Jacques Nicholas Bellin (1703 - 1772)

Profile :

A French hydrographer, geographer, and member of the French intellectual group called the philosophes.
Bellin was born in Paris. He was hydrographer of France's hydrographic office, member of the Académie de Marine and of the Royal Society of London. Over a 50-year career, he produced a large number of maps of particular interest to the Ministère de la Marine. His maps of Canada and of French territories in North America (New France, Acadia, Louisiana) are particularly valuable. He died at Versailles.
In 1721, at age 18, he was appointed hydrographer (chief cartographer) to the French Navy. In August 1741, he became the first Ingénieur de la Marine of the Depot des cartes et plans de la Marine (the French Hydrographical Office) and was named Official Hydrographer of the French King.

During his reign the Depot came out with prodigious amount of charts and maps among which was a large folio format sea-charts of France, the Neptune Francois. He also produced a number of sea-atlases of the world, e.g., the Atlas Maritime and the Hydrographie Francaise. These gained fame, distinction and respect all over Europe and were republished throughout the 18th and even in the succeeding century.
Bellin also came out with smaller format maps such as the 1764 Petit Atlas Maritime (5 vols.) containing 580 finely detailed charts.

Bellin set a very high standard of workmanship and accuracy thus gaining for France a leading role in European cartography and geography. Many of his maps were copied by other mapmakers of Europe
He was one of the Encyclopédistes, a group of 18th century intellectuals in France who compiled the 35-volume Encyclopédie which was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert. Bellin contributed 994 articles.

The Encyclopédistes, were part of the group called philosophes among whose members were the great minds of the Age of Enlightenment, e.g., Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Baron d'Holbach.

Bellin contributed a number of maps to 15-vol. Histoire Generale des Voyages of Antoine François Prévost or simply known l'Abbe Prevost. One of these maps led to a geographical blunder whose impact reverberates to this day. This was the map of the Philippines which Bellin copied from a world-famous chart produced in 1734 by the Spanish missionary to the Philippines, Fr. Pedro Murillo Velarde.

Unlike many other European mapmakers of the time who outright appropriated Murillo's map, Bellin had the intellectual integrity to fully credit Murillo as his source, an open acknowledgement shown in the title cartouche of Bellin's map which came out the same year as the original work by Murillo.

Shown in Bellin's map was an island named "Limasava", a word invented in 1667 by Spanish friar, Fr. Francisco Combés, S.J., to refer to the way station of the Armada de Molucca under the command of the Portuguese captain-general Fernao de Magalhaes during its navigation in Philippine waters. Combés, who had not read a single eyewitness account of the Magellan expedition relied on two sources, the hopelessly garbled Italian translation of the Antonio Pigafetta account by Giovanni Battista Ramusio and the secondhand account by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas. Ramusio wrote the fleet anchored in March–April 1521 in Butuan in Mindanao, and from there sailed for Cebu with a brief stopover at "Messana". In the authentic Pigafetta account, the port was an isle named Mazzaua while the stopover isle was named Gatighan. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas gave a faithful narration of the Mazzaua anchorage.

Combés disregarded de Herrera's version and adopted Ramusio's. He wrote that Magellan's fleet had anchored at Butuan and from their sailed for Cebu making a stop at a way station he named Limasaua.

Five years earlier than Combés, Fr. Francisco Colín wrote the Armada moored at Butuan from March–April 1521 where Magellan and his men together with the natives celebrated an Easter Sunday mass on 31 March 1521. From Butuan the fleet sailed for Cebu making a brief stop at a way station he called "Dimasaua", an invented word meaning "this is not the Mazagua of Antonio de Herrera where supposedly an Easter Sunday mass was held which I already said happened in Butuan."

