virginia.edu

Adrien Carré Director General vics.directorgeneral@gmail.com

Committee Overview

Welcome to Port Royal, glistening capital of the English Royal Crown’s Jamaica

colony. It is 1670, in the heart of the Golden Age of Piracy. In 1655, the English invaded

and took over the Jamaican island from the treacherous Spanish, following a pattern of

behavior revolving around a lust to establish colonial supremacy in the New World. The

English saw the merit of Port Royal and Jamaica in a way the Spanish never considered.

The English molded Jamaica, developed it, and by 1670, Port Royal became the

undisputed center of commerce in the Caribbean Sea. In a much darker light, it also

became a center of criminal activity, piracy, and rogues. This committee will replicate

the interests of those residing on the Jamaican colony and in Port Royal, ranging from

naval officers to pirates, merchants, plantation owning aristocrats, and various

prominent islanders.

This committee will begin on August 4, 1670, as the Treaty of Madrid has just

been signed between the Spanish and the English attempting to reconcile their

differences. Word has started floating around the streets of Port Royal about this

rumored treaty and the people are anxious to see how it affects the colony. The

Governor of Jamaica at the time is Colonel Sir Thomas Modyford, 1st Baronet.

Previously, Modyford was a prominent planter on Barbados, served as Speaker of the

House of Assembly, and was a factor for the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to

Africa. Modyford was appointed Governor of Jamaica in February 1664, and brought

with him seven hundred planters and their slaves to Jamaica, ushering in the era of a

plantation- and slavery-based economy on the island.1 The Governor will preside over

this committee, which represents a compilation of the various interests existent on the

island of Jamaica in the late 17th century.

Because of the varied perspectives and individual objectives within the

committee, there are many relevant issues delegates will have to consider and address

throughout the conference. These will be touched upon in subsequent sections within

this guide. Delegates must balance their personal interests with those of the colony as a

whole, while remembering that the Royal Crown has its own ideas for how one of its

most prominent colonies should proceed. Delegates will find that the crises they will

face in this committee are dynamic and largely spurred by their actions or lack thereof.

The committee will be located in Port Royal, the capital of the Jamaican colony, but

delegates are encouraged to remember that although much goes on in the streets of Port

Royal, the committee is responsible for the governance and wellbeing of the entire

island. Thus, the committee is comprised of prominent officials and residents from both

Port Royal and the rest of Jamaica. Delegates will have to handle domestic island affairs

as well as relevant issues stemming beyond Jamaica’s shores and from overseas.

This committee will encompass multiple years per committee session and

delegates can expect to reach the end of the 17th century by the end of the conference.

Within the committee, standard parliamentary procedure will be followed, and each

delegate’s vote will carry the same weight. Delegates are asked to aptly consider the

views and individual interests of their character when it comes to debating particular

issues and taking potential actions. Delegates will be granted whatever individual

1 Bertram, “Jamaica and the Atlantic Slave Trade (Part II)”

position powers that are appropriate for their role, but will not be given a specific list of

possible portfolio powers to choose from. It will be up to the delegates to devise actions

to take that are within their character’s power and capabilities.

Timeline of Port Royal, Jamaica, and Piracy in the Caribbean

600-1200: Settlement of Jamaica by Taíno Arawak

tribes

1494: Arrival of Columbus; 200 Taíno villages dot

southern Jamaica 1509: Spanish establish the Colony of Santiago with

a capital near the site of Port Royal

1537: Arrival of Jews expelled from Spain and

Portugal to Jamaica 1560s: Spanish begins use of convoys and treasure fleets;

French privateers find haven on Hispaniola

1566: Start of the Eighty Years’ War: Dutch,

English, and French engage the Spanish 1585: Start of the Anglo-Spanish War

1618: Start of the Thirty Years’ War: English,

Dutch, French, and Danish begin Caribbean naval

operations against the Spanish

1630s: English settle Saint Kitts and Barbados; French

privateers operate freely in Tortuga

1654: Spanish destroy the French pirate haven of

Tortuga, causing a dispersal of buccaneers around the

northern Caribbean

1655: Oliver Cromwell orders an English expeditionary

force under William Penn and Robert Venables to

capture Hispaniola; the Royal Navy force fails to capture

Santo Domingo, and instead attacks and seizes Ocho

Rios and Spanish Towne in Spanish Jamaica

1660: English expel the remaining guerilla force of

Spanish troops under Don Cristoval Arnaldo Ysassi

from the mountainous interior of Jamaica; Taínos

and African Maroons pose a lingering threat

1657: Governor Edward D'Oley of Jamaica invites

the Brethren of the Coast, a loosely organized gang

of buccaneers and brigands, to haven in Port Royal

in exchange for their loyalty in protecting Jamaica;

