On October 11, 1865 several hundred black people led by Paul Bogle marched into Morant Bay. They confronted the white and brown militia protecting the St. Thomas vestry (the parish assembly) and fighting erupted. By nightfall the crowd had killed 18 people and wounded 31 others, while 7 members of the crowd died. Disturbances spread across the parish and martial law was declared. By the time it ended a month later, 29 whites and browns had been killed and nearly 500 people executed in retaliation.

Economic distress was one cause of the Morant Bay Rebellion. The American civil war had dramatically increased food and clothing costs, collapsing sugar prices had cut estate wages and made work scarce, there was a severe drought, and small farmers had to pay exorbitant rents. Black ex-slaves also resented their lack of land and the continued domination of whites and browns. The judicial structure was corrupt, and employees had little hope for redress against employers. Court costs were also prohibitive, and blacks often resorted to informal courts to resolve their differences.

In January 1865 the English missionary Edward Underhill wrote a letter  describing “the extreme poverty of the people” who had to “steal or starve”. He criticized the Jamaican Legislature for the high levels of taxes, abortive immigration schemes, and the denial of political rights.  “Underhill” meetings of persons wishing to change the system sprang up across the island.

In 1865 the people of St Ann addressed a petition to Queen Victoria complaining of hardships and asking to be rented Crown land at low rates. Governor John Eyre forwarded it, but blamed the people’s problems on “their natural disposition to indolence.”

The Colonial Office responded with “The Queen’s Advice” telling labourers that “it is from their own industry… that they must look for an improvement in their condition.” Many missionaries refused to circulate it, maintaining that the Queen would not have replied so unsympathetically.

Matters were inflamed in St. Thomas by George William Gordon’s advocacy of the ex-slaves’ interests. When Gordon complained about the state of the Morant Bay jail, Eyre removed him from the Magistracy. Colonial Office officials backed Eyre, but praised Gordon’s effort to improve jail conditions. Gordon won election to the St. Thomas vestry, but his championing of the ‘small man’ alienated the leading members, who once bodily ejected him from a meeting. In August 1865 Gordon attacked Eyre for sanctioning “everything done by the higher class to the oppression of the negroes” and reportedly raised the spectre of Haiti.

One area of Gordon’s electoral strength was Stony Gut, where Paul Bogle was his political agent. On October 7 Bogle and a group of men were involved in a skirmish with police at court, and arrest warrants were issued. But when the police went to apprehend Bogle, about 300 men disarmed them. The freed police heard that Bogle and his men would be coming to Morant Bay the next day.

Bogle complained in a petition to the Governor that ‘an outrageous assault was committed upon us by the policemen… which occasion an outbreaking for which warrants have been issued against innocent persons of which we were compelled to resist’. It continued ‘We therefore call upon your Excellency for protection, seeing we are Her Majesty’s loyal subjects, which protection if refused we will be compelled to put our shoulders to the wheel, as we have been imposed for a period of 27 years with due obeisance to the laws of our Queen and country, and we can no longer endure the same.” Here is the essence of the revolt.

Gad Heuman, author of “The Killing Time”, considers the Morant Bay outbreak “a rebellion characterized by advanced planning and a degree of organization”. The crowd did not loot the town after the vestry attack. And a  month before the outbreak, Bogle had visited the Hayfield Maroons seeking their support - the Maroons were greatly feared for their violence in quelling unrest. But they offered Bogle no encouragement.

There was clearly a racial element in the Morant Bay violence. The crowd shouted ‘Kill no black; only white or brown… Colour for colour.’ But a prominent man with “a black skin and white heart’ was killed.

Bogle insisted that he was not rebelling against the Queen. Some of his followers vowed to kill all whites and their supporters so that the Queen would send “fresh gentlemen from England”. Ever since emancipation the black population had viewed the British Crown as a guarantor of their freedom. For white planters had talked openly of re-imposing slavery and having Jamaica join the United States as a slave state.

Whites saw the St. Thomas outbreak as a massive conspiracy of blacks intent on taking over the island, and the government ruthlessly put it down. The Maroons played a key role in suppressing the rebellion and committed many of the worst atrocities.

Eyre identified Gordon with the rebellion and had him arrested. He denied involvement, and indeed was in ill health at the time. But he was convicted and hung on October 23. In his final letter to his wife Gordon wrote “all I ever did was to recommend the people who complained to seek redress in a legitimate way… it is the will of my Heavenly Father that I should thus suffer in obeying his command to relieve the poor and needy… I thank him that I suffer in such a case.” Also on October 23 the Maroons captured Paul Bogle. He was hung the next day, going calmly and bravely to his death.

The harshness of the suppression led to the Jamaica Royal Commission inquiry in England. This praised Eyre for acting quickly, but condemned him for prolonging the period of martial law, for the injustice of Gordon’s trial, and for the barbarous punishment inflicted on the populace. It attributed the uprising to the people’s demands for land and a breakdown in the justice system. Eyre was dismissed and the National Assembly abolished in favour of Crown Colony rule. Sir John Peter Grant implemented the new system and effectively put into place the administrative apparatus of a modern state.

So in the end Gordon and Bogle got what they fought for, fair and competent government. But though it was an improvement over what went before, over time Crown Colony rule outlived its purpose. It entrenched the idea of white supremacy and blocked the development of black politics in Jamaica.  Be that as it may, Gordon and Bogle remain timeless symbols of courage, men who gave their lives standing up for the people’s rights.