Out of many, one people

What do you suppose became of the Garden of Eden after Adam noshed on that forbidden fruit? I mean, it was still a pretty nice place, right? Lush. Tropical. All kinds of interesting things to eat. Swaying palms, cool water, gorgeous views.

There’s something of that Garden-of-Eden-after-the-fall feel about Jamaica. Not in an idealized Shangri-la sort of way, though there’s plenty of that as well, but more in a Mutiny on the Bounty sense. You know, people who left wherever they were from and ended up in Jamaica because, frankly, things weren’t going so well back home and it was pretty damn nice on this island.

The Jamaicans have this saying—Out of many, one people. It’s not like some trite license plate motto. It really reflects who they are. That their most distant relative was a slave from Ghana. That their great-great uncle was a Jewish trader from Portugal. Their mother’s old aunt a nanny from Scotland.

When I ask my driver, Lincoln, about his family, he just laughs. “We come from everywhere,” he says. “South America, Spain, India. I think one of my grandmothers way back was Chinese.”

Out of many, one people. You see?