Very rare: this Jamaica-printed almanac includes the original engraved signal leaves - “Signals for distinguishing the Several Packets on the Falmouth Station” - apparently issued only in this edition. Furthermore, it includes early examples of Caribbean Hebrew printing.
The first book-form almanac was issued in Jamaica in 1751 by William Daniell which is held at the National Library of Jamaica (and possibly Yale). Others followed by Weatherby & McCann, Walker & Strupar, Douglass and Aikman, and later Alexander Aikman alone, at Kingston. The rival New Jamaica Almanack and Register first appeared in the same city in 1788, printed by Bennett and Dickson, for the stationer Thomas Stevenson of King Street. After 1791 this same title was printed by David Dickson alone at Spanish Town (Saint Jago de la Vega).
While all eighteenth-century Caribbean imprints are of interest, these almanacs are probably best known for their inclusion of some of the earliest examples of Western printing with Hebrew type - specifically produced for the use of the largest Jewish community in the Atlantic outside of London. Furthermore, they significantly predate any United States-printed Hebrew calendar. Here we find the final calendar leaf headed “Of Months, Sabbaths, and Holidays, which the Hebrews or Jews observe and keep, for the Years 5554 and 5555 of the Creation.”
The rest of the Almanack includes a calendar specifically for use in the colony, noting for example the dates of various Jamaican assizes. There is a description of the geography and history of Jamaica, excerpts of various commercial treaties, including the “Act for regulating the Commerce with America,” and notes the duties due to the Receiver-General for landing traded goods. Of course, the 1790s were among the most profitable decades of the Triangle Trade and so unsurprisingly we find reference to it with the government duty of £2 “per head” imposed upon the importers of enslaved Africans.
There are fourty-four pages of “Jamaica Lists,” which concern the civil administration and military establishments of the colony, including lists of officials and appointees, headed by the then Lt.-Governor Major General Adam Williamson. Included in this section are extensive details on the output of the plantations of the island, grouped by parish within different counties, often revealing the extent of that economy. Thus, St. George is noted as housing “19 Sugar Works, and 5 more settling, 90 other Settlements, 7000 Slaves, and 4500 Cattle,” while Trewlawny housed “86 Sugar Works, 126 other Settlements, 27000 Slaves, and 15000 Cattle.”
There isn’t a definitive collation for this almanac, and it’s probable that they were bound to order at the stationers with customers choosing whether they would spend extra money on signal leaves or, as in the case of the copy at Temple, a map. Neither the signal leaves nor a map are called for, and the only reference we can find to any edition of an almanac with engravings of signals flags, as here, is in the 1794 edition. The first of the two engraved leaves states that they were “Engraved for the New Jamaica Almanac, 1794.” Given the increasingly visible presence of Royal Naval ships in the West Indies due to action taken against French colonies in the War of the First Coalition, as well as simmering tensions with the United States prior to the signing of the Jay Treaty, these signals were a timely option.
OCLC locates three copies worldwide: Temple, with a map, and two at Yale, one without a map or signals, wanting pp.81-102, and possibly pp.145-6; and another without map but with the signals.
ESTC, N67930.
