“The Battle for Christmas” was the title of my Dec. 20 blog post. This article is about the battle that began on Christmas 1831 in the British Crown Colony of Jamaica. It is known as the Christmas Rebellion or as the Baptist War.
Slavery in Jamaica
My initial impetus for writing this blog post came
a year ago when I read Baylor University Professor Philip Jenkins’s article
“Jamaica’s Baptist War” in the Dec. 16, 2020, issue of Christian Century.
According to Jenkins, from the 1520s through
the 1870s, some 400,000 slaves were imported into what became and then was the
United States. During that same period, Jamaica brought in almost a million
enslaved Africans.
Slavery in Jamaica was largely due to Englishmen
seeking to make a fortune from growing sugar cane in that island colony. England
gained control of Jamaica in 1655, and soon some enterprising men were lured
into creating sugar plantations there—and slaves were needed to work in the
cane fields.
In 1662, Englishman Peter Beckford emigrated
to the island, taking with him two or three enslaved Africans. By the time of
his death in 1710, Beckford’s wealth included 20 Jamaican estates, 1,500
slaves, and a huge amount of bank stock.
“The Beckfords, Slavery In Jamaica” is an
hour-long documentary produced by BBC and available to see here on YouTube. It
graphically depicts the opulence of the Beckford family and the cruel treatment
of the slaves who were forced to toil on their sugar plantations.
Baptist Slaves in Jamaica
The first Black missionary to Jamaica was
George Lisle (sometimes spelled Liele), a Georgia slave who was freed by his “owner,”
Henry Sharp, in 1778. While still a slave, he was the first African American to
be ordained, and in 1783 he became the first Baptist to go to another land as a
missionary.
By 1814, there were around 8,000 Jamaican
slaves who had become Baptist Christians. Missionary Lisle, who died in Jamaica
in 1828, didn’t openly challenge the system of slavery, but he prepared the way
for those who did.
Samuel Sharpe was born into slavery in 1801. While
he was still a young man, his fellow Baptists nicknamed him “Daddy” because he was
literate, intelligent, and exhibited leadership qualities.
According to this 2020
article in The Gazette, UK’s “official public record” since 1665,
Sharpe led a plan for a peaceful general strike to start on Christmas Day in 1831, with the slaves demanding more freedom and a working wage and refusing to work unless their demands were met by the state owners and managers.
However, the peaceful strike morphed into the
largest slave rebellion in the West Indies with as many as 60,000 of Jamaica’s
300,000 slaves arming themselves and seizing property across the island. But in
just a few days the British forces and the Jamaican government quelled the
rebellion.
Fourteen planters and 2-300 slaves were killed during the battles, and later over 300 more were executed. Just before Sharpe was hanged in May 1832, he declared,
That slave rebellion, though, pushed Great
Britain to pass the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. Full emancipation throughout
all Britain’s colonies was implemented in 1838. Quite an accomplishment for the
Baptist (and other) slaves in Jamaica!
Baptist Deacons in Jamaica
Sam Sharpe, who led that Christmas Rebellion
of 1831 was a Baptist deacon (and lay preacher)—and because so many of those
who participated in the battles were Baptists, it is often called the Baptist
War.
Another Baptist deacon, Paul Bogle, led a
significant antipoverty uprising in 1865. According to Wikipedia,
Bogle (b. 1822–24) “was a Jamaican Baptist deacon and activist” who led a march
“for justice and fair treatment for all the people in Jamaica.” He was hanged by
the government in Oct. 1865.
In 1968, though, the Jamaican government established
The Order of National Hero, and seven Jamaicans have been inducted into that Order.
Two of those seven are Deacon Sharpe and Deacon Bogle.
Also, Deacon Sharpe’s image is on the Jamaican $50 bill even now.
Thank God for Sam Sharpe and Paul Bogle, Baptist
deacons who led in the struggle for freedom and justice!
Here are significant comments received a few minutes ago from Thinking Friend Eric Dollard in Chicago:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for sharing some history about slavery.
"As the numbers you cited clearly imply, slaves greatly outnumbered whites in Jamaica at the time of the rebellion. They also outnumbered whites in South Carolina and Mississippi in 1860 and it is noteworthy that those were the first two states to secede. There is a close correlation between the percentage of slaves in a population and the order in which the Southern states seceded.
"Nat Turner’s rebellion broke out in August 1831 and I wonder to what extent that rebellion inspired the rebellion in Jamaica. Also noteworthy is that Turner considered himself to be a Baptist preacher."
Eric, thanks for your comments and especially for mentioning Nat Turner's rebellion. I wanted to say something about that but didn't because of wanting to keep the article to under 700 words. I was unable to find any information about whether Deacon Sharpe and his followers knew about Turner's rebellion, but it would be interesting to know what they had heard, if anything, about that.