with the issuance of letters of marque, the Brethren

of the Coast gain legitimacy as privateers

1660s: Slavers begin the mass importation of

African enslaved peoples into Port Royal, driven by

the burgeoning plantation economy in Jamaica. By

1668, Port Royal was home to the largest population

of slaves in the British New World colonies. At this

time, large pirate fleets under Henry Morgan and

François l’Olonnais operated from Port Royal

1670: Treaty of Madrid between England and Spain

leads to Spanish recognition of English New World

possessions and English vows to suppress Caribbean

piracy and privateering

1648: Peace of Münster ends the Eighty Years

War and the Thirty Years War; Rise of the

Buccaneering Age; England, France, and the

Netherlands begin aggressive expansion in the

Caribbean using privateers

History of Port Royal and the Caribbean to 1670 Jamaica was first inhabited around AD 600 by the Ostionoid/Redware and

Meillacan peoples, predecessors of the Arawak Western Taíno. Taíno tribes settled on

Jamaica by 1200, and quickly took advantage of the island’s coastal and marine wealth,

as well as its densely forested and biodiverse interior. The Taíno first named the island

“Xaymaca,” meaning “Land of Springs,” for its variety of pools and freshwater sources. 2

Christopher Columbus landed on Jamaica for the first time on May 4, 1494, and

recorded over 200 Taíno villages, mainly on the island’s southern coast. Columbus

claimed the island for Spain, and the Spanish Crown granted governing rights to

Columbus’s family. In 1509, the Spanish created the first permanent settlement on

Jamaica, a supply and trading base on the island’s northern coast at New Seville. By

1534, the capital of the Colony of Santiago, as Spanish Jamaica was referred, was moved

south to Spanish Town, near the sites of Port Royal and modern-day Kingston.3 The

establishment of a capital at Spanish Town marked a shift in the population of Jamaica,

then estimated at 3,000, toward the southern coast of the island. Those Taínos that had

not succumbed to disease or been enslaved by the Spanish flocked to the mountainous

and defensible interior areas, from which they launched a persistent resistance to

European settlement that lasted through the 17th century.

Under the rule of the Columbus family, Jamaica stagnated as an underinvested

backwater of the bloated Spanish Empire. Lacking gold or other mineral resources,

Jamaica persisted as a relatively lawless and militarily under-defended supply post for

2 Atkinson, Lesley-Gail, ed. 2006. The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taíno. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. 21-37. 3 Cundall, Frank. 1894. The Story of the Life of Columbus and the Discovery of Jamaica. Kingston: The Institute of Jamaica. 23-34, 53-75.

ships on their way to Spanish-owned silver mines in Central America and Bolivia.

Agriculture gained immediate importance to the population of Jamaica, and in the

1530s, a limited number of African slaves arrived at Spanish Town from São Tomé. The

transatlantic slave trade would play a constant and impactful role in the subsequent

development of Jamaica and the Caribbean through the 18th century.4

Around the same time that African slaves first arrived in Jamaica, so too did a

group of Iberian Sephardic Jews fleeing the Inquisition underway in Portugal and Spain.

This group of exiled Jews, called Portugals, fled to Jamaica on account of its relative

freedom and lawlessness. The Columbus Family was granted unique rights to rule

Spanish Jamaica by the Spanish King, Charles V in January 1537, and with their special

dispensation, subordinated the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Jamaica. The

absence of Catholic and Inquisitorial influence in Jamaica made the new colony

attractive to fleeing Iberian Jews, and undercover Jews, also called conversos, quickly

took on prominent roles in Spanish Town, serving as merchants and traders while

continuing to practice their religion in private. The arrival of the Portugals to Spanish

Town in the late 1530s, and the growth of a Jewish elite in Jamaica, would have an

important impact on the subsequent development of the colony.5

Although pockets of resistance to Spanish rule in the Caribbean emerged in the

mid-16th century, including Taínos and conversos, until the late 1590s Spain enjoyed

overwhelming control over the territory and trading routes of the New World. The 1566

development of the Spanish Treasure Galleon and convoy system led to an even greater

4 Johnson, David A. 2000. “Port Royal, Jamaica, and the Slave Trade.” Doctoral Dissertation, College Station: Texas A&M University. 13-14. 5 Kritzler, Edward. 2008. Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom and Revenge. New York: Anchor Books. 7-10.

level of military and economic engagement in the Caribbean. The Spanish built large

treasure fleets, protected by the sophisticated Spanish Armada, to transport gold and

silver from mines in South and Central America to the European Continent. Jamaica

became a waypoint and resupply base for Spanish fleets between Seville and Potosí, but

little of the wealth of the silver trade carried by those fleets remained in the colony—

Jamaica was considered an imperial backwater, and its economy depended on

subsistence fishing and hunting. The enormous profits reaped by the Spanish from the

New World silver trade made Spain the wealthiest empire in the world, and helped the

Spanish Hapsburgs fund their Continental Wars.

