Jamaican Independence

         Although politically tumultuous, the years following the French Revolution were quiet on Jamaica. Few slave uprisings occurred, and wars seemed to be finally at an end. However, when Britain called for the end of slavery, Jamaica’s planters were faced with a situation they certainly did not want. Anti-slavery sentiment in Britain had been growing for approximately two centuries before finally coming to a head in the early 1800s with the passing of a ban on the importation of slaves in the Caribbean colonies as well as a law declaring slave trade illegal. However, these laws did little to change the way of life of Jamaica’s settlers. Their distance from England made it easy for the colonists to simply ignore these laws.

         Jamaica, the largest and most populous of the British islands, was one of the arenas in which large numbers of slaves struggled for their freedom with unflagging determination. Their successes, initially partial were finally crowned by the achievement of the abolition of slavery at a considerably earlier date than would have been possibly without their intervention. What was distinctive about the British West Indies in the eighteenth century was their failure to become settler societies and their reliance on the exploitation of African slaves for their prosperity. Every British colony, of course, was exploitative of environment and people.

         In 1807 the African slave trade was abolished by Parliament, effective January 1, 1808. Theoretically this meant that no more slaves could be brought from Africa to the colonies in the British West Indies, but slaves could be transported from one colony to the other.

In 1823 the British government pledged to adopt measures for the abolition of slavery in the colonies. In the ensuing years there was a considerably exchange of letters on the subject between Britain and the colonies, particularly the legislatures and planters. The slaves by this time were agitated about their status, as the slave trade had already been abolished. In 1824 there was a slave insurrection in Hanover, followed in 1831 by a more widespread insurrection in the county of Cornwall. In June 1833 the governor of Jamaica wrote a proclamation to the slaves to clarify their status. By December 1833 there was a bill for the abolition of slavery, and it became effective on August 1, 1834. At that time all slaves became apprentices. They remained working for the same slave masters but earned very low wages. They also remained subject to the brutality of slavery pressed upon them by their abusive masters. This system failed and it too was abolished. Slaves received their unrestricted freedom on August 1, 1838.

         At independence, Jamaica’s population consisted of 76.8% Black, 16.9% mixed race, 0.9% white, 0.6% Chinese, 1.7% Indian, and 3.1% “other”. Although the numerical preponderance of Blacks was glaring, it could not subsume the presence of the other races, whose roles and niches in the society had been firmly carved by the time of independence. In essence, then, the new nation was multiracial. But from the onset the architects of Jamaica’s nationhood, intended to drastically reduce or obliterate racial consciousness as an essential, defining trait of the nation. This resolve is encapsulated in the motto adopted “Out of Many, One People”. This was meant to be more than just rhetoric, it was to be at the heart of the spirit of an ideology for nationhood.

Citations:

Hart, Richard. Slaves Who Abolished Slavery: Blacks in Rebellion. 2. Print.

Monteith, Kathleen E.A. Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture. 73. Print.