ABSTRACT
Scanty history, when revealed as such, is oppressive in retrospect. The consequences that the revelation triggers often demonstrate how deeply patterns of social interaction, justifications of dominance and submission, religious ideas, the very meaning of social existence, are rooted in historical consciousness. Many studies of Jamaican politics concentrate only on the Jamaican "elite". This makes the researcher's task less onerous but takes into account only a small proportion of the electorate. As an historical study, documents of various types provided the bulk of the data, and of the several types, newspapers were most important. The Gleaner Company reference library compiles scrap-books of election-related items on a regular basis. These scrapbooks were also reviewed for the first four elections. Documents from the political parties themselves were sought and obtained for the more recent elections. These included party manifestos, campaign literature, booklets used by campaign workers, and other documents.
