Jamaican Revolts in British Press and Politics, 1760-1865
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2016 Jamaican Revolts in British Press and Politics, 1760-1865 Thomas R. Day Virginia Commonwealth University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd Part of the Cultural History Commons, European History Commons, and the Other History Commons © The Author Downloaded from https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/4089 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. © Thomas Day 2016 All Rights Reserved Jamaican Revolts in British Press and Politics, 1760-1865 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. by Thomas Robert Day Master of Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2016 Director: Dr. Brooke Newman, Assistant Professor, History Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, Virginia May 2016 Acknowledgement The author would like to acknowledge the tireless assistance of Dr. Brooke Newman who served not only as the director of this thesis but in countless ways assisting in its completion. The author would also like to thank his wife Leslie for two years of support assistance and patience during the writing of this work. ii Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................................... iv Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: Tacky’s Rebellion of 1760: A System Shock ............................................................................ 13 Part 1: “Tacky’s Rebellion”: A slave uprising in the news ....................................................................... 13 Part 2: “Some Disturbances”: The Rebellion begins ............................................................................... 17 Part 3: “The Negro Way”: The shift towards a racial binary ................................................................... 31 Part 4: “With my Sword Girt On”: The Cost of Self Defense ................................................................... 38 Part 5: “Their Merciless Masters”: Reform and Punishment .................................................................. 45 Chapter 2: The “Baptist War” of 1831-32 .................................................................................................. 57 Part 1: The “Baptist War” or the Revolt of 1831-32 ............................................................................... 57 Part 2: “The West Indian Question”- Slavery and the Slaves in the British Empire ............................... 67 Part 3: “With British Hearts to Wield Them”- In defense of the planters .............................................. 74 Part 4: “Fine Hanging Woods”- Punishment and the Missionaries ......................................................... 85 Chapter 3: The Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 .......................................................................................... 94 Part 1: The Mid Victorians and their Empire........................................................................................... 94 Part 2: “In a community composed of two races”: Race and changing perspectives of Jamaicans ..... 102 Part 3: “Morant Bay is Ruined”: Violence and ‘African’ Savagery in Morant Bay ................................ 110 Part 4: “Everybody is Talking about the Insurrection in Jamaica” ........................................................ 118 Part 5: “The Most Hated Race in the World”: Race and the Rebels ..................................................... 128 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 135 Bibliography.............................................................................................................................................. 142 Vita ........................................................................................................................................................... 152 iii Abstract JAMAICAN REVOLTS IN BRIITSH PRESS AND POLITICS, 1760-1865 By Thomas Robert Day, MA. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2016. Major Director: Dr. Brooke Newman, Assistant Professor, History This research examines the changes over time in British Newspaper reports covering the Jamaican rebellions of 1760, 1832 and 1865. The uprisings: Tacky’s Rebellion, the Baptist War and the Morant Bay Rebellion respectively, represented three key moments in the history of race, slavery and the British Empire. Though all three rebellions have been studied, this work compares the three events as moments of crisis challenging the British public discourse on slavery, race and subjecthood as it related to the changing Atlantic Empire. British newspapers provided the most direct way in which popular readers and the growing literate public examined and explored distant relations with colonial peoples. This research sheds light on the significant impact these rebellions had on rhetorical choices regarding race and slavery, and establishes that by forcing a public discourse on the topics of subjecthood and race, the rebellions in Jamaica had a dramatic trans-Atlantic impact. Introduction1 There is a popular political cliché that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” While rhetoricians and philosophers may debate the validity or meaning of the phrase itself, the underlying message of the aphorism is that relation defines perspective, and in the case of civil violence the line between morally justified and morally repulsive is thin and regularly crossed. Whether this is true for contemporary observers of insurgency conflicts and the War on Terror is a question best left to sociologists and political scientists, but such conflicts are not inventions of the twentieth century nor are public interpretations of the perpetrators of civil resistance. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the British Empire experienced a series of local civil insurrections, riots, rebellions and attempted revolutions. These imperial disruptions not only shook the reality of British rule on a political and economic front but also challenged popular understandings of the moral righteousness of British power. During these periods newspapers represented the most direct and widely available means by which British subjects learned about and interpreted challenges to British rule. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries featured dramatic shifts in the Empire, including substantial and in some cases quite radical changes in the geographic reach and racial makeup of the British Empire, and with these changes came significant questions regarding what it meant to be a British subject. Questions regarding national belonging and the rights of imperial subjects generated conflicts, as rival interpretations about the role of non-white imperial subjects boiled over from civil unrest into outright rebellion. Localized uprisings, such as those Jamaica experienced in 1 A note about spelling and grammar: From primary source documents I have attempted to keep the spelling as reflective of the printed word. I have replaced the archaic use of the “f” with an “s” for more accurate understanding, but have left capitalization as written. 1 1760, 1831 and 1865, challenged both colonial legal and social conventions regarding race and subjecthood as well as British metropolitan interpretations of the role of racially diverse peoples within the growing Empire. The Jamaican uprisings of 1760, 1831 and 1865—taking place at the height of the slave era, on the eve of Emancipation, and in the post-Emancipation era had a dramatic impact on popular social interpretations of both the role of the Empire and the meaning of race. By analyzing all three rebellions, this study will illustrate the pivotal roles of race, loyalty, and empire in dictating how British newspapers interpreted and broadcasted narratives of resistance to British imperialism. The revolts serve as signposts of the three stages of black existence in the Empire: from African chattel to domestic slaves and finally to free British subjects. Beginning with Tacky’s rebellion in the 1760s, British newspapers began to echo official calls for amelioration and depicted rebels in a sympathetic and relatable light despite the great risk to British control and power represented by Tacky’s rebellion. In 1832, as slavery and race took a more central role in the public discourse surrounding the West Indian colonies, newspaper coverage became more divisive. Newspaper accounts helped to transition sympathetic rhetoric from the wronged slaves onto the victimized white missionaries. By the Morant Bay rebellion of 1865, when the British Empire had by and large done away with both slavery and the plantation economy, race became central to the narratives of the rebellion. The more Britons became certain of their power and place in the world, the greater role race played in determining who would receive metropolitan