<P> Barrett described Rastafari as "the largest, most identifiable, indigenous movement in Jamaica ." As of the mid-1980s, there were approximately 70,000 members and sympathisers of the Rastafari movement in Jamaica . The majority of these individuals were male, working - class, former Christians aged between 18 and 40 . Jamaica is often valorised by Rastas as the fountain - head of their faith, and many Rastas living elsewhere travel to the island on pilgrimage in order to "drink from the source". </P> <P> In the 2011 Jamaican census, 29,026 individuals identified themselves as Rastafari . Other sources estimated that in the 2000s they formed "about 5% of the population" of Jamaica, or conjectured that "there are perhaps as many as 100,000 Rastafari in Jamaica". Jamaica's Rasta population were initially entirely from the Afro - Jamaican majority, and although most Jamaican Rastas remain Afro - Jamaican, it has also gained members from the island's Chinese, Indian, Afro - Chinese, Afro - Jewish, mulatto, and white minorities . Until 1965 the vast majority were from the lower classes, although since that point it attracted many middle - class members . By the 1980s, there were Jamaican Rastas working as lawyers and university professors . The majority are male . These Rastas are predominantly ex-Christians . </P> <P> During the 1970s, Rastafari ideas were spread through much of the eastern Caribbean through the growing popularity of reggae . Rasta ideas complemented the anti-colonial and Afrocentric views then prevailing in countries like Trinidad, Grenada, Dominica, and St Vincent . In these countries, the early Rastas often engaged in cultural and political movements to a greater extent than their Jamaican counterparts had . A number of Rastas were involved in Grenada's 1979 New Jewel Movement and were given positions in the Grenadine government until it was overthrown and replaced following the U.S. invasion of 1983 . </P> <P> Reggae was introduced to Cuba in the 1970s by Jamaican students . By the 1980s, underground reggae parties were being held in Havana and Santiago . Foreign Rastas who were studying in Cuba during the 1990s connected with this reggae scene and helped to ground it in Rasta beliefs . </P>

The origin and development of rastafari in jamaica