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1492
The island was not discovered by Europeans until Christopher Columbus first landed in the New World
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1500
The pirates who operated in the Islands included Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Henry Morgan, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake
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1509
The Spanish claim the Island Many of the indigenous Arawak community dies off from exposure to European diseases African slaves shipped from Africa to work on the sugar plantations
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Jamaica is attacked by the British.
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Treaty of Madrid: Jamaica formally cedes to the British Jamaica became the world's largest sugar exporting nation with the massive use of imported African slave labor. The sugar plantations, worked by African slaves.
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Jamaica becomes a member of the Federation of the West Indies.
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Jamaican Independence