The Baptist War, also known as the Sam Sharp Rebellion, the Christmas Rebellion, the Christmas Uprising and the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt of 1831–32, was an eleven-day rebellion that started on 25 December 1831 and involved up to 60,000 of the 300,000 slaves in the

Colony of Jamaica The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was prima ...

. The uprising was led by a black

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...

deacon, Samuel Sharpe, and waged largely by his followers. The revolt, though militarily unsuccessful, played a major part in the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire.

Ideology

The missionary-educated rebels had been following progress of the

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

movement in London; their intention was to call a peaceful general strike.Craton, Michael. ''Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies'' (Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 297–98 Compared with their

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charle ...

, and Moravian counterparts, Baptist slaves seemed more ready to take action. This may have reflected a higher level of absenteeism among white Baptist missionaries. The relative independence of Black

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Chur ...

s facilitated slaves taking greater ownership over their religious life, including reinterpretations of Baptist theology in terms of their experience (for example, they placed an emphasis on the role of

John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

, sometimes at the expense of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

Thomas Burchell Thomas Burchell (1799–1846) was a leading Baptist missionary and slavery abolitionist in Montego Bay, Jamaica in the early nineteenth century. He was among an early group of missionaries who went out from London in response to a request from ...

, a missionary in Montego Bay, returned from England following Christmas vacation. Many of the Baptist ministry expected that he would return with papers for emancipation from the king,

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...

. They also thought that the King's men would enforce the order and discontent escalated among slaves when the Jamaican governor announced that no emancipation had been granted.

The strike and the uprising

Led by 'native'

preacher Samuel Sharpe, enslaved black workers demanded more freedom and a working wage of "half the going wage rate"; they took an oath to stay away from work until their demands were met by the plantation owners. The enslaved laborers believed that the work stoppage could achieve their ends alone – a resort to force was only envisaged if violence was used against them. Sharpe was the inspiration for the rebellion, and was nicknamed "Daddy" Sharpe. His military commanders were mainly literate slaves, like him, and they included Johnson, a carpenter called Campbell from York estate, a waggoner from Greenwich estate named Robert Gardner, Thomas Dove from Belvedere estate, John Tharp from Hazlelymph estate, and George Taylor, who, like Sharpe, was a deacon in Burchell's chapel. It became the largest slave uprising in the British West Indies, mobilizing as many as 60,000 of Jamaica's 300,000 slaves.Barry W. Higman, "Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807–1834", ''Journal of Interdisciplinary History'', Vol. 16, No. 2 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 365–67 During the rebellion, fourteen whites were killed by armed slave battalions and 207 rebels were killed.Turner (1982) p. 121 The rebellion exploded on December 27, when slaves set fire to Kensington estate, in the hills above Montego Bay. Colonel William Grignon of the militia was an attorney who ran several estates, including one at Salt Spring, where a series of incidents in December were the sparks for the uprising. Grignon led the militia against the rebels at Belvedere estate, but he was forced to retreat, leaving the rebels in command of the rural areas of the parish of St James. On December 31, the colonial authorities instituted martial law. Sir

Willoughby Cotton Lieutenant General Sir Willoughby Cotton (1783 – 4 May 1860) was a British soldier. Family Willoughby Cotton was born in 1783, to Vice-Admiral Rowland Cotton and Elizabeth Aston. They also had a daughter, Sydney Arabella Cotton. Rowland Cot ...

, who commanded the British forces, then summoned the

Jamaican Maroons Jamaican Maroons descend from Africans who freed themselves from slavery on the Colony of Jamaica and established communities of free black people in the island's mountainous interior, primarily in the eastern parishes. Africans who were ensl ...

