[1] The Spanish, who occupied Jamaica from the fifteenth century, used the Goat Islands as a part of their defence system: "Don Fernando Melgarejo deCordova, Your Governor of the island of Jamaica,... On the 15th March [1598] after having driven from the port a hulk and tender of corsairs, he had information that they were three leagues outside the port at a Cay called "The Goats", and crews from the vessels, on the shore cutting Brazil wood and loading it.

He went personally in two boats to disembark in some mangrove thickets and swamps, because the port was occupied, and so as not to be detected he went at midnight and supplied the people, at his own expense, with arms and munitions and provisions; and, in an ambuscade that he made, he captured and killed many with great risk to his person on account of the pieces of artillery they discharged.

According to the Morning Journal, April 16, 1838: "All that valuable and extensive run of land, called Great Goat Island, containing about 1,500 acres, all in heavy wood, upwards of 30 years growth.

The above run of land not only abounds in the best hardwood timbers, but also a great quantity of limestone of superior quality; and as a fishing station, Spanish Town and its vicinity is chiefly and abundantly supplied there from.

[4] These cays were previously home to the Jamaican Iguana until the 1940s, when the population was thought to have become extinct, mainly due to predation by introduced small Indian mongooses and habitat alteration by feral goats.