This episode was projected in the 1734 map made by Murillo who used Combés name, "Limassava" not "Dimasaua" which map Bellin copied

In 1789, Augustinian Carlo Amoretti, Italian Encyclopedist and librarian of Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, discovered the authentic Italian manuscript of Antonio Pigafetta among the scattered holdings of the library. Here it came out that the port of March–April 1521 was not Butuan but Mazaua. Amoretti, who himself had not read any of five eyewitness reports of the incident including two French versions of Pigafetta's account, asserted in a footnote that Mazaua was probably the isle named Limasava in Bellin's map, thus interchanging the real port of Mazaua with the way station Gatighan.
Largely with the appearance of the eyewitness account of Ginés de Mafra, the only seaman in Magellan's fleet to return to Mazaua, whose testimony reveals a concrete, measurable description of Mazaua, the skein starting from the garbled version of Pigafetta by Ramusio to the mishandling by Combés to Bellin and finally to Amoretti has been unraveled: Pigafetta's Gatighan is Bellin's Limasava.

Published Works:

  • Hydrographie française (1753)
  • Carte de l'Amérique septentrionale (Map of Northern America) (1755)
  • Le petit Atlas François. Recueil de Cartes et Plans des quatre parties du Monde (1758)
  • Petit Atlas Maritime (1764)
  • Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre la géographie (1769) 

Jacques Nicholas Bellin (6)

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1744 Nicolas Bellin Large Important Antique Map of North America, Charlevoix

1744 Nicolas Bellin Large Important Antique Map of North America, Charlevoix

  • Title : Carte De La Louisiane Cours Du Mississipi et Pais Voisions Dediee a M la Comte de Maurepas...Par N Bellin Ingenieur de la Marine, 1744
  • Date : 1744
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition
  • Ref:  93108
  • Size: 29in x 20in (735mm x 515mm) 

Description:
This large original hand coloured copper-plate engraved antique map of North America by Nicolas Bellin, in 1744 - dated - was engraved by Guillaume Dheulland (1700-1770) & published in Pierre Francois Xavier Charlevoix book on Canada & North America Histoire et Description Generale de la Nouvelle France avec Le Journal Historique d\'un Voyage fait par Ordre du Roi dans L\'Amérique Septentrionnale

Extremely important, large and much overlooked map of North America, extending from New England, The Great Lakes to Florida and west to the Rio Grande River, New Mexico, east to Santa Fe, Taos, and the known regions of the Missouri Valley. Charlevoix map provides a remarkable overview of the regions of the future United, in the first half of the 18th Century.
The map tracks to the sources of the Mississippi River and depicts 4 of the 5 Great providing the most up to date information on the Mississippi River Basin, Ohio River and the major river systems between the Mississippi River and the Appalachians.
The map is one of Bellins earliest of North America and was published map the regions described in Charlevoix Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France and was also compiled in part from the Chaussegros de Lery manuscripts. The map is noteworthy for the mountain range in Michigan that did not exist, with detailed text on American Indian locations and lands and notes on French forts and other early settlements and towns.
In 1720 the Duke of Orleans sent the Jesuit scholar and explorer Pierre François-Xavier de Charlevoix to America to record events in New France and Louisiana and determine the best route to the Pacific Ocean. Charlevoix gathered geographic information from fur traders in Quebec and travelled through the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River. After he returned to France, Charlevoix published his views on North America, which has become one of the most important works on North America prior to the French & Indian, 7 years, war.
It is recorded that Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of Charlevoix book and recommended it, along with the accounts of Hennepin and Lahontan, as a particularly useful for detail in the largely unexplored regions of North America. He referred to Charlevoix book & Bellins map as he developed his own ideas of Louisiana and the Northwest.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 29in x 20in (735mm x 515mm)
Plate size: - 23in x 16 1/2in (590mm x 420mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - Light soiling
Plate area: - None
Verso: - Light soiling

Background: 
Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix 1682 - 1761 was a French Jesuit priest who wrote one of the earliest descriptive accounts of North America.
Sent from France on a scientific and exploratory mission to Canada, where he had previously stayed, he traveled up the St. Lawrence River in 1720, passed through the Great Lakes, made the portage to the Mississippi River, survived shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico, and visited the island of Santo Domingo. Returning home, he wrote Histoire de Saint-Domingue and Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle-France the latter of much historical value.

