Spanish resistance continued for some years after the English conquest, in some cases with the help of the Jamaican Maroons, but Spain never succeeded in retaking the island. Under early English rule, Jamaica became a haven of privateers, buccaneers, and occasionally outright pirates: Christopher Myngs, Edward Mansvelt, and most famously, Henry Morgan.
The English established their main coastal town at Port Royal. By 1659, two hundred houses, shops, and warehouses surrounded the fort. The town was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692, after which Kingston became the main coastal settlement. Spanish Town has the oldest cathedral of the British colonies in the Caribbean. William penn and venables failed to conqur the Spanish in Hispaniola in 1654 and came to poorly defended Jamaica . by 1656 the small group that was left started to do well in trading. They grew and traded cooa, coffee and sugar cane. Along with the English setytlers there were settlers from Wales and Scotland who came into the island as indentured labourers to help with the trading. The first class were the white men, who owned property, or who had professions and trades. They were well-off and spent their money freely. They were not careful in their habits, and so they died at an early age, as a rule.
The second class also consisted of white men; but these were almost slaves. It was the custom in those days to send to the American colonies people who inGreat Britain had been convicted of some crime. These were "deported" for five, seven or ten years, and were bought for those years by planters who wanted men to work. They were treated as slaves; but, if they lived long enough, they regained their freedom after they had served their time. Free men in England could also sell themselves for a number of years to planters in Jamaica, and during those years they were little better than slaves.
The third and largest class of persons in Jamaica were the slaves brought over from Africa. They had to work very hard; they were given poor food; and very few of them could ever hope to be free. But, as time went on, they were treated less harshly. In 1696, four years after the destruction Port Royal, there were 47,365 people in Jamaica.