The earliest signs of people on Jamaica are the remains of the Arawak, an AmerIndian society that originated on the north coast of South America. Arawak peoples migrated to various Caribbean islands, arriving in Jamaica by the beginning of the eighth century. They were peaceful and lived by "slash-and-burn" farming. For meat, they bred pigs and ate iguana, both native to the island. They were highly skilled in such manual activities as thatching and weaving. In fact, the hammock was an AmerIndian invention that remains with us today; it is an object which, more than any other, evokes an image of a warm sunny day on a tropical isle. The Arawak left a legacy of paintings in places such as Runaway Caves near Discovery Bay, and shards of pottery found at their settlements near Nueva Sevilla and Spanish Town have added a little to our knowledge about them. Over 200 Arawak sites have been identified, and it is said that when the Spanish arrived in Jamaica there were approximately 100,000 Arawak living on the island. They called Jamaica "Xaymaca" ("land of wood and water"). Columbus and the Arrival of Europeans Columbus first arrived in Jamaica on 5 May 1494 at Discovery Bay, where there is now a small park in his honor. He stayed for only a few days but returned in 1502, landing here when the ships of his fleet became unserviceable; he waited at St. Ann's Bay for help to arrive from Cuba. After the death of Columbus in 1505, Jamaica became the property of his son Diego, who dispatched Don Juan de Esquivel to the island as Governor. Esquivel arrived in 1510 and created a base called Nueva Sevilla near St. Ann's Bay, from which he hoped to colonize the rest of the island. The Spanish immediately began subjugating the Arawak population, many of whom died under the yoke of oppression and of diseases carried by the Europeans. A number of them committed suicide rather than live the life created for them by the Spanish. The site of Nueva Sevilla proved to be unhealthy and mosquito-ridden, and in 1534 the Spanish founded Villa de la Vega, today known as Spanish Town. Pig breeding was the main occupation of these early settlers, but they also planted sugar cane and other crops that required large numbers of laborers. The number of Arawak had already fallen dramatically, so the Spanish began to import slaves from Africa to work the land; the first Africans arrived in 1517.

Name some things the Arawak ate and invented.

Low-income domestic violence victims may find long-term legal help -- representation in divorces or child-custody disputes -- hard to come by, if two organizations now providing such help can't replace their lost funding. The Legal Aid Society of Salt Lake and Utah Legal Services are already facing cutbacks after they were refused a federal grant of more than $450,000 in September. The board overseeing the state Office of Crime Victim Reparations [CVR] has voted to deny a stopgap funding request from the two organizations. While describing the request as a worthy cause, board members agreed Tuesday that funding divorces or custody disputes was outside their focus -- providing direct services for crime victims. The $175,000 requested would have allowed the legal aid groups to maintain a skeleton staff to continue providing help beyond emergency protective orders for victims, completing existing cases and offering services in limited cases. The groups also plan to enlist more pro bono attorneys through coordination with the Utah State Bar. "We don't have a lot more options," said Anne Milne, executive director of Utah Legal Services, after learning of the CVR refusal Wednesday. The organization has already lost some staff through attrition and has turned away some cases, she said. Milne said she may ask the board overseeing her organization to give her until November to seek funding from additional sources. Without additional funding, the outlook for longer-term legal help is unclear. For two years, the groups had received 18-month civil legal assistance grants from the U.S. Department of Justice and had used them to provide such assistance. But last month, a third request was denied. Funding used to help victims obtain emergency protective orders remains in place, said Milne and Stewart Ralphs, executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Salt Lake. Although an order's requirements that an abuser stay away from a victim may remain in effect for years, protective orders only settle issues such as child custody, child support, custody and property arrangements for 150 days. Many judges are reluctant to address those issues in emergency protective orders, since the decrees stay in effect for such a short time, Milne and Ralphs said. "The likelihood a victim will return to her abuser increases if she cannot permanently sever the relationship and establish workable support, custody and property arrangements," the funding request to CVR said. The Department of Justice said it denied the grant application, in part, because evaluators did not see enough collaboration between the organizations and victims' advocates, Ralphs and Milne told CVR board members. While the two said they believe their organizations coordinate well, the organizations cannot appeal the grant denial. Although CVR board members considered giving the money as a loan, not a grant, their vote on the funding request -- taken after Milne and Ralphs left the meeting -- was unanimous.

Did the Office of Crime Victim Reparations vote to uphold the funding request and if not, why was the stopgap measure refused?

Michigan will lose $2 million in federal funding and $600,000 in state funding to provide legal aid to the poor in 2003, according to Deierdre L. Weir, executive director of the Legal Aid and Defender Association, Inc., the state's largest provider of legal services to the poor. Current federal funds of nearly $10.7 million from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) will drop to $8.7 million for next year, according to Weir. She said that the reductions reflect a decline in the number of persons in the state who are living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2000 census. LSC uses census data to determine funding across the nation, and according to the census, the state's poverty population fell from an estimated 1.2 million in 1990 to an estimated 968,000 in 2000. The state's legal aid agencies are also bracing for yet another cut in 2003 of some $600,000 of state funding. A portion of filing fees paid by litigants in the state's circuit courts, and a portion of interest on lawyers trust accounts (IOLTA) are earmarked for Michigan legal aid programs. These funds are expected to drop from currently $7.5 million in 2002 to $6.9 million when the Michigan State Bar Foundation makes distributions next year. Most of the decrease is attributed to the past year's low interest rates. "The irony of these funding cuts is that while there may be fewer poor people in Michigan today, the demand for service will not change because the poverty population remains so large and the legal aid funding so little that local providers will never able to serve all who need our service," said Weir. "It's as if the poor will be victimized twice-once for being poor and again as victims of these funding cuts." The U.S. Census Bureau, in spite of its best efforts, cannot locate every poor person living in a census tract, therefore the poor are also undercounted, added Weir. The brunt of these cuts will be felt most in Wayne County where according to the census some 333,000 poor people live, the largest concentration of poverty in the state. LAD will lose more than $870,000 for legal aid in Wayne County, nearly half of the state's total loss, said Weir. While difficult to measure, the loss of funds will mean that several thousand of Michigan's poor in need of legal service will not receive it, or they will receive significantly limited service. Cutbacks will include service in such civil legal matters as landlord-tenant, bankruptcy, consumer, child custody, predatory lending, mortgage foreclosure, utility shutoffs, social security, wills, and probate. "Local providers will have to work harder and smarter and use more technology instead of staff to provide as much service as we can with fewer dollars," said Weir. "We will be providing more selfhelp training to clients enabling them to navigate the legal system on their own in routine matters, more assistance on the telephone, and less direct representation by attorneys in specific, high impact matters. Currently, Michigan has 13 legal aid agencies covering the state's 83 counties.
How is Legal Aid and Defender Association planning to cope with the funding drops?