The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy

Jamaica, 1865: The Morant Bay Rebellion | Governor Eyre, Paul Bogle and the Record

The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy

Show Notes

What began as a protest over land, poverty and justice became a colonial crackdown whose death toll and legality remain contested? Sources: British Parliamentary Papers on the Morant Bay disturbances; Jamaica Royal Commission reports; National Archives of Jamaica; The National Archives, United Kingdom, Colonial Office records; Mary Reckord, Black and White in Jamaica

More from The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy

Oct 22, 2026

Why did an oilfield strike in southern Trinidad spread into a colony-wide confrontation over wages, race, and political power? Sources: Trinidad and Tobago National Archives; Butler Papers; Commission of Inquiry into the Disturbances in Trinidad, 1937; British Colonial Office reports; Trinidad Guardian archive

Oct 22, 2026

How did a few minutes of shaking destroy Jamaica’s commercial capital and expose the limits of colonial disaster response? Sources: Jamaica Gleaner archive; United States Geological Survey historical earthquake records; Jamaica Legislative Council papers; British Colonial Office dispatches; National Library of Jamaica

Oct 22, 2026

How did strikes by sugar workers in 1938 become the turning point that created Jamaica’s modern labor movement and accelerated self-government? Sources: Jamaica Labour Department reports; Jamaica Gleaner archive; UK Colonial Office reports; National Library of Jamaica; Norman Manley papers

Oct 22, 2026

How did enslaved workers in Demerara organize across plantations, and why did the colonial government respond with military force and mass executions? Sources: British Parliamentary Papers; Colonial Office records; Guyana National Archives; The Missionary Register; Emilia Viotti da Costa, Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood

Oct 22, 2026

How did an American religious community in Guyana become the site of the largest mass death in modern Caribbean history? Sources: U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee hearings; Guyana government investigative records; FBI Jonestown files; Guyana National Archives; The New York Times contemporaneous reporting

See all episodes →