The Morant Bay Rebellion 1865.

 

The Morant Bay Rebellion 1865

Many British people today, may not be aware of the Morant Bay Rebellion that took place in Jamaica in October I865. It's unlikely that they will ever have been taught about this aspect of brutality that underpinned British colonialism, in a history lesson at a British school.

The colony's governor, Edward Eyre, ordered that brutal force should be used to suppress a rebellion by non-white Jamaicans who worked on the sugar plantations. Some 400 Jamaicans were killed, many of them hanged in reprisals, after the fighting had finished. Hundreds were flogged and homes were burned down in retaliation.

The actions of the governor, in quashing the rebellion, caused a major controversy in Britain that divided public opinion about the role of British colonialism. One of those who was executed by governor Eyre, was George William Gordon, a wealthy member of the islands elected assembly. He was the son of an enslaved mother and a Scottish slave-owning father. Gordon's crime, for which he was hanged without trial, was that he had agitated on behalf of poor Jamaicans and had been a long-term political critic of the governor.

Some people in Britain, like Charles Darwin, and the philosopher John Stuart Mill, who were both members of Jamaica Committee, denounced Eyre and called for him to be put on trial for murder. Gordon was embraced as a Christian Martyr and Eyre portrayed as a butcher and military despot.

Other famous people, such as Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, and Thomas Carlyle, came out in support of governor Eyre and raised funds for his costs and legal defence. Carlyle denounced members of the Jamaica Committee, as a small group of "rabid Nigger-Philanthropists."

Edward Eyre was eventually put on trial in 1868, but was acquitted. While it's clear that Charles Dickens never was a supporter of black slavery in the U.S. which can be seen in his American Notes, and his novel Martin Chuzzlewit, he nevertheless, believed in the racial superiority of the white man which was a view that was shared by many of his contemporaries, and the people of his day. What is also clear, is that for many people living in Victorian Britain, black lives didn't really matter and were of less value than white lives. This attitude still endures to this day.