The Beginning of Jamaican Emancipation

Baptist Preacher Samuel Sharpe leads a revolt of up to sixty thousand slaves for ten days. Abolition of slavery had been debated in London in 1831, and white slavers in Jamaica had spent much of the year loudly protesting the proposed measures. This island-wide movement of reaction spread the news to the slaves. Sharpe and other preachers began discussing Thomas Paine in their chapels. With the demand of emancipation and normalized wages, Sharpe led a strike that became a revolt, damaging property, but killing only fourteen whites. Over five hundred Blacks were massacred in response, and Black chapels were burned to the ground. Emancipation was won by the end of the decade. Sharpe, today, is an official national hero of Jamaica. The place in Montego Bay that he hanged is known as Sam Sharpe Square, and his face adorns the currency. I would rather die on yonder gallows than live in slavery. Samuel Sharpe, May 1832