Jamaica Farthings, Half Pennys And Pennys

Apparently, the tradition arose amongst the black slaves on Jamaica that using copper coinage was somehow wrong or unspiritual. They refused to give them in church collections, for example, and avoided their use as much as possible. I do not know why they disliked copper so much; perhaps it was a collective memory of the "kissi pennies", an African form of iron primitive money which certainly did have a spiritual aspect. They even preferred using the tiny silver threehalfpence (1½ pence), which was specially made for Jamaica although struck with a "British" design and therefore listed under Britain in the catalogues. With slave emancipation, the need for small-denomination coinage increased, but the reluctance to use copper coinage remained. Cupronickel was the solution. The info about it on Wikipedia can also be found on the Bank of Jamaica website.

Sap, thanks for the links, that was absolutely fascinating reading! I was trying to think of a logical reason (such as availability of raw materials), but like so many other things it history, it was simply due to an illogical reason. I always had wondered about the threehalfpence coins as well since they also seemed to be a bit illogical. However, this does bring up another question, since this was due to an aversion to copper by freed slaves, why would this have only occurred in Jamaica, weren't there other British colonies with large populations of freed slaves?

This, I think. How come $2 notes circulated just fine in Australia and Canada (and $2 coins circulate just fine in their place today), but Americans seemed to develop an aversion to notes of that denomination and even a superstition about them? There was (and is) no logical, rational reason for it. It's just the culture.