The Baptist War, also known as the…
December 1831 CE
At its peak, more than twenty thousand people will be involved, and more than five hundred killed.
The missionary-educated rebels had been following progress of the abolitionist movement in London; their intention was to call a peaceful general strike.
Compared with their Presbyterian, Wesleyan, and Moravian counterparts, Baptist slaves seem more ready to take action.
This may reflect a higher level of absenteeism among white Baptist missionaries.
The relative independence of Black deacons facilitates slaves taking greater ownership over their religious life, including reinterpretations of Baptist theology in terms of their experience (for example, they place an emphasis on the role of John the Baptist, sometimes at the expense of Jesus.)
Thomas Burchell, a missionary in Montego Bay, had returned from England following Christmas vacation.
Many of the Baptist ministry had expected that he would return with papers for emancipation from the king William IV.
They had also thought that the King's men would enforce the order and discontent had escalated among slaves when the Jamaican governor announced that no emancipation had been granted.
Led by 'native' Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe, enslaved black workers demand more freedom and a working wage of "half the going wage rate"; they takean oath to stay away from work until their demands are met by the plantation owners.
The enslaved laborers believe that the work stoppage can achieve their ends alone—a resort to force is only envisaged if violence is used against them.
It will become the largest slave uprising in the British West Indies, mobilizing as many as sixty thousand of Jamaica's three hundred thousand enslaved blacks.
During the rebellion, fourteen whites will be killed by armed slave battalions and two hundred and seven rebels will be killed.
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