White Jamaicans

White Jamaicans (also known as European-Jamaicans) are Jamaican people whose ancestry lies within the continent of Europe, most notably Great Britain and Ireland.^[2] There are also communities of people who are descendants of people who arrived from Spain, Germany^[3] and Portugal.^[4]

Initially, the Spanish colonized the island in the 1600s and, subsequently, the English began taking an interest in it. Following a failed attempt to conquer Santo Domingo on Hispaniola, Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables successfully led an invasion of Jamaica in 1655. After defeat, the Spanish left, aside from the Spanish Jews, and were eventually replaced by a predominately English and Irish white population.

By the 1670s, Jamaica had brought in more enslaved Africans to work on sugar plantations, which then made up the majority of the island’s population. During the First Maroon War, Jamaicans who escaped from slavery fought against British colonialists, leading to another decline in Jamaica's white population.^[5][6]

The White population would dramatically decrease during the 1800s, making up only 4% of the population at a peak.

According to the 2011 Census of Population and Housing for Jamaica, 0.2% of Jamaica's population is considered White. Over half of the White population lives in the Saint Andrew Parish. Seeing as about 4% of Jamaica's population is considered mixed (mostly black and white), the population of those with partial European ancestry is much higher than that of the solely white population.^[1]