Emerging European powers like France, England, and the Netherlands took note

of Spanish New World wealth, and became increasingly interested in Caribbean

engagement between 1570 and 1600. The outbreak of the Eighty Years War in 1566

provided the perfect pretext for challenging Spanish hegemony in the Caribbean. The

War, fought over the independence of the Dutch provinces, pitted England, France, and

Holland against Spain. Quickly, England and France began to issue letters of marque to

privateers interested in attacking Spanish assets in the Caribbean. English and French

privateers like Francis Drake and Guillaume Le Testu stalked Spanish ships in the

Caribbean between 1570 and 1595, and largely began the sordid traditions of Caribbean

piracy. In 1572 and 1573, Drake and Le Testu cooperated on an assault on the city of

Nombre de Dios in modern-day Panama, during which they captured a Spanish silver

train arriving from Bolivia. Drake and Le Testu reportedly buried a portion of their haul,

an account of which was widely publicized at the time, and which likely gave rise to

subsequent legends about buried treasure.6 While the silver trade was profitable for

Spain in the 16th century, it would ultimately prove to be a double-edged sword. By the

early 17th century, Spanish power in the Caribbean waned as a silver surplus caused

mass inflation, and a series of wars drained Spanish coffers and stretched the Hapsburg

military far too thin.

In 1585, an undeclared side-conflict within the broader Eighty Years War, the

Anglo-Spanish War, began. In the wake of the execution of the Catholic Mary, Queen of

Scots, King Philip II prepared an invasion of England, his Protestant nemesis. Drake

sacked the Spanish cities of Santo Domingo and Saint Augustine in the Caribbean, and

the Spanish Armada sailed for the British Isles in 1588, intending to invade England and

depose the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. The destruction of the Spanish Armada before

it could land in England inspired a new and more forceful posture among English,

Dutch, and French forces, all of which dispatched privateer and corsair raiding parties

to the Spanish Main in the 1590s. However, following defeat in 1588, Spain rebuilt its

Atlantic fleet, and expanded its New World intelligence networks. The pride of Spain, a

twelve-galleon flotilla known as the Twelve Apostles, reinforced Spanish convoy routes

and security in the Caribbean, and handed English and French privateers, including

Drake, heavy losses between 1590 and 1600. Seeking to stem their mutually costly

losses, England and Spain signed the Treaty of London in 1604. The terms of this treaty,

including a provision that English privateers cease activity in the Caribbean, largely

brought the initial period of piracy and smuggling in the Caribbean to a close. However,

despite the temporary respite, the years of war between England, Spain, France, and the

6 The Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. http://international.loc.gov/intldl/drakehtml/rbdkhome.html

Netherlands proved valuable and primed the European powers for a fresh round of

Caribbean conflict in the 17th century; as a result of the Anglo-Spanish War, English,

French, and Dutch challengers to Spanish hegemony in the Caribbean gained local

geographic and maritime knowledge, fighting experience, and a taste of the wealth and

adventure that accompanied a piratical life.7

The momentary calm in the Caribbean fostered by the 1604 Treaty of London was

short-lived. In 1618, the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, the first truly global conflict,

led to numerous naval and privateering missions in the Caribbean. Privateers and naval

vessels from England, France, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, and the Netherlands all

operated in the Caribbean against the Spanish. During this period, the English, French,

and Dutch in particular gained territorial footholds in the Caribbean and South

America.8 The first non-Spaniards to make territorial headway in the Caribbean during

the Thirty Years War were small bands of French Huguenots fleeing persecution on the

Continent. From about 1620, between two dozen and 200 French Huguenot men

arrived on Hispaniola, fleeing religious persecution and war. On Hispaniola, these

Frenchmen survived in the forested interior regions of the western coast, hunting

manatees and feral pigs and cattle. Adapting Arawak technology, French hunters

smoked meat on wooden frames called “buccans” or “boucans;” the term buccaneer was

derived from the use of such technology by these early “boucaniers.” The Spanish were

aware of small bands of “boucaniers” camped on Hispaniola’s western shore, but paid

little attention to the small groups of hunters until 1630, when their numbers became

sufficiently bolstered by Dutch and English rogues and corsairs who ventured to

7 Robertson, Stuart, ed. 2008. The Pirate’s Pocket-Book. New York: Metro Books. 18-21. 8 Wilson, Peter H. 2009. The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 368-369.