$1,750.00 USD
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1756 Nicolas Bellin Antique Map of the City of Boston & Charlestown, Harbor

1756 Nicolas Bellin Antique Map of the City of Boston & Charlestown, Harbor

  • Title : Plan De La Ville De Boston Et Ses Environs Renvoy pour la Ville de Boston...
  • Date : 1756
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition
  • Ref:  93360
  • Size: 16in x 10in (405mm x 255mm)

Description:
This original antique map of Boston and surrounding areas - one of the earliest obtainable maps of the city - by Jacques Nicholas Bellin in 1756 - was published in the French edition of Antoine-François Prevosts 20 volume L Histoire Generale des Voyages published by Pierre de Hondt in the Hague between 1747 & 1785.

Beautiful map with great street and building detail in both Boston and Charlestown, showing parts of Ronde Isle and the mainland. Important buildings and areas identified in an idex at the left of the map. Including three cannon batteries, the Presbyterian Church, the Quaker temple, the Anabaptist Church, the City Hall, the Armory, Faneuil Hall (Spelled Fanal), etc. (Ref: Tooley; M&B)

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: - 
Colors used: - 
General color appearance: - 
Paper size: - 16in x 10in (405mm x 255mm)
Plate size: - 11 1/2in x 7 1/2in (285mm x 190mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - Folds as issued
Verso: - None

Background: 
Boston is the capital city and most populous municipality of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States.
Boston is one of the oldest cities in the United States, founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U.S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education and culture.
In the 1820s, Boston\\\'s population grew rapidly, and the city\\\'s ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. Irish immigrants dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period, especially following the Irish Potato Famine; by 1850, about 35,000 Irish lived in Boston. In the latter half of the 19th century, the city saw increasing numbers of Irish, Germans, Lebanese, Syrians, French Canadians, and Russian and Polish Jews settling in the city. By the end of the 19th century, Boston\\\'s core neighborhoods had become enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants. Italians inhabited the North End, Irish dominated South Boston and Charlestown, and Russian Jews lived in the West End. Irish and Italian immigrants brought with them Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston\\\'s largest religious community and the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics since the early 20th century; prominent figures include the Kennedys, Tip O\\\'Neill, and John F. Fitzgerald.
Between 1631 and 1890, the city tripled its area through land reclamation by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront. The largest reclamation efforts took place during the 19th century; beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-acre mill pond that later became the Haymarket Square area. The present-day State House sits atop this lowered Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the South End, the West End, the Financial District, and Chinatown.
After the Great Boston Fire of 1872, workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront. During the mid- to-late 19th century, workers filled almost 600 acres of brackish Charles River marshlands west of Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. The city annexed the adjacent towns of South Boston (1804), East Boston (1836), Roxbury (1868), Dorchester (including present day Mattapan and a portion of South Boston) (1870), Brighton (including present day Allston) (1874), West Roxbury (including present day Jamaica Plain and Roslindale) (1874), Charlestown (1874), and Hyde Park (1912). Other proposals were unsuccessful for the annexation of Brookline, Cambridge and Chelsea.

$375.00 USD
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1757 Bellin Antique Map of New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania

1757 Bellin Antique Map of New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania

  • Title : Carte De La Nouvelle Angleterre...Par M B. 1757
  • Ref #:  61097
  • Size: 14 1/2in x 10in (370mm x 255mm)
  • Date : 1757
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description:
This beautifully hand coloured original antique map of New England & the NE corridor of the US from Pennsylvania to Maine was engraved in 1757 - the date is engraved in the title - and was published in the 1757 French edition of Antoine-François Prevosts 20 volume L`Histoire Generale des Voyages published by Pierre de Hondt in the Hague between 1747 & 1785.

Antoine François Prévost d'Exiles  1697 - 1763, usually known simply as the Abbé Prévost, was a French author and novelist. (Ref: Tooley; M&B)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color: - white
Age of map color: - Early
Colors used: - Green, yellow, red
General color appearance: - Authentic
Paper size: - 14 1/2in x 10in (370mm x 255mm)
Plate size: - 12 1/2in x 9in (320mm x 225mm)
Margins: - min. 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - Folds as issued, ink bleed from original plate
Verso: - None

$325.00 USD
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1757 J N Bellin Antique Map Early Plan The City of New Orleans Louisiana America

1757 J N Bellin Antique Map Early Plan The City of New Orleans Louisiana America

Description:
This original hand coloured copper plate engraved antique map, a very early plan of the city of New Orleans, by Jacques Nicholas Bellin was published in the 1757 French edition of Antoine-François Prevosts 20 volume L Histoire Generale des Voyages published by Pierre de Hondt in the Hague between 1747 & 1785.

