The History of the First West India Regiment

by A. B. Ellis

The insurgents gradually dispersed as the troops advanced, numbers being captured. On the 23rd of October, Paul Bogle, the ringleader, was taken; and, on the 24th, was tried and hanged. On the same day, George William Gordon, a coloured member of the House of Assembly, who had been tried by a court-martial on the 21st, and found guilty of complicity in the rebellion, was hanged at Morant Bay. All the insurgents taken in arms were put to death, and the houses of those who were known to have taken part in the insurrection were burned. By these vigorous measures all outward signs of resistance were crushed, and the movement prevented from becoming general; though reports were constantly received from various parts of the island, of disloyalty and seditious intentions.

On the 29th of October, letters D and F Companies of the 1st West India Regiment, with Major McBean, Captains Ormsby and Smithwick, Lieutenants Lowry, Niven, Hill, and Bale, and Ensign Cole, arrived from Nassau. Detachments were at once sent to Port Maria under Captain Ormsby, to Savannah la Mar under Lieutenant Hill, and to Vere under Lieutenant Bale. The 2nd West India Regiment, arriving from Barbados, was stationed along the north-western coast of the island.

From evidence subsequently obtained it was evident that the rising had been long planned, and that the outbreak at Morant Bay was premature. It is clear that meetings took place, where bodies of men were drilled, oaths administered, and the names of persons registered. The insurgents were so confident of ultimate success that the crops were uninjured, and the buildings for the most part preserved; they openly avowing that they intended taking them for themselves, when the whites were expelled. The rebels appear to have expected that the Maroons would join them, but that people remained faithful to their allegiance, and assisted in the suppression of the disturbances.

Although all the rebels in the field were taken or dispersed before the end of October, the island was not entirely quiet for some time after; and as late as the 14th of December, a detachment of the 1st West India Regiment, under Captain Ross, was sent from Black River to Oxford Estate, thirty miles distant, that place being reported to be disaffected.

Major-General O'Connor, in his despatch reporting the restoration of order, says: "The men employed in the field, exposed to the tropical sun, heavy rains, constant and long marches by day and night, have all (the 2nd 6th Regiment, and the 1st West India Regiment) highly distinguished themselves by their patience, perseverance, and general good conduct." He might have added that the fidelity of the black soldiers of the 1st West India Regiment could hardly have been put to a more crucial test. Nine-tenths of those men were Jamaicans, born and bred, and in the work of suppressing the rebellion they were required to hang, capture, and destroy the habitations of not only their countrymen and friends, but, in many instances, of their near relatives. Yet in no single case did any man hesitate to obey orders, nor was the loyalty of any one soldier ever a matter for doubt.

Governor Eyre having, by his prompt and vigorous measures, saved the colony of Jamaica from a repetition of those horrors which devastated the French West India Islands in the early part of the century, was subjected to a most vindictive and ungenerous attack on the part of the Exeter Hall party in England. By that party the judicial executions of the rebels were stigmatised as "atrocities," while the massacre at Morant Bay and the murders of the planters were only spoken of as "unfortunate occurrences." Owing to their clamour, a commission was sent out from England to inquire into the state of affairs in the colony. The commission arrived at the following conclusion: "That though the original design for the overthrow of constituted authority was confined to a small portion of the parish of St. Thomas-in-the-East, yet that the disorder, in fact, spread with singular rapidity over an extensive tract of country, and that such was the state of excitement prevailing in other parts of the island, that had more than a momentary success been obtained by the insurgents, their ultimate overthrow would have been attended with a still more fearful loss of life and property."

Many of the disaffected negroes, finding that they were being backed up by an influential party in England, preferred the most unfounded charges against several of the officers who had been most active in the suppression of the rebellion. Amongst others, Ensign Cullen, of the 1st West India Regiment, was charged with having had three men wantonly shot at Duckinfield Suspension Bridge, on the 21st of October, while on the march from Manchioneal to Golden Grove; and Staff-Assistant-Surgeon Morris, who had been in medical charge of Ensign Cullen's detachment, was charged with shooting a fourth man.

After these charges had been allowed to hang over these officers' heads for nearly a year, they were given an opportunity of clearing themselves before a general court martial, which assembled at Up Park Camp on the 2nd of October, 1866, and terminated its proceedings on the 4th of December. It is needless to say that both were acquitted.[59]

For the valuable and efficient services rendered by the regiment during this rebellion, the House of Assembly in Jamaica voted the sum of £100 to be expended in plate.