Hispaniola in search of adventure. In 1630, a Spanish military expedition routed the

French, English, and Dutch buccaneers, many of whom had been granted letters of

marque to attack Spanish shipping in the Caribbean, from Hispaniola.9

Fortuitously, as the buccaneers fled Hispaniola in 1630, a prevailing northerly

wind blew their small craft into the sheltered harbor of Tortuga, where the corsair horde

overwhelmed a small Spanish garrison and sacked the town. From 1630, Tortuga

became a hotbed of vice and piracy, and was widely used as a base for buccaneers and

privateers of all nationalities, who sailed in small, fast brigantines, assaulting Spanish

merchantmen and raiding Spanish towns. While Tortuga was a lawless haven for the

buccaneers and corsairs who cruised the Caribbean between 1630 and 1654, France and

England colonized the nearby Leeward and Windward Islands. As Spain garrisoned its

forces in their wealthier colonies along the Spanish Main and in Cuba, English and

French forces easily took Antigua, Barbados, St. Kitts, Montserratt, and Guadeloupe.

1648 was a pivotal year in international politics and the history of the Caribbean.

The Peace’s of Münster and Westphalia marked the respective conclusions of the Eighty

Years’ War and the Thirty Years’ War, and ushered in a new age of New World

colonization. Spain was forced to recognize English, French, and Dutch possessions in

the Americas. By 1651, the Parliamentarians had won the English Civil War and

consolidated control over England. Seizing the advantageous post-Westphalian

moment, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, laid out his “Western Design.”

Cromwell’s “Design” for the West Indies was a plan for English naval warfare and

expansion in the Caribbean in order to reduce the influence of Catholic Spain and

9 Robertson (2008) 19.

expand the realm of Protestantism.10 For Jamaica’s sizable Jewish population,

Cromwell’s Protestant mission posed less of a direct threat to their survival than

continued Spanish Catholic rule, and ultimately, the Port Royal Portugals agreed to

undermine Spanish rule in exchange for Cromwell granting them the right to live openly

as Jews in English Jamaica. According to Cromwell’s plan, the “Western Design” sought

to take advantage of England’s recent suppression of Catholic Ireland to Anglicize the

Catholic Irish. Cromwell sent tens of thousands of young Irishmen to England’s

Caribbean colonies between 1652 and 1660 to work as indentured servants. The lack of

strong Catholic rule in Jamaica under Spanish control meant that Irish indentured

servants had no vestiges of Catholicism on which to cling. The end of the large-scale

conflicts in Europe, including the Eighty Years’ War, the Thirty Years’ War, and the

English Civil War, was just one unexpected significant factor in the emergence of Port

Royal.

The start of two new wars between 1652 and 1654 also compelled the

development of Port Royal. Between 1652 and 1654, the First Anglo-Dutch War, a

conflict over discriminatory English mercantilist policies and English jealousy over the

profitability and hegemony of the Dutch international trade network, led to naval

conflict between Dutch and English privateers in the Caribbean.11 At the same time,

Spain launched a quasi-naval war against the French in order to quell French buccaneer

attacks on Spanish interests on Cuba and the Spanish Main. The Spanish capture of

Tortuga and Fort Rocher in 1654 sparked a vast dispersal of privateers, pirates, and

10 British Civil Wars, Commonwealth & Protectorate, 1638-1660. http://bcw-project.org/military/anglo-spanish-war/western-design 11 Israel, Jonathan, I. 1995. The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477-1806. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 714-715.

buccaneers across the Caribbean.12 Absent their base at Tortuga, a new buccaneer haven

was much needed—and soon emerged in Port Royal.

As described previously, a host of factors converged to induce the emergence of

Port Royal. In 1654, in accordance with his “Western Design,” Cromwell dispatched an

English raiding fleet under William Penn and Robert Venables to capture the Spanish

colony of Hispaniola and its capital, Santo Domingo. The English expeditionary force

was ignominiously repulsed from Santo Domingo by a superior Spanish force, but

Venables and Penn refused to return home empty handed, fearing Cromwell’s wrath. On

May 10, 1655, the English fleet landed east of Port Royal and unloaded an expeditionary

force that travelled west overland toward Spanish Town. As the overland force trekked

toward the capital of Spanish Jamaica, the English fleet continued into Cagway Bay and

anchored near Port Royal. The Spanish were caught off guard and mounted a weak

defense, while Penn marched into Spanish Town with 7,000 English troops and forced

the submission of Spanish Jamaica. As the majority of the Spanish population fled

