In 1977, a groundbreaking study was published that, for the first time, documented the names of 21 families who had emerged in a newly independent Jamaica as the main power brokers, both economically and politically. The following is a series of excerpts from this study.
At the pinnacle of Jamaican post-emancipation society then, there existed a relatively small white plantocratic elite who enjoyed high status and by and large exercised firm control over the economy. At the other end of the scale there existed a large, mainly rural, black population, devoid of formal political rights and living in impoverished conditions. In between these two strata there was a brown, racially mixed group who, while not in a position as pre-eminent as that of the whites, were none-the-less able to achieve some measure of social mobility and enjoyed some measure of political power after emancipation.
It is the contention of this student that the concentration of power and control of the corporate economy lies in the hands of minority ethnic elites and is mainly dispersed through 21 families and their interest groups.
The ascendancy of these groupings – Jews, local whites, Syrians, and Chinese – closely followed and in some ways anticipated the transition of the plantation state to independent nation. Closely allied with the Colonial Governments, the groups’ early genesis came from the plantation system, some owners of large plantations, others engaged in a tradition of import-export trading and ancillary commercial activities like insurance, while others pioneered early industry of soft consumer goods and some heavy engineering. Opportunities for advancement of their own economic interests were generally pursued more through chance than choice, but once seized were thoroughly exploited.
Of the minority ethnic groups, the Jews have one of the longest unbroken traditions of occupying important economic and political roles in the Jamaican economy.
In 1834, the island’s oldest newspaper was started by Joshua and Jacob deCordova… a family closely linked with another Jewish family, the Ashenheims, by marriage.
Abraham Henriques, one of the earliest members of the Henriques family, had by the turn of the 18th century become one of the largest land-owners with some 3,000 acres of land.
The Matalons, another Jewish family of more recent origin, emerged after the war with Commodity Service Company in 1946 which was later to evolve into Industrial Commercial Developments, one of the largest companies on the Stock Exchange.
The Issa group of Middle East Extraction began with a dry goods and haberdashery store in 1894, D’Costa with an import/export house and the Brandons being largest importer of animal feeds by 1930.
Samuel Hart, founding father of the Hart Wealth, had by 1916 achieved a turnover of 100,000 pounds per annum in dry goods after being in business 36 years.
The dominance of local economic groupings in the corporate economy is underpinned by the positions of influence that they enjoy in formulating state policy. State policy exercised through statutory agencies was and is implicitly influenced by the economic groupings, particularly the 21 families and their dominant members, the supergroup.
The Ashenheims are represented on the State Bank, the Matalons on Urban Development Corporation, and more recently the Jamaica Bauxite Association, the Harts in Jamaica Industrial Development Corporation, and Jamaican Investment Fund, and the Henriques on the Sugar Industry Rehabilitation Board and Coconut Industry Board.
Source: ESSAYS -— ON POWER AND CHANGE IN JAMAICA – Edited by DR. CARL STONE and DR. AGGREY BROWN (Digitized by Google / First published 1977 Distributed by Teachers’ Book Centre Ltd. / downloaded here: https://dokumen.pub/essays-on-power-and-change-in-jamaica.html)