Interdisciplinary approach to the demography of Jamaica

In line with previous findings, the matriline of Jamaica is almost entirely of West African descent. Results from the admixture analyses suggest modern Jamaicans share a closer affinity with groups from the Gold Coast and Bight of Benin despite high mortality, low fecundity, and waning regional importation. The slaves from the Bight of Biafra and West-central Africa were imported in great numbers; however, the results suggest a deficit in expected maternal contribution from those regions.When considering the demographic pressures imposed by chattel slavery on Jamaica during the slave era, the results seem incongruous. Ethnolinguistic and ethnographic evidence, however, may explain the apparent non-random levels of genetic perseverance. The application of genetics may prove useful in answering difficult demographic questions left by historically voiceless groups.The African Diaspora in the New World provides the unique opportunity to understand the demographic stresses imposed on those forcibly relocated during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Of the estimated ten million people captured in Africa between the 16th and 19th centuries by European powers, just fewer than nine million survived the harrowing Middle Passage across the Atlantic [1]. Detailed historical records and accounts have been synthesized over the past 50 years, allowing for valuable demographic reconstructions of various populations by period and particular region of origin. The vast majority of Africans arriving in the British America were enslaved as plantation labourers--a result of growing economic demand in Europe for agricultural luxuries such as sugar and tobacco. By the abolition of slave importation in the British Empire in 1807, roughly 2.6 million people had been uprooted and relocated to British America [1].The island of Jamaica was sparsely inhabited by indigenous sea faring peoples when it was established as a Spanish settlement in 1509. These peoples either fled the island or were eradi