This detailed & beautifully executed 18th-century map of New Orleans was first printed in Xavier Charlevoixs Histoire de la Nouvelle France in 1744. The map was subsequently reissued with Provost's Histoire des Voyages in 1750 and in later editions of Charlevoix & Bellins 1764 Petit Atlas Maritime.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: - Early
Colors used: - Yellow, green, blue, pink
General color appearance: - Authentic
Paper size: - 13 1/2in x 10in (345mm x 255mm)
Plate size: - 11 1/2in x 8in (295mm x 204mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

Background:
Plan de la Nouvelle Orleans was based on the original manuscript town-plan of the city drafted by Le Blond de la Tour in 1722. The cartographer, Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-72), was one of the most significant cartographers of his time. His skill was such that he was eventually appointed Official Hydrographer to the French King. Using the streets of Iberville, Dauphine, and Barracks (current names) along with the Mississippi River as borders, this map almost entirely captures the modern-day French Quarter. Thus, the map encompasses well-known streets such as Bourbon, Chartres, and Royal, with 18 marked locations such as the religious buildings of the Capuchins and Ursulines, the prison, the munitions store, the huts for the African-Americans (slaves) who worked at the mill, and more. Even Jackson Square—a military plaza, a public execution site, a Civil War armory, and today a public gathering spot—is shown on the map as Place d'Armes. New Orleans is depicted (and remains) a highly symmetrical city focused toward the Mississippi. Later state, likely circa 1764; the first state bears a date, has the title in a different position, and includes the note in the lower right corner that the map was engraved by Dheulland.

$650.00 USD
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1758 J N Bellin Large Antique Map of The Caribbean Island of Jamaica

1758 J N Bellin Large Antique Map of The Caribbean Island of Jamaica

  • TitleCarte Particuliere De L Isle De La Jamaique Dressee au Depost des Cartes Plans et Journaux de la Marine . . . M. DCC LVIII
  • Date : 1758
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition
  • Ref:  93355
  • Size: 36in x 24in (915mm x 610mm)

Description:
This very large beautifully hand coloured original copper-plate engraved antique map, a sea chart, of the Caribbean Island of Jamaica by Jacques Nicolas Bellin in 1758 - dated in the title cartouche - was published by the Depot De La Marine, Paris.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: - Early
Colors used: - Yellow, green, blue, pink
General color appearance: - Authentic
Paper size: - 36in x 24in (915mm x 610mm)
Plate size: - 36in x 23 1/2in (915mm x 600mm)
Margins: - Min 1/4in (5mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - L&R margins extended from border
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

