The Jamaica Archives is a section of the Island Record Office, established under 'The Islands Records Law' (Law 6 of 1879). It took over the functions of the office of Island Secretary.
The first holder of the office of Island Secretary was established by commission from Charles II in 1660, a year before the appointment of the first civil governor. According to the eighteenth-century historian of Jamaica, Edward Long, the secretary was also clerk of the enrollments and records, clerk of the council, clerk of the court of errors, clerk of the court of ordinary, clerk of the committee of correspondence, associate-judge by commission for piracy, commissary-general and notary public. The Islands Records Law was based on the British 'Record Office Act' of 1838.
Most of the records which remain extant relate to the operation of civil and ecclesiastical government established in 1661. By 1664 seven parishes had been created:
Liguanea (St Andrew), St Catherine, Clarendon, St Thomas, Port Royal, St John, St David.
By 1675, eight more had been added - Vere (separated from Clarendon in 1673), St George, St Thomas in the Vale, St Dorothy, St Ann, St Elizabeth, St James, St Mary - and the boundaries of these 15 parishes were confirmed by 'An Act for Regulating the Parishes' (1677).
Each parish was governed by the Vestry - 10 vestrymen and 2 churchwardens (elected annually by the freeholders), the rector, local magistrates and chaired by the chief magistrate (custos rotulorum). The 1677 Act required each vestry to 'lay a reasonable tax on the said parish for the Maintenance of the Ministry and poor and for erecting convenient Churches and repairing such as are already made and making convenient seats in them', restated in 1681 (Law 18) in 'An Act for the maintenance of ministers and the poor and erecting and repairing of churches'. Also that year, the 'Highways Act' made vestries responsible for the maintenance of roads and bridges.
Futher parishes were created at the end of the seventeenth century: Kingston from St Andrew's in 1693 (following the destruction of Port Royal the previous year); Westmoreland was created from St Elizabeth in 1703; Hanover from Westmoreland and Portland from St George and St Thomas in the East in 1723; Trelawny separated from St James in 1770 and Manchester in 1814. Finally, Metcalfe was formed out of St George and St Mary in 1841.
Vestry minutes do not survive from Jamaica in the seventeenth century. The earliest vestry minutes come from Port Royal (1735-1741): most others if they start early, begin in the 1740s.
Part of Colonel D'Oyley's commission appointing him Governor of Jamaica in 1661 was 'to discourage vice and debauchery and to encourage Ministers that Christianity according to the Church of England might have due reverence and exercise'. Jamaica, like the rest of the Caribbean, was nominally under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, though historians (including this one) are sceptical how much control the See had in reality. Compulsory registration of births, marriages and deaths was not introduced until 1878. In the seventeenth century ministers were encouraged to keep records of baptisms and burials and to return their records to the Island Secretary's Office. Some of the parishes did keep registers but did not send in any returns. In the early eighteenth century it was explained that this was on account of the insufficient number of ministers to serve the island, that some parishes had neither registers nor rectors, and that all of the island lacked a proper record keeping system.
The Jamaica Archives Office, however, possesses registers that cover the latter seventeenth century for one parish:
St Andrew |
1B/11/8/1a |
| Baptisms and marriages | 1666-1806 |
| Burials | 1666-1807 |
The parish of Clarendon ought to have records of baptisms (1671-1689), marriages (1687-1692) and burials (1787-1791), but these are missing.
Parish registers for St Elizabeth, St Thomas in the East, records of the Court of Error (or Court of Appeal) which was established in 1709, Letters of Administration (granting permissions to administer the estates of those who died intestate) and Letters Testamentory (permissions to the executors of wills) date from the first two decades of the eighteenth century.
| The Jamaica Archives holds some material relating to the history of the island in the seventeenth century. Not all of it is suitable for production, marked +, some is in transcription and some in the originals, which are indicated as such. The seventeenth-century survivals fall within the categories of patents, plat books, and inventories, listed here, whilst there is also the parish registers for St Andrew (see this page), some volumes of powers of attorney (in poor condition), and the occasional reference within private papers. |
The Patents, Plat books and Inventories are listed at these links. |
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The Jamaica Archives is an air-conditioned building, with dedicated parking, on the corner of King Street and Manchester Street, Spanish Town: a brick building at the corner of the square of colonial buildings known as 'The Park'. Next to the Archives is the Rodney Memorial on the north side (Admiral Lord George Rodney, naval hero of the late eighteenth century), with the building of the House of Assembly on the east. The Old King's House (west) and Old Courthouse (south) are dilapidated.