page_title: Monarchies in the Americas
section_title: Jamaica
hierarchical_section_title: Monarchies in the Americas / Current monarchies / American monarchies / Jamaica
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. They were on an official visit to Jamaica and attended a reception at the Half Moon Hotel.
context_page_description: There are 13 monarchies in the Americas. Each is a constitutional monarchy, wherein the sovereign inherits his or her office, usually keeping it until death or abdication, and is bound by laws and customs in the exercise of their powers. Ten of these monarchies are independent states; they equally share Queen Elizabeth II, who resides primarily in the United Kingdom, as their respective sovereign, making them part of a global group known as the Commonwealth realms. The others are dependencies of three European monarchies. As such, none of the monarchies in the Americas have a permanently residing monarch.
  These crowns continue a history of monarchy in the Americas that reaches back to before European colonization. Both tribal and more complex pre-Columbian societies existed under monarchical forms of government, with some expanding to form vast empires under a central king figure, while others did the same with a decentralized collection of tribal regions under a hereditary chieftain.
context_section_description: The monarchy of Jamaica has its roots in the Spanish monarchy, under the authority of which the islands were first colonised in the late 16th century, and later the English and then British monarchy, as a Crown colony. On 6 August 1962, the country gained independence from the United Kingdom, retaining the then reigning monarch, Elizabeth II, as monarch of the newly created monarchy of Jamaica. The monarch is represented in the country by the Governor-General of Jamaica, Sir Patrick Allen.
  Former Prime Minister of Jamaica Portia Simpson-Miller has expressed an intention to oversee the process required to change Jamaica to a republic by 2012; she originally stated this would be complete by August of that year. In 2003, former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, advocated making Jamaica into a republic by 2007.
caption: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (far left), heir to the Jamaican throne, and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (centre), at the Half Moon Hotel, Montego Bay, 13 March 2008
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