Jamaica in late May 1655, several hundred Spanish soldiers led by Maestre de Campo de

Proenza and Cristóbal Arnaldo de Issasi fled to the defensible inland regions of Jamaica,

where they linked up with a coalition of Taínos and African Maroons and mounted a

three year guerilla resistance to English rule.13

The English immediately undertook the fortification of Jamaica, and began

constructing a series of forts around Cagway Bay. Forts Cagway, Passage, and Cromwell

were fully constructed by 1656, despite the dearth of adequate building materials on the

12 Marley, David F. 1998. War of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. 130, 147. 13 Pawson, Michael, and David Buisseret. 2000. Port Royal Jamaica. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. 7-8.

island, and resettlement began shortly thereafter.14 Although disease and guerilla

attacks from the Spanish took their toll on the early English defenders, by 1657 the

English had installed a Governor, Edward D’Oley, and had constructed a small village at

what was to become Port Royal. In order to augment the defense of Port Royal, D’Oley

enlisted the support of the Brethren of the Coast, the confederation of buccaneers,

privateers, and corsairs dispatched from Tortuga in 1654. In exchange for defending

Port Royal from Spanish attacks, D’Oley issued letters of marque to the Brethren of the

Coast authorizing them to seize Spanish ships throughout the Caribbean.15 Seeking the

promise of an easy fortune, hundreds of Englishmen from Nevis and Barbados flocked

to Jamaica to join the Brethren. Among those flocking to Jamaica between 1657 and

1660 was an additional contingent of Jewish pirates led by Moses Cohen, who would

ultimately rise to become the executive officer under Pirate King Henry Morgan, the

leader of the Brethren of the Coast.16 By 1660, the English garrison and the Brethren of

the Coast had succeeded in routing the last remnants of the Spanish resistance from the

Jamaican interior, and the full Anglicization of the island began.

Under the protection of the Brethren of the Coast, and with money from their

treasure hauls flowing into the colony, Port Royal grew and prospered. According to the

diary of one Port Royal resident in the period:

The Island began to abound in Money, which was brought thither by the Buccaneers. . . . And the Government of Jamaica, tho’ they were far from encouraging such wicked courses, yet winked at them, in consideration of the Treasures they brought thither and squandered away there.17

14 Pawson and Buissert (2000) 9-11. 15 Donny L. Hamilton, "Pirates and Merchants: Port Royal, Jamaica," in X Marks the Spot: The Archaeology of Piracy, ed. Russell K. Skowronek and Charles R. Ewen, 13-30 (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2006). 16 Kritzler (2008) 131, 251-252. 17 Thornton, Diana Vida. 1992. “The Probate Inventories of Port Royal, Jamaica.” Doctoral Dissertation, College Station: Texas A&M University. 16.

The period from 1660 to 1670 marked the height of Port Royal’s decadence and power,

as well as the heyday of piracy. However, one thing was more important to the English

than reaping the profits of Port Royal’s prosperity—gaining Spanish recognition of

England’s New World possessions. In 1670, the Treaty of Madrid afforded the English

Crown such an opportunity. In exchange for English assurances that they would

crackdown on Caribbean piracy and privateering, the Spanish agreed to recognize

English possessions in the Caribbean, including Jamaica. Thus, in 1670, Port Royal was

placed into an extremely unique position. As a pirate haven, the city was unparalleled.

As an economic boomtown, the city was at the heart of the English economic empire. As

a central locus of nationalities and trading routes, Port Royal was at the center of the

Caribbean world.

Economic Development and Trade in Port Royal

The 17th century was marked by commercial rivalries between the English,

Spanish, Dutch, and French. In the period of 1650-1670, these rivalries sparked conflict

and were largely exacerbated by what could be characterized as a reorganization of

English commerce. The English Parliament passed the Navigation Act in 1651 and its

successors in 1660 and 1663, in an effort to constrain English shipping and trade

(particularly re-export colonial trades) within a national monopoly. Essentially, the Acts

barred non-English ships from bringing Asian, American, or African goods into

England.18 If a country, territory, or colony were to export a good to England, it would

18 Ormrod, David. The Rise of Commercial Empires: England and the Netherlands in the Age of Mercantilism, 1650-1770. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 32.

have to come directly, not through some other foreign power. If a non-English ship were

caught trying to bring goods from these areas, the goods would be seized and the crew

imprisoned. Often times, the Royal Navy would open fire on smugglers. European

colonial competition was of real concern to the English and played a formative role in

England’s foreign policy, owing in large part to the fact that mercantile opinions

dominated the Council of Trade. Mercantile opinions during this time were

resoundingly united around mitigating the effects of Spanish and Dutch trade

competition. While national-level foreign and trade policy exceeds the scope of this

committee’s agency, it is imperative that the committee consider how national-level

affairs impact the Jamaican colony and vice-versa.

