© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
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3 2002 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
sighted by Christopher Columbus in 1494;
Spain colonized it in the early 16th century but neglected it because it lacked gold reserves. Britain gained control in 1655, and by the end of the 18th century Jamaica had become a prized colonial possession because of the volume of sugar produced by slave labourers. Slavery was abolished in the late 1830s, and the plantation system col¬ lapsed. Jamaica gained full internal self-government in 1959 and became an independent country within the British Commonwealth in 1962. In the late 20th century the government, led by Michael Manley, nationalized many businesses.
Jamaica Bay Inlet of the Atlantic Ocean. It occupies about 20 sq mi (50 sq km) along the southwestern shore of Long Island, in southeastern New York, U.S. Part of the Port of New York, it is sheltered on the south by Rockaway Peninsula and connects with the ocean through Rockaway Inlet. Near the entrance channel is Coney Island. On the northeastern shore, at Idle wild, is the John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Jamal al-DIn al-Afghani yjo-'mal-al-'den-al-af-'ga-neN (b. 1838, Asadabad, Persia—d. March 9, 1897, Istanbul) Muslim politician and journalist. He is thought to have adopted the name Afghani to conceal the fact that he was of Persian Shfite origin. He lived in Afghanistan from 1866, and a year later he became counselor to the khan. Displaced after a change of rulers, he went to Istanbul and then to Cairo in 1871. After becoming known as a rabble-rouser and heretic, he was deported from Egypt in 1879. By 1883 he was in Paris, where he championed Islamic civilization in the face of European domination. In Russia (1887-89) he seems to have worked as an anti-British agitator. His next stop was Iran, from which he was deported as a heretic in 1892; four years later he avenged himself by instigating the shah’s murder. He died in Istanbul after failing to interest the sultan in his pan-Islamic ideas.
James, C(yril) L(ionel) R(obert) (b. Jan. 4, 1901, Tunapuna, Trin.—d. May 31, 1989, London, Eng.) Trinidadian writer and political activist. As a young man he moved to Britain, where his first work, The Life of Captain Cipriani, was published in 1929. His study of Toussaint- Louverture, The Black Jacobins (1938), was a seminal work. During James’s first stay in the U.S. (1938-53), he became friends with Paul Robeson. Eventually deported to Britain because of his Marxism and labour activism, James wrote on cricket for The Guardian. His Beyond the Boundary (1963) mixes autobiography with commentary on politics and sports. He returned to the U.S. in 1970 but eventually settled perma¬ nently in Britain.
James, Harry (Haag) (b. March 15,1916, Albany, Ga., U.S.—d. July 5, 1983, Las Vegas, Nev.) U.S. trumpeter and leader of one of the most
popular big bands of the swing era. He joined Benny Goodman’s band in 1937, becoming one of its principal soloists before forming his own group in late 1938. The band achieved commercial success through recordings featuring Frank Sinatra, virtuoso set pieces, and ballads performed with James’s trademark wide vibrato. He married actress Betty Grable in 1943 and appeared in several films. An accomplished and technically brilliant improviser, his music from the late 1940s reflected his renewed interest in jazz, and he continued to perform with his band for more than 40 years.
James, Henry (b. April 15, 1843, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. Feb. 28, 1916, London, Eng.) U.S.-British novelist. Born to a distinguished family, the brother of William James, he was privately educated. He trav¬ eled frequently to Europe from childhood on; after 1876 he lived pri¬ marily in England. His fundamental theme was to be the innocence and exuberance of the New World in con¬ flict with the corruption and wisdom of the Old. Daisy Miller (1879) won him international renown; it was fol¬ lowed by The Europeans (1879),
Washington Square (1880), and The Portrait of a Lady (1881). In The Bostonians (1886) and The Princess Casamassima (1886), his subjects were social reformers and revolu¬ tionaries. In The Spoils of Poynton (1897), What Maisie Knew (1897), and The Turn of the Screw (1898), he made use of complex moral and psy¬ chological ambiguity. The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903), and The Golden Bowl (1904) were his great final novels. His intense concern with the novel as an art form is reflected in the essay “The Art of Fiction” (1884), his prefaces to the volumes of his collected works, and his many literary essays. Perhaps his chief technical innova¬ tion was his strong focus on the individual consciousness of his central characters, which reflected his sense of the decline of public and collec¬ tive values in his time.
James, Jesse and James, Frank in full Jesse Woodson James and Alexander Franklin James (respectively b. Sept. 5, 1847, near Centerville, Mo., U.S.—d. April 3, 1882, St. Joseph, Mo.; b. Jan. 10, 1843, near Centerville, Mo.—d. Feb. 18, 1915, near Kearney, Mo.) Brothers who were among the most notorious outlaws of the Ameri¬ can West. Jesse and Frank both fought as Confederate guerrillas in the American Civil War. In 1866 they and eight other men robbed a bank in Liberty, Mo. Joined by other outlaws in subsequent years, the James gang robbed banks from Iowa to Alabama and Texas. In 1873 the bandits began robbing trains; they also preyed upon stagecoaches, stores, and individu¬ als. In 1876 Jesse led a failed attempt to rob a bank in Northfield, Minn.; though the brothers escaped, the rest of the gang was killed or captured. After assembling a new gang in 1879 the brothers resumed robbing, and in 1881 the governor of Missouri offered a $10,000 reward for the broth¬ ers’ capture, dead or alive. In 1882 Jesse was shot in the back of the head and killed instantly by Robert Ford, a gang member, who claimed the reward. A few months later, Frank gave himself up. Tried and acquitted three times, he retired to a quiet life on his family’s farm. The exploits of the James brothers were romanticized in pulp fiction and in movies.
James, Saint or James the Great (b. Galilee, Palestine—d. ad 44, Jerusalem; feast day July 25) One of the 12 Apostles of Jesus. He and his brother John (see St. John the Apostle) were fishermen on the Sea of Gali¬ lee and were among the first disciples to be called. As a member of the inner circle of disciples, he witnessed the major events in the ministry of Jesus, including the Transfiguration and the Agony in the Garden of Geth- semane. He was beheaded in ad 44 by order of Herod Agrippa. By tradi¬ tion, his body was taken to Santiago de Compostela, Spain; his shrine there has long been a place of pilgrimage.
James, William (b. Jan. 11, 1842, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. Aug. 26, 1910, Chocorua, N.H.) U.S. philosopher and psychologist. Son of the philosophical writer Henry James (1811-82) and brother of the novelist Henry James, he studied medicine at Harvard, where he taught from 1872.