By David Dobson

The Scottish connection with Jamaica dates from 1656 when Oliver Cromwell banished 1200 Scots prisoners-of-war to the recently acquired English colony there. Subsequently the island attracted a growing number of Scottish immigrants who generally arrived as indentured servants. At the same time the government in Scotland was exiling criminals and Covenanters to Jamaica. The last group of Scots to arrive in Jamaica during the seventeenth century, comprised a number of refugees from the failed colony at Darien. Jamaica seems to have had a special attraction for Scots, as an observer in 1763 reckoned that one-third of the white population there were Scots or of Scottish origin.

Little evidence survives to identify the majority of these Scottish emigrants – however, amongst the documents in the Island Record Office in Kingston, are a number of testaments which seem to be those of early Scottish settlers. Regrettably, in the majority of cases the documents contain little or no reference to Scotland, and only refer to friends and relatives in Jamaica.

An exception is the testament of John Macfarline, which identifies him as the son of John Macfarline at the Water of Leven, Lennox, Scotland. It also contains reference to his wife, Alice, and their son, John; his sister Eleanor, the wife of Thomas Anderson, carpenter near the Water of Leven; John Cross, a planter in St.Ann’s parish, Jamaica; James Gray; and his executors, William Watson from Aberdeen, a merchant in Port Royal, Jamaica, and Joseph Norris, also there; subscribed on 13^th September 1689 and witnessed by John Birch, John Chalkhill and Edward Dendy. Probate given 13^th January 1690, Jamaica.

The undernoted list of testaments probated in seventeenth century Jamaica is believed to be those of early Scottish immigrants to the colony: