The indigenous people of the 4,200 square-mile island called is “Xamayca”, and the English corruption of the world stuck as the name for the place with after the British conquest. Christopher Columbus first charted the island, and then had the misfortune of almost dying on it, if not for a timely eclipse which he claimed was a token of the almighty’s anger and the treatment by the natives of him and his crew. Spanish rule of the island was taken over by the British, who used it first as a privateer base and then as a sugar plantation. As with the other colonial possessions, Britain was loath to give up their treasured island in the Caribbean, but the times forced the change.

On this day, August 6, in 1962 Jamaica declared its independence from the UK, joining instead as an independent nation into UK-led “commonwealth of nations”, an international organization made up mostly of former British colonies — Canada, India, Australia, and much of the southern African continent.

In its early days as a British colony, Jamaica was the home base to many privateers and pirates, most famously perhaps Captain Henry Morgan, who looted up and down the Caribbean coasts and sacked the Spanish-ruled port of Panama. For his invaluable help against Spain, Morgan was given governorship of Jamaica.