The Causes Of The Morant Bay Rebellion In Jamaica

On October 11, 1865, Paul Bogle led a group of free blacks to Morant Bay with the intention of protesting a local trail. Things quickly turned violent and a full-scale uprising occurred that ravaged the local town. In the late nineteenth century, free blacks faced economic hardships during Jamaica’s strenuous financial crisis, while whites prospered and continued to rule the colony. The people became very discontent with Governor Edward John Eyre because he mismanaged the economic conditions of the colony. He utilized racial issues as a way to mask the economic conditions Jamaica, which led to the rebellion. On July 8, 1865, the Jamaica Guardian captured the people’s dissatisfaction with Eyre and call for his removal because of his “weak, vacillating, and undignified” character and conduct. The people were outraged when he when he used force and violence to deal with the rebellion, but an outcry began when accused George William Gordon, a free black businessman, of being part of the rebellion. A group of Englishman created the Jamaica Committee in response to Eyre’s actions to get him removed from office.

The Morant Bay Rebellion received a lot of attention in England and

The political and public arena ignored the economic disparities of the colony and focused on the issue of race because the ruling elite feared a large black population that out numbered them. Furthermore, the coverage of the rebellion signifies Britain’s strong interest in racial politics and its connections to the empire. Therefore, this project illustrates how race and class intersect on a micro and macro scale connecting the colonial enterprise to the British metropolis. Thus, it is possible to conclude that Morant Bay Rebellion laid the foundation for massive public criticism about colonialism, which threatened the stability of