careful planning and coordination. There were various meetings to
decide on tactics, and it was clear from the beginning that the only
way to succeed was for the uprising to span the entire colony. You can
see how successful this tactical planning was, because when the
uprising did unfold, the enslaved abolitionists quickly took over the
colony and mostly stuck to Jack Gladstone’s policy of non-violence.
Timing was incredibly important. They held off launching the
uprising for many weeks, waiting to see if the governor [John Murray]
would honour a letter from England that told him to lessen, or
“ameliorate”, the terrible conditions of slavery. Only when it became
obvious that that wasn’t going to happen, did they decide to act. They
also agreed to launch it on a Monday, when people had at least had
some rest on the Sunday before, and also so any last-minute changes
could be communicated in churches across the colony.What role did religion play in inspiring the uprising?
The church had an ambiguous role in the colonies. Many church
members were slaveholders, and for the most part, saw themselves as
guardians of the status quo across the Caribbean, tasked with “civilis-
ing” the enslaved people.
However, there were some dissenters, mostly non-conformists
connected to the London Missionary Society. When John Smith was
sent out to Demerara, he was told that his role was to bring Christiani-
ty to the enslaved people but not to disrupt the colony’s social order.
But when he was in day-to-day contact with enslaved people and
witnessed the horrors of slavery, he found this to be a huge conflict.
He communicated his disapproval of slavery through preaching
biblical stories like that of the Jews overthrowing their enslavement in
Egypt, and fought against the attempts of neighbouring plantation
owners to stop the enslaved people attending service.
At the start of the uprising, however, Smith encouraged Quamina
and Jack Gladstone to be patient and wait to see what happened. It was
only after the uprising began that he essentially said: “You’ve started
now, you need to finish it off.” With hindsight his role looks more
ambivalent, but when it came to Smith’s trial, the powers-that-be saw
him as an instigator. They found him guilty of inciting the enslaved
people to rebel and sentenced him to death. [Smith died in prison
before the sentence was carried out.]How did the uprising unfold?
It started on Success plantation, about 20 miles east of the capital,
Georgetown. The plantations were long, thin strips of land, about a
quarter of a mile wide and about three miles long. This meant that
people on different plantations knew each other and went to church
together, and news could travel very quickly from one plantation toThe militia marched forward and
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least 200 enslaved abolitionists had
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ORION^BOOKS/ALAMYanother. There were bells in all the plantations, so when the uprising
began, Jack rang the bell on Success. As it spread from plantation to
plantation, this bell-ringing was used as a way of alerting people that
the uprising had begun.
As per Jack Gladstone’s non-violent tactics, the enslaved people
locked up the plantation managers in the stocks and seized their
weapons. By the end of the first night, more than 30 estates were
under the control of the enslaved abolitionists. On the morning of the
third day of the uprising, Jack Gladstone and his group met up with a
large number of enslaved abolitionists at a plantation called Bachelor’s
Adventure. There they came face-to-face with the British militia.How did the British go about suppressing the rebellion?
Soon after the uprising started, martial law was enacted and the
governor commanded every white man in Demerara to join the
militia. They went from plantation to plantation, brutally suppressing
resistance and taking back control of the plantations.
Some people call the events at Bachelor’s Adventure a battle, but
I would call it a massacre. Around 200 or 300 British militia lined up
and faced off against up to 4,000 enslaved abolitionists who, for the
most part, had only hand-made weapons. Jack Gladstone had been
very clear that no violence should be used. When there was a parley
with the head of the British militia, Colonel Leahy, Jack Gladstone
said that he knew the king wished to set the enslaved people free and
that they simply wanted the governor to carry out the sovereign’s
wishes. But Leahy was adamant that there was no way that was going
to happen. He marched his men forward until they were in very close
proximity, and then ordered them to start firing. Within 15 minutes,
at least 200 enslaved abolitionists had been killed. It was a bloodbath.
After that, the militia swept through the plantations, arresting
enslaved people and holding what can only be described as kangaroo
courts. Following a few seconds of conversation, they would find an
enslaved person guilty without any evidence or witnesses, line themA modern imagining of Jack Gladstone,
leader of the uprising, who was deported
to St Lucia after his captureAfter being conscripted to the British
militia, John Cheveley expressed horror
at the suppression of the uprisingThe missionary John Smith was
sentenced to death for his role in
the unrestAs the largest owner of enslaved people
in Demerara, John Gladstone was an
adversary of the abolition movement