In May 1655, British forces in the form of a joint expedition by Admiral Sir William Penn (father of the founder of Pennsylvania), and General Robert Venables seized the island. In 1657 the Governor invited the Buccaneers to base themselves at Port Royal to deter Spanish aggression. In 1657 and 1658 the Spanish, sailing from Cuba, failed at the battles of Ocho Rios and Rio Nuevo in their attempts to retake the island.
The British began full colonisation in 1661 and gained formal possession through the Treaty of Madrid in 1670.
The Island was a major base for pirates, especially at Port Royal before it was destroyed in an earthquake in 1692. A new capital Spanish Town was chosen in the south, and later moved to nearby Kingston. Sugar and slavery made Jamaica one of the most valuable possessions in the world for more than 150 years. The colony's slaves, who far outnumbered their masters, mounted over a dozen major slave conspiracies and uprisings in the 1600s and 1700. Escaped slaves, known as maroons established independent communties in the mountainous interior that the British were unable to defeat, despite major attempts in the 1730s and 1790s.
The British parliament abolished slavery as of August 1, 1834. The freed slaves still faced extreme hardship, marked by the October 1865 Morant Bay rebellion led by George William Gordon and Paul Bogle. It was brutally repressed and the island was made a Crown Colony. The sugar crop was declining in importance in the late 19th century and the colony diversified into bananas.
Jamaica gained a degree of local political control in the late 1930s. There had been unrest and riots in anger at British policy and the People's National Party (PNP) was founded in 1938. The first election under full universal adult suffrage was held in 1944. Jamaica joined nine other U.K. territories in the Federation of the West Indies in 1958 but withdrew after Jamaican voters rejected membership in 1961. Jamaica gained independence on August 6, 1962, remaining a member of the Commonwealth. The first prime minister was Alexander Bustamante of the Jamaica Labour Party.
Initially, power swapped between the People's National Party and the Jamaican Labour Party regularly. Michael Manley was the first PNP prime minister in 1972 and he introduced socialist policies and improved relations with Cuba. His second term elections marked the start of repeated political violence. When the PNP lost power in 1980 Edward Seaga immediately began to reverse the policies of his predecessor, bringing in privatization and seeking closer ties with the USA. When the PNP and Manley returned to power in 1989 they continued the more moderate policies and were returned in the elections of 1993 and 1998. Manley resigned for health reasons in 1992 and was succeeded as leader of the PNP by Percival Patterson.
Historically, Jamaican emigration has been heavy. In the 1950s and 1960s the destination was Britain, since the United Kingdom restricted emigration in 1967, the major flow has been to the United States and Canada. About 20,000 Jamaicans emigrate to the United States each year; another 200,000 visit annually. New York, Miami, Chicago, and Hartford are among the U.S. cities with a significant Jamaican population. Remittances from the expatriate communities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada make increasingly significant contributions to Jamaica's economy.