subject: Jamaican Rainforests [print this page] It didn't take long for Spanish colonizers to establish their own system of rule after landing in Jamaica. Christopher Columbus may have set foot in Port Royal in 1494, but a plantation system of sugar production was firmly established by the arrival of the 16th century. The driving force of labor behind production was slave labor, specifically via West Africa. By 1512 there were already organized uprisings among the slaves, and many had even escaped out of reach of the European plantation owners into the mountains of Jamaica. The Spanish called the escapees ?Maroons?, from ?cimarron? meaning fugitive or runaway.
In the parish of Trelawny, several miles inland from Montego Bay, is a region known today as Cockpit Country. The mountains are densely forested with deep hollows in the bedrock. Some of the hollows are recorded as almost 400 feet deep, separated by hills and rocky ridges. The mountain hollows are so numerous and so well hidden, non-Maroon residents of Jamaica felt they were reminiscent of illegal cock fighting dens; thus the name Cockpit Country.
The Maroons established the majority of their communities in Cockpit Country, largely because the Europeans were too afraid to enter the seemingly impenetrable rainforest. In addition, the Spanish knew the Maroons to be crafty warriors with the ability to camouflage themselves among the flora of the forest. In the southwest region of Cockpit Country, there is a district called Land of Look Behind. When Spanish soldiers rode into this area, they rode two men to a horse; one facing front and one facing back. They knew the country was full of hostile Maroons, and they knew a covert attack was inevitable.
Today, the whole region is still naturally rich, even the soil. Where ridges have given way to limestone or bauxite sinkholes, basins have formed. Over the decades, those basins have gradually filled with the rich red soil indicative of weathered limestone. The soil itself is very productive and highly valued - called terra rosa soil. It is therefore no coincidence the largest remaining rainforest in one continual formation lays in Cockpit country.
Some people believe that Cockpit Country has more cultural and environmental history than other areas of Jamaica. Thousands and thousands of years of evolving plant and animal species have occupied Cockpit Country. Then the Maroons began seeking refuge there 500 years ago, and still live in the mountain hollows to this day. Cockpit Country has seen everything and has managed to survive, including: earthquakes, hurricanes, drought, famine, flood, and war..
