John Smith (1790–1824) was a

missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

whose experiences in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

attracted the attention of the anti-slavery campaigner

William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becom ...

. As a result of his actions, trial by court martial and subsequent death whilst under imprisonment, Smith became known as the "Demerara Martyr"."Wallbridge's 'The Demerara Martyr'"
''Guyana Chronicle''. 13 August 2011 His case, and news of the enormous size of the uprising and the brutal loss of African life, caused a great awakening in England, strengthening 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 ...

cause which eventually succeeded in British territories worldwide in 1838.

Biography

Smith was born an orphan on 27 June 1790 in Northamptonshire. He received his early education only at Sunday school, and trained to be a baker, after which he applied to be a missionary. He married Jane Godden. On 12 December 1816 he was ordained at Tonbridge Chapel. Smith arrived in

Demerara Demerara ( nl, Demerary, ) is a historical region in the Guianas, on the north coast of South America, now part of the country of Guyana. It was a colony of the Dutch West India Company between 1745 and 1792 and a colony of the Dutch state ...

under the auspices of the

London Missionary Society The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed in outlook, with Congregational m ...

on 23 February 1817. He lived at the 'Le Resouvenir' plantation, where he preached at Bethel Chapel, primarily attended by African slaves. In the morning of 18 August 1823, in what is known as the ' Demerara rebellion of 1823', about ten to twelve thousand slaves drawn from plantations on the East Coast of the Demerara colony rebelled, under the belief that their masters were concealing news of the slaves' emancipation. Smith was subsequently charged with promoting discontent and dissatisfaction in the minds of the African slaves, exciting the slaves to rebel, and failing to notify the authorities that the slaves intended to rebel. In his trial he was defended by William Arrindell. John Smith was arraigned in court-martial before Lt. Col. Goodman on 13 October. Smith's trial concluded one month later, on 24 November; Smith was found guilty of the principal charges, and was given the death sentence; he was transferred from Colony House to prison. Bryant suggested that a pre-existing illness was the cause of Smith's demise on

6 February Events Pre-1600 *1579 – The Archdiocese of Manila is made a diocese by a papal bull with Domingo de Salazar being its first bishop. 1601–1900 *1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland is proclaimed King upon the death of h ...

1824, before the intended Royal reprieve arrived; he asserted that Smith had been ill for some time, but that his accommodation was airy and spacious and that had been looked after with "utmost attention and kindness". Others, namely Jakobssen (1972) Craton (1982), however, state that Smith died in a damp prison of consumption. Out of fear of stirring up slave sentiment, the colonists interred him at four a.m., without marking his grave. His death was a major step forward in the campaign to abolish slavery. News of his death was published in British newspapers, provoked enormous outrage and garnered 200 petitions to Parliament.

Biography

See also

References

Further reading