The Christmas Rebellion

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The Christmas Rebellion (Morant Bay Rebellion) Causes Consequences * The enslaved was led to believe that emancipation was being withheld. * In the Jamaica reports were made that the slaves ‘free paper’ had come from England but their masters held them in bondage. * The activities of the Non-Conformist Missionaries. The third and most immediate cause was the flogging of a female slave in the northern part of Jamaica. Her husband was forced to watch the brutal flogging. He struck the whipper. The overseer then ordered him arrested, other slaves refused. This began the chain of actions. * The influence of Sam Sharpe, a slave in Montego Bay who was able to urge the slaves to stop working on the plantations by spreading "watch words" called freedom. He was literate. From his master's newspaper he learnt that emancipation was very near and that wage and labour would come to Jamaica. He spread the news among the slaves. Under the guise of religious group meetings in St. James, he organized a general strike during the Christmas week of 1831. * Christmas day in the year of 1831 came on a Saturday. This meant that the slaves had two consecutive days off from work. They were expected to resume working on Monday December 27, 1831. * The Christmas holiday provided an excellent opportunity for the mobility of slaves between estates and meet under cover as traditional celebration or religious service led by Sam Sharpe a Deacon in the Baptist church. * 60 estates were destroyed in a fire. * Slaves were defeated and about 400 Negroes were killed during military operations, another 100 were executed and others were flogged. * Non-conformist missionaries were blamed for the revolt and were punished. * The negative effects of the revolt angered a large section of the British religious public, and helped to win support for the
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