Background: 
At the time of publishing the Island of Jamaica was under the British, after 150 years of Spanish rule. The focus of the British was trade and specifically that of Sugar, which required a large labor force. This labor, as in all of the Americas, was supplied from the abhorrent African slave trade.
Jamaica is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Previously inhabited by the indigenous Arawak and Taíno peoples, the island came under Spanish rule following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1494. Many of the indigenous people died of disease, and the Spanish transplanted African slaves to Jamaica as labourers. The island remained a possession of Spain until 1655, when England conquered it and renamed it Jamaica. Under British colonial rule Jamaica became a leading sugar exporter, with its plantation economy highly dependent on African slaves. The British fully emancipated all slaves in 1838, and many freedmen chose to have subsistence farms rather than to work on plantations. Beginning in the 1840s, the British utilized Chinese and Indian indentured labour to work on plantations.
Spanish Town has the oldest cathedral of the British colonies in the Caribbean. The Spanish were forcibly evicted by the English at Ocho Rios in St. Ann. In the 1655 Invasion of Jamaica, the English, led by Sir William Penn and General Robert Venables, took over the last Spanish fort on the island. The name of Montego Bay, the capital of the parish of St. James, was derived from the Spanish name manteca bahía (or Bay of Lard), alluding to the lard-making industry based on processing the numerous boars in the area.
In 1660, the population of Jamaica was about 4,500 white and 1,500 black. By the early 1670s, as the English developed sugar cane plantations and imported more slaves, black people formed a majority of the population. The colony was shaken and almost destroyed by the 1692 Jamaica earthquake.
The Irish in Jamaica also formed a large part of the islands early population, making up two-thirds of the white population on the island in the late 17th century, twice that of the English population. They were brought in as indentured labourers and soldiers after the conquest of Jamaica by Cromwells forces in 1655. The majority of Irish were transported by force as political prisoners of war from Ireland as a result of the ongoing Wars of the Three Kingdoms at the time. Migration of large numbers of Irish to the island continued into the 18th century.
Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 and then forcibly converted to Christianity in Portugal, during a period of persecution by the Inquisition. Some Spanish and Portuguese Jewish refugees went to the Netherlands and England, and from there to Jamaica. Others were part of the Iberian colonisation of the New World, after overtly converting to Catholicism, as only Catholics were allowed in the Spanish colonies. By 1660, Jamaica had become a refuge for Jews in the New World, also attracting those who had been expelled from Spain and Portugal.
An early group of Jews arrived in 1510, soon after the son of Christopher Columbus settled on the island. Primarily working as merchants and traders, the Jewish community was forced to live a clandestine life, calling themselves Portugals. After the British took over rule of Jamaica, the Jews decided the best defense against Spains regaining control was to encourage making the colony a base for Caribbean pirates. With the pirates installed in Port Royal, which became the largest city in the Caribbean, the Spanish would be deterred from attacking. The British leaders agreed with the viability of this strategy to forestall outside aggression.
When the English captured Jamaica in 1655, the Spanish colonists fled after freeing their slaves. The slaves dispersed into the mountains, joining the maroons, those who had previously escaped to live with the Taíno native people. During the centuries of slavery, Maroons established free communities in the mountainous interior of Jamaica, where they maintained their freedom and independence for generations. The Jamaican Maroons fought the British during the 18th century. Under treaties of 1738 and 1739, the British agreed to stop trying to round them up in exchange for their leaving the colonial settlements alone, but serving if needed for military actions. Some of the communities were broken up and the British deported Maroons to Nova Scotia and, later, Sierra Leone. The name is still used today by modern Maroon descendants, who have certain rights and autonomy at the community of Accompong.
During its first 200 years of British rule, Jamaica became one of the worlds leading sugar-exporting, slave-dependent colonies, producing more than 77,000 tons of sugar annually between 1820 and 1824. After the abolition of the international slave trade in 1807, the British began to import indentured servants to supplement the labour pool, as many freedmen resisted working on the plantations. Workers recruited from India began arriving in 1845, Chinese workers in 1854.

$1,250.00 USD
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1758 J N Bellin Large Antique Map of The Caribbean Island of Jamaica

1758 J N Bellin Large Antique Map of The Caribbean Island of Jamaica

  • TitleCarte Particuliere De L Isle De La Jamaique Dressee au Depost des Cartes Plans et Journaux de la Marine . . . M. DCC LVIII
  • Date : 1758
  • Condition: (A) Very Good Condition
  • Ref:  82084
  • Size: 36in x 24in (915mm x 610mm)

Description:
This very large beautifully hand coloured original copper-plate engraved antique map, a sea chart, of the Caribbean Island of Jamaica by Jacques Nicolas Bellin in 1758 - dated in the title cartouche - was published by the Depot De La Marine, Paris.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: - Early
Colors used: - Yellow, green, blue, pink
General color appearance: - Authentic
Paper size: - 36in x 24in (915mm x 610mm)
Plate size: - 36in x 23 1/2in (915mm x 600mm)
Margins: - Min 1/4in (5mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - L&R margin cropped to plate-mark
Plate area: - Professional restoration to top centerfold, 2 names penned in to top of map & bottom right corner
Verso: - Professional restoration along centerfold

