Peter Espeut | Demanding freedom

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Maybe I have become impatient in my old age.

I am schooled by the history of my beloved country. Emancipation from chattel slavery in 1834 was bought with the blood of Deacon Dam Sharpe and his confrères in 1831-1832. “I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery” he told Methodist minister, the Rev Henry Bleby, as he was awaiting execution.

Bleby writes: “Sharpe acknowledged to me that he had, as an individual, no reason to find fault with the treatment he had received as a slave. His master, Samuel Sharpe, Esq, and the family, were always very kind to him, and he had never been flogged beyond the occasional and slight correction which he had received when a boy. But he thought, and he learnt from his Bible, that the whites had no more right to hold black people in slavery, than the black people had to make the white people slaves.”

Right is right, and wrong is simply wrong. Deacon Sam took a personal decision to do something about it. The abolitionists effectively made their moral case back in Britain, but the loss of life and property in Jamaica loudly demonstrated that slavery was economically unsustainable, and Jamaica made a big leap forward.

Jamaica quite rightly honours Deacon Sam Sharpe as a national hero.

Emancipation brought a payout of millions of pounds sterling to the former slaveowners in compensation for the loss of their property, and freed the plantocracy from their responsibility to feed and clothe their workers, and to provide them with medical care and housing. So-called “Full Freedom” in 1838 made the former chattels – now landless and powerless – free to starve as they entered a new era of wage slavery. They could not vote or stand for election, or become magistrates or sit on juries.

COULD NOT STAND IDLY

Enter Deacon Paul Bogle. Himself a landowner (and therefore able to vote) he could not stand idly by in his relative prosperity and see his neighbours victimised by a biased political and judicial system. Large landowners (who were the magistrates and prosecutors) would charge the owners of small stock with trespass and damages, and the cases would be tried by other large landowners; the large landowners always won, and were awarded their legal costs. Emancipation was clearly not enough!

In August 1865 Deacon Paul led a deputation of smallholders to the capital to present their grievances to the governor; after walking the 54 miles (87 km) from St Thomas in the east to Spanish Town, the governor refused to see them. Since the constituted authority would not even listen, they clearly had to take action themselves.

October 7, 1865 was market day and court day in Morant Bay, and Deacon Paul and his supporters attended court to observe one of the trespass cases. An assault case was first tried; the defendant was fined four shillings and 12 shillings and six pence toward legal cost; one Geohagen from among the onlookers shouted to the defendant to pay the fine but appeal against the costs; Geohagen was ordered into custody, and was arrested, but was rescued by Paul Bogle and his friends; the struggle continued outside the courthouse, and became a free-for-all fight with the police; the police were overpowered but unharmed. The trespass case followed, and the conviction was received quietly; Bogle stood security for the costs of the appeal, and everyone went home.

Two days later, the police went to Deacon Paul’s house with warrants for the arrest of Bogle and of 27 others for rioting; they had been expecting summonses, and were shocked at being faced with warrants of arrest; the police were overpowered and released.

On October 11, Deacon Paul and his supporters went to Morant Bay to present their grievances to the parish Vestry (i.e. the parish council); seeing the crowd, instead of hearing them out, the custos read the Riot Act; and then a riot began. The militia fired into the crowd killing ten people on the spot. The crowd retaliated.

In the end 29 whites were killed and 34 others seriously injured. In retaliation over 1,000 smallholder houses were burned, 354 persons were executed by court martial, 50 were shot without trial, 25 were shot by the Maroons, 10 were “killed otherwise”, and 600 were flogged.

UNSUSTAINABLE

But: the oppressive plantocratic regime was clearly unsustainable, and the Jamaica House of Assembly dissolved itself. After a British Commission of Inquiry, the parish vestries were abolished, and a slew of reforms took place, including of the legal system. The St Thomas martyrs did not shed their blood in vain, and Jamaica made a big leap forward. Today, Deacon Paul Bogle is hailed as a national hero, and National Heroes Day is celebrated every year in October.

But ordinary Jamaicans still could not vote. Protracted strikes in 1838 across Jamaica including at Islington, Serge Island, Frome and the Kingston waterfront resulted in violent state retaliation and the shedding of blood; disenfranchising the masses was unsustainable, forcing reforms; when Britain was distracted by World War II, all Jamaicans over 21 years old were given the right to vote, and Jamaica took a big leap forward.

Tired of maintaining unproductive colonies, Britain found colonialism unsustainable; they offloaded Jamaica in 1962, and we claimed to have “won” a victory, but nevertheless, Jamaica made a big leap forward.

But the truth is that we are still oppressed and in bondage. Our new political masters who moved into the chairs vacated by the British still retain their monarchical privileges, and use them to aggrandise themselves and deepen corruption; they have created political garrisons and maintain links with gangs and armed thugs; they maintain the substandard education system created by our colonial masters; crime, including murder, is rampant, and the electorate has withdrawn from the process. Under present arrangements, Jamaica is unsustainable.

For Jamaica to make any big leap forward, the present system must be abandoned and a new one created, but the gangs of Gordon House have hijacked the process of constitutional reform. The population is incensed by the gravaliciousness of the present crop of politicians, and may be at a tipping point.

It is now time for modern-day Jamaican patriots to step forward and demand freedom from this iniquitous system. Right is right, and wrong is simply wrong. Some may have to die so that the rest may be free.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com