The prosperity of the colony relied heavily on Jamaica’s long-distance trading.

From 1660 onward, Port Royal emerged as a boisterous commercial center. Trade

operations prior to 1660 were small in scale but political and economic conditions gave

way to an increasingly booming trade in the 1660s. Port Royal representatives of English

merchants were numerous, and they were given a wide array of powers to conduct trade

in Jamaica. Attorneyships were obtained through legal bonds that established clear

obligations for both ends of the partnership. By 1670, Port Royal was a prominent center

of Caribbean commerce, with 208 ships totaling 6,727 tons arriving at its harbor from

January 1668-1670.19 Ships from England brought a multitude of different goods,

including food, drink, naval stores, arms, and dry goods. From the Spanish Main, ships

brought a variety of tropical products such as cacao nuts, as well as hides. Jamaica also

19 Pawson and Buissert (2000), 65.

maintained a robust trade with the Cayman Islands, bringing in an ample supply of

turtles, which became a significant component of Jamaican culinary life.20

The vessels owned in Port Royal largely participated only in local trades; indeed,

most of them were quite small. They partook in the Caribbean trades of logwood and

turtles as well as in salvaging what they could from shipwrecks left by the various wars

and privateering operations in the Caribbean. Many vessels also took part in

transporting the agricultural products such as sugar from coastal plantations to the

harbor at Port Royal for future shipment. A problem became apparent in the late 1660s,

however, that there were too few ships at Port Royal to carry produce back to England.

Noting this concern, merchants in Port Royal started buying more vessels and shares of

them to try to boost investment in shipping. Port Royal’s economy relied on its health

and status as a major shipping center, so ease of transport for goods and a quick

turnover were both necessities. In order to have a quick turnover, the right goods had to

arrive at the right time. When several ships would arrive at the same time carrying

similar goods, their stock would often go unsold and favorable opportunities would be

missed. Merchants generally had to operate by instinct, as communications were

horrifically slow between Port Royal and other commercial centers.21 The probability of

a successful shipment was nearly as likely as a loss.

While these strains were ongoing for the merchant class of Port Royal, tensions

began to rise between the merchants and the planters of Jamaica. The merchants of

Jamaica undoubtedly prospered and exerted tremendous influence, but ultimately were

the middlemen, relying on exploiting the primary producers (the agriculturalists) of the

20 Ibid., 67. 21 Pawson and Buissert (2000), 77.

island for their profits.22 Fears incrementally sprung up among the Port Royal

mercantile class that the planters were seeking to cut out the middleman, indicating that

the growingly powerful planter class was also a force with which to be reckoned on the

island. Insecurity existed on the side of the planters as well, however, as they had very

little means of rivaling Port Royal in the shipment of their products.23 Thus, while

merchants dominated the commercial development of Port Royal up to 1670,

resentment over their exploitation existed throughout the rest of the island of Jamaica,

particularly in many of the smaller towns.

The “Sodom of the New World”: Everyday Life in Port Royal

The speed and scale of Port Royal’s growth and development in the 1660s was

unprecedented. It was said that in Port Royal, “there is more plenty of running cash

than is in London.”24 It was a ruthless commercialism, however, one that fostered an

environment of wickedness and sin. The society was plagued with corrupt activities like

excessive drinking in taverns (of which there were many), prostitution, and gambling.25

When buccaneers returned from their raids, strapped with loads of bullion, they would

liven up the streets with drunken tomfoolery. A complaint was once raised that “there

were not now resident on this place ten men to every house that selleth liquors”.26 Crime

was pervasive and morality loose in the city of Port Royal. As the residents of Port Royal

increasingly became dependent on cutthroat privateers, pirates, and buccaneers to

22 Ibid., 79. 23 Pawson and Buissert (2000), 79. 24 Roberts, Walter Adolphe. Jamaica, The Portrait of an Island. New York: Coward-McCann, 1955. 33. 25 Hunte, George. Jamaica. London: B.T. Batsford, 1976. 32. 26 Hunte, 32.

ensure their safety, the door opened for this same criminal yet governor-sanctioned

class to shape the culture of the city into one of incredible vice.

