Jamaica - Independence, Cultural Heritage, Foreign Relations, and Economic Growth (2024)

On August 6, 1962, Jamaica became independent with full dominion status within the Commonwealth, under a constitution that retained the British monarch as head of state. Bustamante assumed the title of prime minister. The following year Jamaica joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Bustamante was succeeded in February 1967 by Donald Sangster, who died within about a month of leading the JLP to victory in the elections. Hugh Lawson Shearer, a protégé of Bustamante, succeeded Sangster and served from 1967 to 1972.

From 1962 to 1972 there were important developments in infrastructure and in technical, vocational, and teacher education. Cultural policy promoted Jamaica’s cultural heritage. In 1964 Marcus Garvey was officially declared a national hero, followed by George William Gordon and Paul Bogle in 1965. National honours replaced British honours in 1969.

The Cold War strongly influenced Jamaica’s relations with the United States, which was Jamaica’s major trading partner and the primary investor in bauxite and tourism. Britain continued to offer a protected market for sugar and banana exports. Jamaica established a formal relationship with communist Cuba, but it remained cold. In June 1969 Jamaica became the 24th member of the Organization of American States. That same year it also joined the Non-Aligned Movement, established closer relations with a number of African countries, and supported antiapartheid initiatives.

Investments in tourism, bauxite, and capital-intensive light manufacturing industries fueled economic growth; however, the expanding economy failed to absorb the growing workforce. The bulldozing of squatter communities in West Kingston and the recruitment by both political parties of elements (including criminal elements) of the inner city to fight their political wars increased disaffection and violence in urban communities. In 1967 the government imposed a state of emergency in West Kingston.

In 1972 the PNP won its first major electoral victory since independence, and it chose Michael Manley, the charismatic son of Norman Manley, as prime minister. Manley reasserted the PNP’s democratic socialist ideological foundations through efforts to increase literacy, access to higher education, and home ownership and removed laws that discriminated against women and against children born out of wedlock. In contrast to the policies of the JLP prime ministers who preceded him, he improved relations with socialist and communist countries such as Cuba, China, and the Soviet Union; endorsed anticolonial rebellions in southern Africa; and deepened ties with the Non-Aligned Movement. He also imposed a bauxite levy. Attacks on Manley’s policies as “communist” were accompanied by violence, leading to the declaration of a state of emergency in 1976.

Nevertheless, the government’s social policies were popular among voters, ensuring electoral victory for Manley and the PNP in the 1976 elections. To cope with the oil shocks of the 1970s, the regime signed an accord with Venezuela and Mexico to obtain oil at concessionary rates. Yet, worsening social and economic conditions, increased political violence, and deteriorating relations with the United States brought about Manley’s defeat in the elections of 1980 by the Edward Seaga-led JLP.

With the intention of bringing about a reconciliation with the United States, Seaga severed relations with Cuba. The response of U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s administration to Seaga’s anticommunist policies was positive; Jamaica became a major recipient of U.S. aid in the Caribbean and also benefited from Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative, a regional economic recovery plan. In October 1983 Seaga sent troops to support a U.S.-Caribbean military initiative to topple the leftist regime in Grenada. That move temporarily lifted the Seaga regime’s popularity, which had declined in the face of an international recession, and Seaga called for early elections to be held in December. The PNP boycotted the polls over a disagreement regarding election procedures, and thus all seats in the House of Representatives, as well as the prime ministership, went to the JLP. The austerity imposed by the restructuring requirements of the World Bank and IMF sparked riots and a general strike in 1985. In spite of continued growth in tourism and more optimistic trends in the international economy after 1986, the JLP lost the February 1989 elections to the PNP, and Manley was returned to office as prime minister.

Manley adopted more conservative policies during his second term. He cooperated closely with the IMF, deregulated the financial sector, and floated the Jamaican dollar. He retired in March 1992 and was replaced by P.J. Patterson, who stabilized the economy through austerity measures. During the 1990s the PNP retained power, partly because the JLP split in 1995 (creating a third party, the National Democratic Movement). The start of disengagement by the political parties from gang leaders and the establishment of the Electoral Commission contributed significantly to a decrease in political violence.

Patterson’s administration focused on construction of arterial roads, land distribution and housing solutions, and working with the Caribbean common market (later Caribbean Community [CARICOM]) and Caribbean Court of Justice. The administration faced a serious financial crisis in 1997, and the national debt continued to be challenging. However, the continuing strain of rising oil prices and declining bauxite revenues was partly offset by significant Spanish investments in hotels after 2000. Following Patterson’s retirement, Portia Simpson Miller was elected president of the PNP and became prime minister—the first woman to serve in the country’s top post as well as the first woman to lead the party.

From January 2006 Jamaica was a part of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy, established by revisions to the 1973 Treaty of Chaguaramas. The treaty, which led to the creation of CARICOM, had been revised in 2002 to remove barriers to free trade and the free movement of capital and people within the region.

The 18-year PNP regime ended with the JLP’s narrow victory in the general elections of 2007, and Bruce Golding replaced Simpson Miller as prime minister. Golding’s administration (2007–11) coincided with another international economic recession. The government entered a new agreement with the IMF, divested struggling government-owned sugar estates to a Chinese company, and sold the economically unviable Air Jamaica to Trinidad and Tobago. During that period Russian investors made a substantial financial commitment to the bauxite industry. Systematic efforts also were made to develop agriculture. Moreover, Falmouth Harbour was deepened to attract the largest cruise ships and opened to them in 2011.

In 2010 Golding’s handling of the U.S. demand for the extradition of Christopher (“Dudus”) co*ke (a powerful leader within Golding’s constituency) for drug trafficking proved politically controversial. co*ke’s attempt to keep security forces from seizing and extraditing him led to a military and police incursion into co*ke’s stronghold in the Tivoli Gardens community of Kingston in May 2010. Several dozen people died as a result, and Golding resigned following an official inquiry into the episode. His successor, Andrew Holness, was defeated in December 2011 elections by Portia Simpson Miller, who once again took office as prime minister.

The JLP won the February 25, 2016, elections, and Holness was sworn in for his second term early in March. In August, at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games, Jamaica’s most iconic sports figure and the greatest sprinter in Olympic history, Usain Bolt, won the gold medal in the 100-metre and 200-metre dash, becoming the first man to win both of those races in three consecutive Olympics.