JAMAICA, formerly a village of Queens county, Long Island, N.Y., U.S.A., but since 1898 a part of the borough of Queens, New York city. For two guns, a coat and a quantity of powder and lead, several New Englanders obtained from the Indians a deed for a tract of land here in 1655. In 1657 they received per mission from Gov. Stuyvesant to found a town, which was chart ered in 166o and was named Rustdorp by Stuyvesant, but the English called it Jamaica. The village was incorporated in and reincorporated in 1855. In 1665 it was made the seat of justice of the north riding; in 1683-1788 it was the shire town of Queens county. With Hempstead, Gravesend, Newtown and Flushing, also towns of New England origin and type, Jamaica was early disaffected towards the provincial government of New York.
In 1669 these towns complained that they had no representa tion in a popular assembly, and in 167o they protested against taxation without representation. The founders of Jamaica were mostly Presbyterians, and they organized one of the first Presby terian churches in America. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War Jamaica was under the control of Loyalists; after the defeat of the Americans in the battle of Long Island (Aug. 27, 1776) it was occupied by the British; and until the end of the war it was the headquarters of Gen. Oliver Delancey.