Passive resistance and rebellions

For over 300 years, Europeans enslaved Africans on the plantations of Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. Slavery was a brutal system of hard labour, the loss of lives and limbs of hundred of enslaved people, some of whom resisted from day one. From passive and active resistance to agitations in and out the British Parliament, humanitarian and economic factors, the system came crumbling down on August 1, 1838, in Jamaica. Now, over the next few days, The Gleaner will take you down The Road to Emancipation.

Even before they arrived in Jamaica, some captured Africans were planning their escape. The first batch arrived in 1517 when the island was controlled by the Spaniards. Many were skilled warriors. Some were tribal kings and queens and were not prepared by any stretch of the imagination to be under any extended subjugation.

Thus, the entire period of plantation slavery in Jamaica was fraught with rebellions and passive resistance. The best-known revolts are the Easter Rebellion of 1760 led by Chief Takyi in St Mary and the Sam Sharpe/Christmas/Baptist Rebellion of 1831-32. Yet the resistance had started many decades before when the British wrestled the island from the Spaniards, starting in 1655. Some of the enslaved fled to the mountains, never to return to the plantations. The Spaniards took others with them when they, too, fled to the hills.

There, they engaged the help of the formerly enslaved to launch surprise skirmishes upon the British, whose military might was more superior. They formally ceded the island to the British in 1670, leaving the run-away Africans, who had come to be called Maroons, a term that is still controversial but is widely used for the sake of the narrative. They were to become thorns in the soles and souls of the British.

FIRST MAJOR REBELLION

In January 1663, the British, led by a former Maroon, Colonel Juan de Bolas, went to wage war in the interior against the Maroons, who defeated them, and were granted lands. Yet the first major slave rebellion in Jamaica occurred in May 1690 in Clarendon at Sutton’s Plantation, not too far from Chapelton. The enslaved burned the farms and the great house, which was poorly defended. Led by Cudjoe, many of them fled to the hills of north Clarendon from which they continued to launch more attacks on plantations, burning some of them.

Pursued by the British, the Maroons fled Clarendon and established themselves in the Cockpit Country of western Jamaica. From their mountainous retreats they badgered the British, who, in 1720, imported Miskito/Mosquito Indians from Central American to repel them. That effort also failed miserably.

Efforts to recapture the indomitable Maroons were intensified in 1729, the beginning of the First Maroon War. The following year, two regiments of foot soldiers arrived from Gibraltar to counteract the Windward Maroons in Portland, who, from 1731-1733, raided properties and launched assaults. The British destroyed Old Nanny Town in 1834 but lost the battle of the Spanish River, and, by extension, the First Maroon War.

TREATIES

The British, outclassed and defeated, called a truce, which led to the signing of a treaty of peace and friendship with the Trelawny Town of St James, led by Cudjoe, in 1738. A similar treaty was signed the following year with the Leeward Maroons of Portland, led by Captain Quao and Queen Nanny. These treaties effectively ended the First Maroon War.

However, they did not signal the end of uprisings from other parts of the island. There were major uprisings in 1746 and 1756. Four years later, in 1760, Brigadier General Henry Moore became lieutenant-governor the year the Easter Rebellion unfolded in St Mary. It was a significant blow to the plantocracy. The practice of obeah was one of the elements of passive resistance. It was a major factor in that uprising and was subsequently outlawed.

From 1760 to 1806, there were nine other notable revolts in Jamaica. Martial law was instituted in 1778 and was also proclaimed from April 1 to 19 and May 24 to June 22, 1805. In 1809, there was a discovery, in March, of a plan by enslaved people to burn down Kingston. The authorities were put on high alert. In addition to revolts and uprisings, the enslaved employed other strategies – destruction of properties, manumissions (‘legal freedom’), strikes, malingering, etc – to free themselves.

The colonists, at their wits’ end, worked hard to stave off the assaults and raids. But they were caught off guard on December 27, 1831, when the massive Christmas Rebellion, inspired by Baptist Deacon Samuel Sharpe, exploded in the trash house on Kensington Estate in St James. It is to be noted that Sam Sharpe himself did not start the fire, which was lit pre-emptively.

Martial law was declared until February 1832. On May 23, Sam Sharpe was hanged in Montego Bay and was buried in the sands on the beach. His remains were later exhumed and placed into the Baptist chapel. The fallout in England over the brutal repercussion by the authorities precipitated the passing of the Emancipation Act of 1833, sanctioning the end of British slavery in Jamaica on August 1, 1834.