Coromantees

One of Jamaica's worst insurrections of the eighteenth century started in the northeastern part of the island in April 1760 and rapidly spread westward, attracting perhaps as many as thirty thousand rebels. Like their leader, Tacky, nearly all of the rebels were African-born Akans — called Coromantees in Jamaica — from the West Africancoast then known as the Gold Coast, now Ghana. While destroyingproperty and creating panic among the whites, the rebels avoidedoutright battles with army regulars and militia. The military forces were supported by many of the island's maroons, who had gained their freedom by promising to assist authorities in putting down slave revolts and returning fugitives. After more than a year of fighting, the combined force of soldiers, militia, and maroons defeated the rebels in the summer of 1761. Many rebels, including Tacky, were killed before the revolt was suppressed. Sporadic fighting continued in western Jamaica for months, and martial law was maintained until October 1761. By the time the last rebels surrendered, between three hundred and four hundred rebels had been killed,along with sixty whites and sixty free blacks. About 350 rebels werearrested, of whom about one hundred were brutally executed — somewere slowly burned and others suspended and starved to death. Several rebels committed suicide rather than submit to torture and amore brutal death, and many were deported to the penal colony in British Honduras (now Belize).

Slave Revolts