The Baptist War | Jamaica, 1831: Sam Sharpe and the Christmas Rebellion
The Griot | Stories Roots LegacyShow Notes
How did a planned strike for freedom become Jamaica’s largest slave revolt and accelerate emancipation across the British Caribbean? Sources: Jamaica Archives and Records Department; National Library of Jamaica; British Parliamentary Papers; Colonial Office correspondence; Mary Turner, Slaves and Missionaries
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What happened when an enslaved population organized resistance that became the only successful large-scale slave revolution and created an independent state? Sources: Haitian Declaration of Independence, 1804; French colonial correspondence in the Archives nationales d'outre-mer; C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins; Library of Congress, Haiti country studies; Digital Library of the Caribbean
Why did a protest over poverty, land and justice become a colonial crisis that ended with hundreds dead and a governor recalled? Sources: Jamaica Royal Commission Report, 1866; House of Commons Parliamentary Papers on Jamaica; George William Gordon trial records; National Library of Jamaica; The National Archives, Colonial Office records
What caused police to fire on Muslim Hosay processions, killing and wounding participants in one of Trinidad’s defining colonial confrontations? Sources: Trinidad colonial Blue Books; Colonial Office correspondence on the 1884 disturbances; Contemporary newspapers including the Trinidad Chronicle; National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago; Historical scholarship on Indo-Caribbean religious traditions
How did nationwide protests and military pressure end the Duvalier dynasty after nearly three decades of dictatorship? Sources: United States Department of State human-rights reports; Haitian constitutional documents; Library of Congress country studies; Amnesty International reports; Haitian newspaper archives
How did a 1782 naval battle off Guadeloupe determine the balance of imperial power in the Caribbean? Sources: British Admiralty records; National Archives of France; Royal Navy logs; Contemporary accounts by Samuel Hood and George Rodney; National Maritime Museum