What happened to 'White' (English) Jamaicans?

[Guapo]

Grace O'bump

[Guanimaa]

Ainsley Harriott discovers white Scots roots on Who Do You Think You Are?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyo...did-it_4.shtml

TELLY chef Ainsley Harriott was shocked to discover his great great grandfather was a white Scotsman.

The TV star found out about his white relations when he took part in BBC1's Who Do You Think You Are?

He said: "If you want to go way way back, then I'm Scottish. My great great grandfather was Scottish, James Gordon Harriott, and a white Scotsman too.

"I found it a bit of a shock because it was so close. I'd absolutely no idea whatsoever.

"It's intriguing. It leads you to realise who you are, what your make-up is all about. It makes you feel very grounded.

"It's something quite reassuring to discover where all these roots come from that make up what you're all about. You suddenly start understanding why you are the way you are."
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/enterta...-scots-1008605

Colin Jackson

Colin's DNA test results were relatively surprising. His genetic make-up consists of 55% Sub-Saharan African - comparatively low for someone of Jamaican descent - and 38% European, which would appear to come from his mother's side. Yet there was also 7% 'native American', a term used to cover all indigenous people from the Americas, including the original inhabitants of Jamaica, the Taino.

Research has shown that Taino settlements survived beyond European colonisation, and indeed Colin shares some of their facial characteristics: almond eyes and comparatively flat face.

It's likely that their bloodline survived through their links to the 'Maroon' communities - descendants of the original West African slaves brought to Jamaica by the English from 1661.

Through force of arms, the Maroons achieved a semi-independent status in the 18th century, before losing out in the war of 1796. Many were captured and transported to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone.

Colin was able to use archives in Jamaica to trace his father's family, through certificates, to his mother, Marie Wilson, and her parents, Jacob Wilson and Eugenia Stewart. He found that many of his cousins still live on the island, of whom a large number showed great sporting prowess.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyo...-jackson.shtml

Phenotypic Expression of Melanocortin-1 Receptor Mutations in Black Jamaicans

In Jamaica there are persons who self-identify themselves as black who have auburn/reddish hair, freckles, and a "rust-colored" complexion (sometimes called "red Ibos"). As part of an investigation of the phenotypic expression of MC1R variants in a black population we have examined MC1R sequence and hair melanins in four Jamaican "redheads". This study was approved by the University of the West Indies/University Hospital of the West Indies Ethics Committee.
http://www.nature.com/jid/journal/v1.../5601853a.html

I've heard that Jamaican English has Scots influences.

[Ali Pasha]

The blacks ate them.

[RighNick]

Well, I am a white Bermudian so I guess I'm somewhat familiar with the history of people of British origin in the west indies.

I'm not sure about Jamaica specifically, but in the early colonial days British people comprised a majority on most of the Caribbean islands. Barbados even had the second highest concentration of English people in the world at one point.

However, as I'm sure you know, the Caribbean islands were extremely valuable from an economic standpoint. Land was limited and plantations were very, very profitable. As a result, land prices were almost shockingly high. This meant that actually owning land was prohibitively expensive for all but the richest people. Land ownership was something that most migrants from the old world aspired to and, once they found thenselves priced out of the local market, many of the poorer whites migrated to other nearby colonies where land was more affordable (eg the 13 colonies and Canada). Some islands were never true plantation colonies because of things like climate and soil quality (like Bermuda and St Barths), which meant that poorer whites were never priced out of the market and still constitute a significant part of the population.

That's not to say that all the British and Irish people left the Caribbean though. Aside from the wealthy plantation owners, many whites were employed in administrative positions working either in plantations (the trope if the Irish overseer) or for the government. My mother, for example, came to Bermuda as a small child when her father was appointed governor. The Jamaicans didn't massacre or even discriminate against the English in the sixties, but many returned/ moved to the U.S. or Canada because independence meant losing their cushy government jobs.

So, in addition to the mixing mentioned by other members, the reduction in the white population of many islands in the British West Indies was caused by essentially two major factors: onward migration to the U.S. by people unable to afford land and the end of colonial rule.

It is important to note, however, that white Jamaicans are by no means "extinct". They are certainly a small minority, but I know many personally. When I swam in prinary school, we competed against other private schools in the region and whites were present in all of the Jamaican teams I remember. My cousin is also married to a Jamaican of English ancestry. His family still owns a large plantation there and managed to keep it economically viable by switching to producing expensive rum instead of sugar cane. One of my oldest friends from Jamaica is also white, his family stayed and started a business after he lost his job in the colonial government during independence.

[Guanimaa]

I know some Lebanese are not white but here is some in the Caribbean:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._the_Caribbean


Robert Malval from Haiti:





I think Fred Smith is of Lebanese descent


The Lebanese have been blended into the Bahamas population:




Shahine Robinson of Jamaica



There are also people of Jewish ancestry in Jamaica/ The Caribbean:



Haiti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor..._Jews_in_Haiti


In Jamaica:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr-KqjaKLpw

Deputy General Manager of the Jamaica Stock Exchange, Robin Levy

[SamSmith]

I think if there are any 'White Jamaicans', then they are most likely descendants of recent immigrants.
I highly doubt that pure White Jamaicans of colonial English stock still exist there.

English people were a tiny minority in Jamaica anyway.

[Viriatus91]

Very few of them to start with. Many probably blended into the elite.

Not quite, far more British people emigrated from Britain and Ireland to the West Indies than to New England during the 1620 to 1760 period. New England's founding population was fewer than 30,000 and most of these arrived between 1620 and 1640. New England actually experienced a negative rate of emigration to Britain and other colonies after 1650. However, the abundance of open land along with the absence of tropical disease led to them enjoying a natural growth rate of 2.5% to 2.7% per year, meaning their population doubled every roughly every twenty-five years so that by 1760 they numbered 700,000.

Malaria, yellow fever, typhus and dysentery were the killer of white men in tropical areas, with two-thirds of all British and Irish emigration to the Americas heading to the West Indies between 1620 and 1760. However, the chances to become wealthy there were far greater than in New England, and as a result white men and even women continued to arrive. Early settlers were indentured servants, and others were soldiers and sailors so their mortality was naturally lower. By 1680, there were 20,000 whites in Barbados alone, but Anglican church records show a shockingly high mortality rate. Additionally, with less available land for the poorer settlers along with wealthy planters wanting to conserve wealth meant smaller families were the norm amongst whites there. The growth rate of whites, was negative, averaging -4% per year, so that by the by 1780 there were fewer than 100,000 whites in the British West Indies. This number declined even further as newcomers stopped arriving particularly as the sugar economy in the British Islands declined.

The same was true with the French West Indies. A net of 50,000 French emigrated to the West Indies between 1620 to 1785, compared with a net of fewer than 5,000 settled in North America. Though the slave revolt in Haiti played a large role, by 1840 there were half a million people of French ancestry in North America, compared with perhaps 20,000 in the Guadeloupe and Martinique. In 1763, the French government recruited 12,000 Europeans, mostly from Alsace and Rhineland to settle in Guiana, by 1765 most had perished of disease and the 1,400 survivors were returned to Europe.

The European emigration to the Dutch West Indies was even more startling with an estimated 300,000 Europeans having moved to Java between 1620 and 1780, but there fewer than 20,000 living in the Dutch Indies. South Africa only received a total of 2,500 Europeans during the entire Dutch period of 1654 to 1795, but their descendants had multiplied to 750,000 by 1900. Mostly due to the arid climate of the regions of South Africa where they settled rather than the disease-infested swamp that was Batavia (Jakarta today).