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Jul 27, 1493
Christopher columbus explores Antigua
(H.E) Christopher Columbus visits Antigua and names it after the Church of Santa Maria de la Antigua in Seville, Spain. Jamaice throughout her book A Small Place, wonders if columbus had have never found Antigua and let it be itself with the native living there, how would have turned out. -
Antigua was invaded and occupied by the French
(H.E) Jamaica gives her opinion on this event in her book a small place, in where she says shes just tired of thinking about how Antigua could have been if things like this never happend. -
Slaves of Antigua emancipated
(H.E) Kincaid addresses her ancestors (the slaves) as noble and exalted, In her memoir A Small Place she ends the book by saying that once the slaves where emancipated, they were only in a kind of way freed, "and the people in Antigua now, the people who really think about themselves ad Antiguans, are the descendants of those noble and exalted people, the slaves." -
Birth
Jamaica Kincaid was born Elaine Potter Richardson in St John's, Antigua in May 1949. -
First brother's birth
(P.E) When Jamaica Kincaid was nine, her life changed when the first of her three brothers was born.Once the center of her mother's attention, She was sidelined while her brothers were receiving all of their mother's love. Kincaid says that she was treated badly, that she was neglected. Which is where her book Annie John gets its theme of the complication of mother-daughter relationships. -
Cuban Missile Crisis begins
(H.E) Antigua being close to Cuba was scared about the close call to a nuclear war. Since they are a poor country they had no possible weapons. -
Antigua a became self-governing state
(H.E) In A Small Place, Kincaid calls attention to the fact that in many ways, conditions in Antigua worsened with the achievement of independence; she communicates her frustration with her people and capitalism. In a nation free from colonialism, Antiguans “do to [themselves] the very things [colonists] used to do to [them]” (Kincaid) -
Secondary education under the British system
(P.E) In Antigua, she completed her secondary education under the British system due to Antigua’s status as a British colony until 1967. “I was always being told I should be something, and then my whole upbringing was something I was not: it was English." Although she was very intelligent, she was taken out of school when her third brother was born as her father was sick and could no longer support them. This is where Jamaica gets some of her anger out in her books about her british education. -
Finding herself
(P.E) In 1973, she changed her name to Jamaica Kincaid because her family disapproved of her writing. Through her writing, she befriended George Trow, a writer for The New Yorker, who began writing “Talk of the Town” pieces about her. As a result, Kincaid met the editor of the magazine, William Shawn, who offered her a job. Kincaid later married Shawn’s son, Allen, a composer and Bennington College professor, and they now have two children. -
The United States celebrates the Bicentennial marking 200 years as a nation.
(H.E) Jamaica Kincaid said in her interview with mother jones, that her first united states encounter was the celebration of the Bicentennial, She related to her book Lucy, in which she says that as she had the thought of the book, this gave her the idea of the nationed being overwhelemed with celebration. -
Annie John
(P.E) The predominately autobiographical Annie John (1985) was critically acclaimed for its universal appeal as a coming-of-age story and for its treatment of indigenous Caribbean culture. Which the book was based on some of the event in Jamaica's childhood. -
Antigua receives independence
(H.E) In her memoir A Small Place, Jamaica says that even though Antigua received independenced they are still ruined from what the british turned them into, ruining there customs, making them something they were not meant to be. -
A Small Place
( P.E) Not having returned home in over twenty years, Kincaid wrote the book-length essay A Small Place, which chronicled Kincaid's outrage at the devastation of postcolonial Antigua: the corruption of the new leaders and the exploitation resulting from the influx of tourism. -
World Trade Organization is formed
(H.E) The organization is attempting to complete negotiations on the Doha Development Round, which was launched in 2001 with an explicit focus on addressing the needs of developing countries which helps out countries like Antigua, in which Kincaid says needs a lot of help, with there poor nation -
World population reaches 6 billion
(H.E) Jamaica Kincaid made a comment about this saying that she caould not belive how many people there were out there, especially when she was in antigua, she never really saw the world as a huge place, in the autobiography of my mother, kincaid says how her mother would tell her that she should not worry about how many people there were out there, but just care about herself, that is all that matters. -
9/11 and the war on terror
(H.E) Jamaica's interview on NPR discusses 9/11 in which Kincaid says it really got her thinking about death again (when she was a child she was obssessed with death) and how unexpected it could be. -
Where is she now?
Jamaica who is now divorced, with two children, now lives and teaches in Vermont.
