Jamaica (GIAMAICA (JAMAICA)) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VI, p. 228

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

GIAMAICA (JAMAICA). - By area (11,525 sq. km.), the third of the Greater Antilles, situated S. of Cuba. Largely mountainous, it has a hot tropical climate (especially in the S.) and is humid (precipitation exceeding 2,500 mm. annually in the N., less abundant in the S.), with luxuriant vegetation. Negroes (78%) and mulattoes (17%) constitute almost the entire population (1.3 million inhabitants in 1947; 113 per sq. km.); whites number about 15,000, Indians 21,000, and Chinese 7,000.

The island chiefly produces sugar cane (from which the celebrated rum is distilled), bananas, fruit (oranges, grapefruits), cocoa, coffee, coconuts, timber, and dye extracts. Stockbreeding (cattle and pigs) is also of some importance.

The island has constituted (since 1670) an English colony, governed by a governor, who has been assisted (since 1944) by an executive council, partly elective. Administratively dependent on G. are the Turks and Caicos Islands (429 sq. km., with 6,148 inhabitants), the Cayman Islands (220 sq. km., with 5,311 inhabitants), and the guano-bearing islets of Pedro and Morant Cays (5.2 sq. km.).

BIBL.: L. Olivier, J., London 1936; Handbook of Jamaica (official), ibid. 1950 (annual). Giuseppe Caraci APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF G. - The island of G., discovered in 1494 by Cristoforo Colombo, was immediately colonized by the Spaniards. The first evangelizers were the Franciscans and the Dominicans, and it appears that, from the very beginning of Spanish rule, G. had an abbey. When it was occupied by the English (1655), Catholicism was already flourishing: there were 6,000 faithful, of whom 4,500 were white and

Article illustration — (Zincographic Laboratory - Holy Land)