Colin Clarke's Kingston Jamaica is a fascinating journey through the years since Kingston was founded in 1692, immediately after the earthquake of June that year which destroyed what had become the quasi-capital of the island.

Clarke describes, as if he was writing a novel of fiction, how what had been a created town of under one square mile, outgrew its original boundaries over the years. For Kingston, as he points out, was not the first of the most important settlements in Jamaica. There was Spanish Town and Port Royal, and even Half-Way Tree which preceded it.

Kingston's development was thwarted in its early years, especially by the merchants and "retailers of punch", who yearned for the pleasures they had enjoyed in the former pirate town. It also suffered from the clout of the gentry who wanted Spanish Town to remain the political capital of Jamaica. It was a fire in 1703 that gutted Port Royal which led to Kingston becoming the island's commercial centre. And it was not until 1872 that the influence of the planters was sufficiently diminished for Kingston to finally have been recognised and named as the capital of Jamaica.

The early Kingston, as it is today, was a mixture of magnificent mansions owned by the elite whites, and a crowd of inferior houses and huts in which the working classes and unemployed lived. Public health was not a priority in the beginning. Kingston was plagued with diseases ranging from yaws, tuberculosis, cholera, malaria, and leprosy. Deaths at one time were more than births, and Clarke throws out a one-line comment, that "the protected status of the scavenger bird, the John Crow, represented one of the few public health measures."

Major port

He points out that sadly, Kingston has grown in a haphazard manner. Unlike Spanish Town, where the Governor's residence was part of a complex of administrative buildings, this residence was sited in St. Andrew when the capital was transferred to Kingston. In addition, the Legislature met in what was once a private home on upper Duke Street, away from the civic centre which had already been defined on Harbour Street where a court house had been established and at the Parade (now St. William Grant Park). And although Kingston had become a major port, customs officers used their private homes to carry out their functions.

Clarke also notes that the major established churches were erected in the eastern section of the city. First was the Kingston Parish Church on King Street which was built at the start of the 18th century. Other churches in that section were for the Methodists, Wesleyans, Baptists, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and the Moravians. So, too, was the Jewish Synagogue. Indeed, the fact that there were so many churches in this small, defined area might have been the justification for the belief in Jamaica that the island has more churches per square mile than any other country.

The book provides much information about the growth of manufacturing enterprises in Kingston. Clarke reminds us that the English authorities did not encourage manufacturing as the unwritten policy was for Jamaica to be an open market for 'Made in England' products. Nevertheless, over the years, Jamaica began to manufacture ice (which was previously imported from Canada), bay rum, carbonated beverages, ice cream, bread and biscuits, beer, furniture, leather, condensed milk, confectionery, footwear, optical products and cassava starch.

As he travels through time, Clarke examines employment practices over the years, the growth of entertainment facilities such as horse racing, cinemas and the theatre, the prevalence of bars and "red light districts" in some sections of the city, the creation of a Chinatown in the Orange, Princess and West streets area of the city and the growth of Rastafarianism. The effects too, of politics - dividing to conquer - are also briefly reviewed.

Relative decline

He also recalls the programme of remodeling the commercial centre of Kingston, when the waterfront was redeveloped and the port removed to Newport West, and which allowed the old dock area to be available for shops, offices, banks, government buildings, a hotel and apartments. However, he points out, much of this became (and was to remain) a backward development as a new commercial centre was established in the central suburbs at New Kingston; and the central business district began to slip into relative decline.

He believes that the two commercial areas (the former central district of downtown Kingston, and New Kingston) have served to emphasise the separation of Kingston - by fear of violence - into uptown and downtown, upper and lower class, light-skinned and black. This simple bipolarity has, he says, been modified by the development of Portmore and the incorporation of Spanish Town into the Kingston Metropolitan Region. This means, he says, that Kingston since Independence, has rapidly developed a multiple nuclei pattern of land use, with the old central business district, New Kingston, central Spanish Town, Portmore, and the out-of-town shopping plazas on the Hope and Constant Spring roads, all playing major commercial roles, while the lower and middle-class residential zones of the Liguanea Plain were reproduced at Portmore and in the outskirts of Spanish Town.

Today, Clarke says, "Kingstonians are better educated and housed than at Independence, but suffer a rate of unemployment that is alarmingly high, while being scarcely more problematic than it was 30 years ago. What is worse than in late colonial times, is the level of gang violence and fear, associated with drugs and sometimes, politics - all of which have contributed to the formation of the no-go area that is much of downtown Kingston.

"Yet, all is not negative downtown, and anyone visiting the streets of East Kingston or the fruit and vegetable stalls that spread around the Coronation Market will be impressed by the vibrancy of the scene, and by the bravery with which ordinary people confront the challenges of everyday urban survival."

Book: Kingston Jamaica

Author: Colin G. Clarke

Publisher: Ian Randle

Reviewed by: Hartley Neita