Davis open to memorial for slaves killed after Christmas Rebellion
Published:Saturday | December 24, 2022 | 1:09 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
HOMER DAVIS, state minister in the Office of the Prime Minister – West, says consideration may be given to create a memorial to 200 slaves who were killed during the Lima massacre in Adelphi, St James, which occurred the Christmas Rebellion of 1831.
Davis, who is also member of parliament for St James Southern, was speaking to The Gleaner following Thursday’s Flames of Freedom Sam Sharpe Lecture at the Montego Bay Cultural Centre in St James.
He was responding to a call from Sam Sharpe historian and former Mayor of Montego Bay, Shalman Scott.
Sharpe, who is one of the country’s national heroes, was a key figure in the rebellion.
“It is something that I will definitely look into because it is important for us to record our history and have all these monuments to show what we have achieved as a country. I endorse the suggestion, but I will have to speak to the responsible minister to see how best we can go through [with] that because it will have to go through all the government preamble,” said Davis.
“That (history) is what prompted me to have this Sam Sharpe lecture, and as long as I remain the member of parliament for St James Southern, we will have a yearly Sam Sharpe lecture,” he added.
“It might delve into other areas because what Mr Scott did tonight is just the tip of the iceberg, but there are so many things to learn from Sam Sharpe, and not only Sam Sharpe, but his followers who were very influential also, because he alone couldn’t do it and some 60,000 persons were involved in the rebellion,” Davis added.
During his keynote presentation, in which he outlined findings of his research into Sharpe’s life and the impact of the Christmas Rebellion, Scott argued that a monument should be erected to honour the memory of the 200 slaves, describing the bloody aftermath as Jamaica’s greatest mass murder under colonial powers.
“The Lima massacre in St James, in which 200 defenceless enslaved Africans – men, women, and children – were rounded up and shot in cold blood in the square just outside Adelphi is a major blot in our history. The Adelphi Anglican Church was the staging ground from which the 200 enslaved persons were massacred by the white planters, and during the slave rebellion, the Adelphi Anglican Church was transformed into a military barracks, torturing chamber, whipping post, and a jail for the slaves in that area,” said Scott.
“This must not be forgotten,” he added as he called for the memorial.
Thursday’s lecture was among a series of activities leading up to the Flames of Freedom Torch Run, which is set for December 28and will see some 200 youth from St James Southern taking part.
The symbolic run will see participants going from Catadupa through Cambridge and into Montpelier, then to Anchovy en route to Sam Sharpe Square for a short ceremony, and then on to Granville and John’s Hall before ending with another ceremony and a grand celebratory concert at Tulloch Castle.
There will also be a re-enacted lighting of a thatch house, symbolic of the signal which started the 1831 rebellion that eventually spearheaded the abolition of slavery and the push for full Emancipation, which came on August 1, 1838.
Sharpe, who was born in 1801 and served as a deacon at the now 198-year-old Burchell Baptist Church in Montego Bay, was proclaimed a national hero in 1975.