Background: 
At the time of publishing the Island of Jamaica was under the British, after 150 years of Spanish rule. The focus of the British was trade and specifically that of Sugar, which required a large labor force. This labor, as in all of the Americas, was supplied from the abhorrent African slave trade.
Jamaica is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Previously inhabited by the indigenous Arawak and Taíno peoples, the island came under Spanish rule following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1494. Many of the indigenous people died of disease, and the Spanish transplanted African slaves to Jamaica as labourers. The island remained a possession of Spain until 1655, when England conquered it and renamed it Jamaica. Under British colonial rule Jamaica became a leading sugar exporter, with its plantation economy highly dependent on African slaves. The British fully emancipated all slaves in 1838, and many freedmen chose to have subsistence farms rather than to work on plantations. Beginning in the 1840s, the British utilized Chinese and Indian indentured labour to work on plantations.
Spanish Town has the oldest cathedral of the British colonies in the Caribbean. The Spanish were forcibly evicted by the English at Ocho Rios in St. Ann. In the 1655 Invasion of Jamaica, the English, led by Sir William Penn and General Robert Venables, took over the last Spanish fort on the island. The name of Montego Bay, the capital of the parish of St. James, was derived from the Spanish name manteca bahía (or Bay of Lard), alluding to the lard-making industry based on processing the numerous boars in the area.
In 1660, the population of Jamaica was about 4,500 white and 1,500 black. By the early 1670s, as the English developed sugar cane plantations and imported more slaves, black people formed a majority of the population. The colony was shaken and almost destroyed by the 1692 Jamaica earthquake.
The Irish in Jamaica also formed a large part of the islands early population, making up two-thirds of the white population on the island in the late 17th century, twice that of the English population. They were brought in as indentured labourers and soldiers after the conquest of Jamaica by Cromwells forces in 1655. The majority of Irish were transported by force as political prisoners of war from Ireland as a result of the ongoing Wars of the Three Kingdoms at the time. Migration of large numbers of Irish to the island continued into the 18th century.
Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 and then forcibly converted to Christianity in Portugal, during a period of persecution by the Inquisition. Some Spanish and Portuguese Jewish refugees went to the Netherlands and England, and from there to Jamaica. Others were part of the Iberian colonisation of the New World, after overtly converting to Catholicism, as only Catholics were allowed in the Spanish colonies. By 1660, Jamaica had become a refuge for Jews in the New World, also attracting those who had been expelled from Spain and Portugal.
An early group of Jews arrived in 1510, soon after the son of Christopher Columbus settled on the island. Primarily working as merchants and traders, the Jewish community was forced to live a clandestine life, calling themselves Portugals. After the British took over rule of Jamaica, the Jews decided the best defense against Spains regaining control was to encourage making the colony a base for Caribbean pirates. With the pirates installed in Port Royal, which became the largest city in the Caribbean, the Spanish would be deterred from attacking. The British leaders agreed with the viability of this strategy to forestall outside aggression.
When the English captured Jamaica in 1655, the Spanish colonists fled after freeing their slaves. The slaves dispersed into the mountains, joining the maroons, those who had previously escaped to live with the Taíno native people. During the centuries of slavery, Maroons established free communities in the mountainous interior of Jamaica, where they maintained their freedom and independence for generations. The Jamaican Maroons fought the British during the 18th century. Under treaties of 1738 and 1739, the British agreed to stop trying to round them up in exchange for their leaving the colonial settlements alone, but serving if needed for military actions. Some of the communities were broken up and the British deported Maroons to Nova Scotia and, later, Sierra Leone. The name is still used today by modern Maroon descendants, who have certain rights and autonomy at the community of Accompong.
During its first 200 years of British rule, Jamaica became one of the worlds leading sugar-exporting, slave-dependent colonies, producing more than 77,000 tons of sugar annually between 1820 and 1824. After the abolition of the international slave trade in 1807, the British began to import indentured servants to supplement the labour pool, as many freedmen resisted working on the plantations. Workers recruited from India began arriving in 1845, Chinese workers in 1854.

$775.00 USD
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