Poem - Jamaica is Our Name

Jamaica is Our Name

by Alma Norman

Black skin, brown skin, everybody come
And hear what I have got to say.
How our ancestors travelled here across the stormy sea.
His grandpa and her grandma and the same for you and me.

Now Columbus said to Ferdinand, 'Just listen to my plan:
If you'll provide the ships why then, Columbus is your man
I'll sail across the stormy seas, and bring you plenty gold,
When I reach up to the Indies with my sailormen so bold.'

The Spanishmen came over, you can see from Spanish Town
Montego Bay supplied their ships whene'er they came around.
Then the Englishman came over and the Spaniard had to run,
After the English brought the rest of us and started all the fun.

The first big lot of immigrants, they had no tourist class;
The sleeping space was crowded and the food would never pass
They had no welfare officer to see that things were right,
If you travelled Middle Passage you were in a dreadful plight.

But the day came when the black man was as free as all the rest.
He said, 'I'm working for myself for that is really best.'
The planter man got worried for he knew he couldn't stop
He had to get some labour or he'd lose his precious crop.

They spoke to him of Asia where were lots of hungry men
Who surely needed work to do and so he said to them:
'If you will reap my sugar there's a living here for you'
So the Chinese and the Indians they came and settled too.

Now this island it got crowded and they bucked up quite a lot,
And the Chinese and the Indian did things which they should not,
And the black man and the Bukra man they also did the same.

So - no matter what we look like now - Jamaican is our name.
Black skin, brown skin, everybody come,
Hear what I have got to say about how we begun
How our ancestors travelled here across the stormy sea.
His grandpa, and her grandma and the same for you and me.