ABSTRACT
Currency: Similarly to the several British colonies on the North American continent (see pp. 399f.) the relation between the colonial currency – here the pound of 20 shillings at 12 pence Jamaica currency – and sterling resulted from the fact that the most important circulating coin, the so-called ‘piece of eight’ (peso de ocho reales) or the Spanish dollar, was valued differently in the two currencies. In 1669 the Spanish dollar was still equally valued in Jamaica currency and in sterling (4 shillings 2 pence) – so 100 pounds Jamaica currency were equal to 100 pounds sterling – but in 1672 it had already a value of 5 shillings Jamaica currency (111.11 pounds Jamaica currency for 100 pounds sterling), keeping it legitimately until the end of the 18th century. Unauthorized acts in 1688 and in 1758 as well as mercantile customs raised the value of the Spanish dollar up to 6 2/3 shillings Jamaica currency, so that the par of exchange (by custom) was 133.33 pounds Jamaica currency to 100 pounds sterling from the mid-1680s, 138.89:100 (in practice: 140:100) from the early 1720s and 148.15:100 from 1758. But also after 1758 “bills of exchange negotiated on the island maintained the old level of exchange” (MCCUSKER [1978], p. 247), i.e. 140 pounds Jamaica currency for 100 pounds sterling, based on the internal rate of 6¼ shillings per Spanish dollar. The exchange rate quotations available since 1822 as premium quotations on the relation of 140 pounds Jamaica currency = 100 pounds sterling are a late reference to this kind of reckoning. Bills of exchange of this period were payable in Mexican or Colombian doubloons, the following ratio being common practice in trade: 1 doubloon = 64 shillings sterling or 106.67 shillings Jamaica currency (as officially fixed in 1838). Therefore 166.67 pounds Jamaica currency corresponded to 100 pounds sterling. From December 31st 1840 sterling currency was in force on Jamaica as in the mother country; that is the pound sterling of 20 shillings at 12 pence (see pp. 3-5). However, it still took some time until the coins introduced from the American mainland finally lost their function as legal tender and basic medium of circulation in 1876 and “the shilling [sterling] was finally established as the practical standard of value in Jamaica” (CHALMERS [1893], p. 113). The circulating notes – initially called ‘island cheques’ – issued by the Colonial Bank and the Jamaica Bank from 1828, were exclusively reserved for the “commercial and well-to-do classes” at least until the turn of the century while the coloured population only was using coins (ibid.).