Accompong Town Accompong (from the Akan name ''Acheampong'') is a historical Maroon village located in the hills of St. Elizabeth Parish on the island of Jamaica. It is located in Cockpit Country, where Jamaican Maroons and indigenous Taíno established a fort ...

to help suppress the rebellion in the second week of January. However, when the Accompong Maroons attacked the rebels at Catadupa, they were forced to withdraw because the rebels were "too strong". The Accompong Maroons soon gained the upper hand however, and they defeated the rebels in one skirmish, killing one of Sharpe's deputies, Campbell, in the assault. When the army regulars were besieged by the rebels at Maroon Town, the Accompong Maroons relieved them, killing more rebels, and capturing scores of them, including another of Sharpe's deputies, Dehany. When the Windward Maroons from

Charles Town, Jamaica Charles Town is one of four official towns of the Jamaican Maroons. It is located on Buff Bay River in Portland Parish."The Charles Town Maroons today", Jamaica Observer 12 November 2018 http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/observer-north-east/the-charle ...

and Moore Town answered the call of Cotton, the rebel cause was lost. These eastern Maroons killed and captured a number of other rebels, including another leader named Gillespie. One of the last leaders of the rebels, Gardner, surrendered when he heard the Charles Town Maroons had joined the fight against them.

Suppression and death toll

The rebellion was quickly suppressed by the colonial authorities. The reaction of the colonial government and reprisals of the

plantocracy A slavocracy, also known as a plantocracy, is a ruling class, political order or government composed of (or dominated by) slave owners and plantation owners. A number of early European colonies in the New World were largely plantocracies, usually ...

were far more brutal than any actions undertaken by the rebels; approximately 500 slaves were killed, with 207 killed outright during the revolt. After the rebellion, an estimated 310 to 340 slaves were killed through "various forms of judicial executions". At times, slaves were executed for quite minor offenses (one recorded execution was for the theft of a pig; another, a cow). An 1853 account by

Henry Bleby Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) * Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...

described how the courts commonly executed three or four persons simultaneously; bodies were piled up until the black people relegated to the workhouse carted the bodies away at night and buried them in mass graves outside town. After the rebellion, property damage was estimated in the Jamaican Assembly summary report in March 1832 at £1,154,589 (roughly £124,000,000 in 2021).Thousands of rebels had set fire to more than 100 properties, destroying over 40 sugar works and the houses of nearly 100 planters. The planters suspected many missionaries of having encouraged the rebellion. Some, such as

William Knibb William Knibb, OM (7 September, 1803 Kettering – 15 November 1845) was an English Baptist minister and missionary to Jamaica. He is chiefly known today for his work to free enslaved Africans. On the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slav ...

and Bleby, were arrested, tarred and feathered, but later released. Groups of white colonials destroyed chapels that housed black congregations.

Aftermath

As a result of the Baptist War, hundreds of slaves ran away into the

Cockpit Country Cockpit Country is an area in Trelawny and Saint Elizabeth, Saint James, Saint Ann, Manchester and the northern tip of Clarendon parishes in Jamaica. The land is marked by steep-sided hollows, as much as deep in places, which are separated b ...

in order to avoid being forced back into slavery. The Maroons were only successful in apprehending a small number of these runaway slaves. Many runaways remained free and at large when the British parliament passed the Act abolishing slavery in 1833. Historians argue that the brutality of the Jamaican plantocracy during the revolt accelerated the British political process of emancipating the slaves. When Burchell and Knibb described how badly they were treated by the colonial militias, the House of Commons expressed their outrage that white planters could have tarred and feathered white missionaries. Parliament passed the

Slavery Abolition Act 1833 The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. It was passed by Earl Grey's reforming administrat ...

for initial measures to begin in 1834, followed by partial emancipation (outright for children six or under, six years' apprenticeship for the rest) in 1834 and then unconditional emancipation of chattel slavery in 1838.

In literature

Andrea Levy Andrea Levy (7 March 1956 – 14 February 2019) was an English author best known for the novels '' Small Island'' (2004) and ''The Long Song'' (2010). She was born in London to Jamaican parents, and her work explores topics related to British ...

's 2010 novel ''

The Long Song ''The Long Song'' is a historical novel by Andrea Levy published in 2010 that was the recipient of the Walter Scott Prize. It was Levy's fifth and final novel, following the 2004 publication of '' Small Island''. In December 2018, a three-part ...

'' recounts, through a fictional narrative, the events of the Baptist War. * The 1929 novel ''The White Witch of Rosehall'', by Herbert G. de Lisser, has a climax set in Rose Hall at the time of the Baptist War.

Ideology

The strike and the uprising

Suppression and death toll

Aftermath

In literature

Notes

Further reading