When the buccaneer class was out conducting their seafaring escapades,

however, everyday life at Port Royal was not so extreme. There was no formal schooling

on Jamaica as of 1670. The wealthiest residents informally taught their children in their

homes or sent them off to schools in England.27 Religion occupied a larger formal role in

the colony. There was an official colonial policy of free toleration for all sects, making

attendance of church services a spiritual and social outlet for residents. Jamaica was

predominantly Protestant in English areas, but Jews played a prominent role in the

upper class of society particularly among the mercantile class, while Maroons in the

inland areas were mostly animists. The impact of religion should not be overstated,

however, as very few of the quite sizable slave population attended the religious houses,

not to mention the significant population of laggards, agnostics, and atheists on the

island. Furthermore, Jamaica’s policy of offering such variety of worship made it very

difficult to attain any real religious discipline.28 Law enforcement was left to the Provost

marshal, whose office existed as a crossover of sorts between traditional roles of sheriffs,

bailiffs, and jailers.29 Mortality from diseases and malnutrition at a young age was high

in Port Royal, but it was generally pretty healthy on the standard of Caribbean colonies.

Natural water-catchments were lacking, so many residents opted to quench their thirst

through the more abundant and cheaper wines and beers available.30 For residents food

27 Buisseret and Pawson (2000) 116. 28 Buisseret and Pawson (2000) 118. 29 Buisseret and Pawson (2000) 116. 30 Buisseret and Pawson (2000) 102.

was very expensive, as most of it came from overseas and only some was produced

locally.31

Slavery, Agriculture, and Native Relations

Slavery and agriculture occupied a significant role in domestic and commercial

affairs pertaining to Jamaica after the English capture. By the time the English arrived

in Jamaica, many communities had been formed in the highlands by escaped Spanish

slaves called Maroons. These Maroons often set out to rendezvous with pre-existing

Taíno communities. The Taíno were the native people of Jamaica, and had had an

unsavory relationship with the Spanish, facing brutal slavery and near extinction at

various points in the 16th and 17th centuries.32 As Maroons began to escape Spanish

plantations, they founded remote settlements that were highly defensible with the

Taínos. The two peoples worked together to develop herbal medicines, hunt, and

cultivate plots of land, growing crops such as plantains and yams, ensuring mutual

survival through the period of English occupation.33 The Maroons and Taínos also

increasingly intermarried, fostering a unique Mestizo culture in the rural areas of the

island. Prior to 1670, the English did not have substantial interactions with the Taínos

and Maroons because of the remoteness of the latter’s communities, but as rural

agriculture on the island increased, the quantity of interactions has also increased and

the English have yet to establish a clear relationship with the natives and creolized

populace. The situation is complicated by the fact that the Maroon communities

31 Buisseret and Pawson (2000) 103. 32 Woodley, Glenn. “A Brief History of the Indigenous Population of Jamaica before Colonization.” Jamaicans. 2001. 33 Ferguson, James A. “Jamaica.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. August 7, 2015.

increasingly were seen as a threat to the slave system on Jamaica. African slaves were

known to flee their plantations and seek exile with the Maroons and Taínos, reducing

laborer numbers and production.

Slavery on Jamaica reached a turning point when the English began to

consolidate control over the island in the mid-17th century. The Spanish were slow in

cultivating the various plentiful but labor-intensive natural resources on the island,

particularly sugar. The English, however, quickly came to the realization that sugar cane

could be produced quite lucratively and plentifully. In Barbados, English planters’

wealth increased fourfold from 1640-1667 from sugar production. In the mid-1600s,

sugar production became more and more popular among English, French, and Dutch

colonists. Thus when the English seized Jamaica, it was seen as a bountiful agricultural

opportunity.34 Early in his governorship, Thomas Modyford had many sugar estates

planted, opening the door for plantation agriculture to become a substantive facet of the

Jamaican economy.

There were significant obstacles associated with the rise of a plantation based

economy on Jamaica, however. Incredible manpower was needed in order to effectively

produce the numerous labor intensive crops on Jamaica, such as sugar, indigo, and

cacao, because of the primitive nature of European agricultural methods. To be an

effective planter, one had to clear brush using machetes, dig trenches, weed, harvest,

transport, and grind stalks, among many other steps. Wealthy English landowners did

not come to Jamaica to be laborers; rather, they came to oversee the process of

production, necessitating a large source of labor–African slaves.35 Coinciding with the

34 Roberts, 67-68 35 Ibid.

growth of sugar plantations in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean, the English

government chartered the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa in 1660 to

monopolize the slave trade, to the disenchantment of England’s merchant class. Despite

importing thousands of slaves to the Caribbean, the Company collapsed in 1667 due to

English trade and military conflicts with the Dutch, putting the Jamaican slave trade

into an only very temporary slowdown.36

The life of a slave in 1670 on Jamaica was a particularly hard one, as tropical and

imported diseases such as yellow fever and malaria were pervasive and working

conditions were difficult. The number of slave deaths exceeded the number of slave

births in 1670, but their numbers were still increasing because of importation. African

slaves were viewed as both better and cheaper producers than the natives who inhabited

Jamaica. For plantation owners, conditions in the countryside were much better.

