Victorian Jamaica

In the Victorian Era, where Jane Eyre is set, Jamaica was a British colony. England had obtained Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655 through force, and then through the Treaty of Madrid in 1670. Then known as the Colony of Jamaica, its capitol was called Spanish Town, due to it having been the capitol of Spanish Jamaica previously. It was here that Bertha Mason lived before Mr. Rochester took her back to England.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Mason

The Colony of Jamaica became a huge source of both sugar and slaves for England. Jamaica would remain England's top sugar supplier throughout the 18th century. Many Englishmen moved to Jamaica in order to profit from the sugar crops and associated slave labor, which would explain why Rochester's father would want to get in on such a huge inheritance.

The continued profit from the sugar meant that elitism remained prevalent longer than slave labor did. The slave trade was abolished in 1808, and slavery followed in 1834. Despite these progressive movements, as well as laws put into place to promote equal rights for all races, white British control for the profit of sugar lasted until the sugar trade suffered two huge blows: first, the Sugar Duties Act of 1846, and the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_of_Jamaica

Bertha was known as a "Creole," which, in terms of Jamaica and other Caribbean areas, meant she and her family were descendants of former slaves who formed their own independent culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_peoples#Former_Spanish_Colonies

An independent group of escaped slaves, known as Maroons, lived in a truce with the British until 1795, once British rulership over Jamaica changed. In what was referred to as the Second Maroon War, the Maroons surrendered to the British under the agreement they would not be deported. This promise would later be gone back upon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_Maroons