DeleteAs you likely remember, I posted about Turner's rebellion in August:
https://theviewfromthisseat.blogspot.com/2021/08/misusing-bible-tragedy-of-nat-turners.html
Tribune is a democratic socialist political magazine founded in 1937 and published in London, initially as a newspaper, then converting to a magazine in 2001. On Christmas Day they posted this informative article about the Christmas Rebellion of 1831:
ReplyDeletehttps://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/12/christmas-rebellion-baptist-war-jamaica-slavery
Here are comments from Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky:
ReplyDelete"Wow! That praise from a Baptist pacifist? I agree with you, Leroy. Sometimes even pacifists have to concede the rightness of rebellion against a system as evil as slavery."
Thanks, Dr. Hinson, for your comments. I was hoping someone would pick up on the apparent contradiction of my being a baptist (no longer Baptist) pacifist and my praise of the Baptist deacons of Jamaica.
DeleteIn my, and their, defense, it seems that Deacon Sharpe, and probably Deacon Bogle also, did not plan for or encourage violence that led to the killing of the White planters. The battle that began on Christmas night was a peaceful strike, and if it had remained that it could well have achieved the same results.
One man, of course, can’t control what 60,000 mistreated people will do, and the strike certainly turned violent—and the killing was done by the Whites far more than by the enslaved people. Those who take the sword die by the sword.
But in spite of the means not being the best, the end in this case was certainly a good one: the abolition of slavery in all of Britain’s colonies implemented in 1838.
Interesting that Deacon Bogle suffered the same fate as Deacon Sharpe. Some folk would like a similar fate for BLM people.
DeleteThanks for posting your comments, Charles -- and, sadly, I think you are correct in your assessment: some Whites in the U.S. do want, it seems, to treat protesters the same way now as the Whites in Jamaica treated the protesters there in 1832.
DeleteInteresting history and good comments. I was struck by the paragraph saying that Englishmen wanted to make their fortunes growing sugar cane, and slaves were needed in the cane fields. While slavery was outlawed later in the United States, Americans still want to make their fortunes and many believe they need poverty wages to accomplish that. What does that mean?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, and question, Dennis. I think you have touched on an important matter: many of the so-called working-class people are not slaves such as those who were literally enslaved in Jamaica and then for a longer time in the U.S. But many of those people have for a very long time worked very much in slave labor conditions, that is, exploited by employers and having no say about their working conditions or wages. That was the reason behind the rise of labor unions, and the reason that now there are voices calling for formation of new labor unions for those working for "poverty wages." For example, among the many "demands" of the current Poor People's Campaign are these:
Delete"We demand the immediate implementation of federal and state living wage laws that are commensurate for the 21st century economy, guaranteed annual incomes, full employment and the right for all workers to form and join unions.
"We demand an end to anti-union and anti-workers’ rights laws in the states."
Here is the link to their lengthy statement of demands:
https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/about/our-demands/
The Jan./Feb. issue of "Christianity Today" magazine, which I received yesterday, includes an article titled "How Black Missionaries Are Being Written Back into the Story." It begins, "When George Liele set sail for Jamaica in 1782, he didn't know he was about to become America's first overseas missionary" (p. 23).
ReplyDeleteOn Dec. 13, the same article was posted online at the following link:
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/january-february/black-missions-history-rewritten-protten-liele.html
The musical "Godspell" incorporates a number of historic Christian texts to supplement the Bible. One of special relevance here is "God Save the People," an old hymn text (1850, by Ebenezer Elliott) which prays for God to save "not kings and thrones, but men." Of course, much of Christianity has exactly saved kings and thrones, and that imperial Christianity has alienated many in the modern world. You can hear the Godspell version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeoCp8MIlDM
ReplyDeleteKings and thrones co-opt religions all over the world, not just Christianity. There has always been a prophetic challenge to imperial religion, that seeks to express the soul of the religion, not just the trappings of the king. Unfortunately, the kings usually fight back. One of the latest attacks on the soul of Christianity comes from the imperial theology of "Capitalism." With its unholy trinity of God the Father Almighty Dollar, God the Son Free Market, and God the Holy Ghost Invisible Hand, Capitalism has sucked a lot of the life out of Christianity. It turns out imperial Capitalism not only coordinates with imperial militarism, it often seamlessly blends into it.
Now Elliot wrote too late to have affected either Nat Turner or Samuel Sharp, but another scripture-based song from around 1800 might have influenced both, and even George Lisle. You can hear Paul Robeson sing it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3OjHIhLCDs