Though the landowners had their share of disease, they had a much lower mortality rate.

It was popular for the wealthiest landowners to spend most of their time in England and

task out the operations of their plantation to majordomos. Meanwhile, because of

increasing production costs, smaller landowners often had difficulty attaining profits.37

With continually rising popularity, plantation and slavery-based agriculture represented

an increasingly relevant reality for Jamaica.

36 “Royal African Company established.” PBS. 37 Ferguson.

Questions to Consider

1. Should the colony of Jamaica keep formally supporting privateering and

informally backing pirates? To what degree should it seek to change the current

relationship?

2. As the slave trade becomes more and more prominent in the Caribbean, how

should the colony of Jamaica handle the increasing role of slavery and plantation

agriculture on the island?

3. How should the colony react to the recently signed Treaty of Madrid between the

English and the Spanish? How will this and other recent developments in the

Caribbean affect the relationship between England and the other major European

powers?

4. What relationship should the colony adopt toward the Maroons and Taínos

moving forward?

5. How will the various interest groups vying for power and wealth within Port

Royal and Jamaica itself shape or strain the collective action capabilities of the

governorship of the colony?

Recommended Resources

This background guide should provide you a strong base of knowledge with which to

carry out further research on the topic. Delegates are strongly encouraged to pursue a

strong understanding of Jamaican affairs in the late 17th century. Delegates should strive

for utmost creativity in their research, as there are many forces at play on Jamaica and

in the Caribbean during this time period. Strong background knowledge will assuredly

be helpful in this committee. Here is a list of resources we recommend you consult:

o Black, Clinton. History of Jamaica. 1988. o Buisseret, David. Jamaica in 1687: The Taylor Manuscript at the National

Library of Jamaica. 2009. o Buisseret, David and Michael Pawson. Port Royal, Jamaica. 2000. o Marx, Jenifer. Pirates and Privateers of the Caribbean. 1992.

Appendix A: Map of Jamaica (1670)

Appendix B: Port Royal and Jamaica Map – Richard & Mynde

Appendix C: Mortier Map of the West Indies (1683)

Bibliography

Atkinson, Lesley-Gail, ed. 2006. The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the

Jamaican Taíno. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press.

Bertram, Arnold. “Jamaica and the Atlantic Slave Trade (Part II).” Jamaica Gleaner,

March 26, 2006.

British Civil Wars, Commonwealth & Protectorate, 1638-1660.

Cundall, Frank. 1894. The Story of the Life of Columbus and the Discovery of Jamaica.

Kingston: The Institute of Jamaica.

Ferguson, James A. “Jamaica.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. August 7, 2015.

Accessed January 10, 2016.

Hunte, George. Jamaica. London: B.T. Batsford, 1976.

Israel, Jonathan, I. 1995. The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477-1806.

Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Johnson, David A. 2000. “Port Royal, Jamaica, and the Slave Trade.” Doctoral

Dissertation, College Station: Texas A&M University.

Kritzler, Edward. 2008. Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of

Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for

Treasure, Religious Freedom and Revenge. New York: Anchor Books.

Marley, David F. 1998. War of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the

New World, 1492 to the Present. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

Ormrod, David. The Rise of Commercial Empires: England and the Netherlands in the

Age of Mercantilism, 1650-1770. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press,

2003.

Pawson, Michael, and David Buisseret. Port Royal, Jamaica. Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1975.

Roberts, Walter Adolphe. Jamaica, The Portrait of an Island. New York: Coward-

McCann, 1955.

Robertson, Stuart, ed. 2008. The Pirate’s Pocket-Book. New York: Metro Books.

“Royal African Company Established.” PBS. Accessed January 10, 2016.

The Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake. Rare Book and Special Collections Division,

Library of Congress. Washington, D.C.

Wilson, Peter H. 2009. The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy. Cambridge: The

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 368-369.

Woodley, Glenn. “A Brief History of the Indigenous Population of Jamaica before

Colonization.” Jamaicans. 2001. Accessed January 10, 2016.

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