Where the Twain Meet

by Mary Gaunt

Kensington, a place high in the mountains, was the first place burned, and presently the night was lighted by properties burning in all directions. Down the steep hills from Kempshot, down through the dense jungle from Retirement, from Montpelier and from Salt Springs, came the white people flocking to Montego Bay. We can understand the consternation that prevailed in the town. We can imagine the unbridled delight of the slaves as Great House after Great House was abandoned and went up in flames. Those flames spelled to them freedom, and they were sure that the whole island was given over to them. It was not. And in this revolt there was a peculiar character that we find in no other. Many of the slaves were partly civilised now. It was twenty years since any had been imported from Africa; many were acquiring a little property and had some small stake in the land, and must have felt the futility of the uprising. And on these the consequences of the revolt pressed heaviest. Which side were they to take? As plantation after plantation went up in flames, doubtless they were inclined to believe what the insurgent leaders told them, that the country—the country they loved, their country—had been abandoned by the white men. The position of the faithful slaves was difficult.

Bleby says, and a certain Mr Beaumont, who certainly was not prejudiced in favour of the slaves, says that many of them were more afraid of the insurgents than they were of the free inhabitants, and many were carried off by the insurgents and forced to accompany them.

But this did not save them once the whites got the upper hand. The planters put every slave in the same category and hanged ruthlessly, asking no questions, believing no assertions of innocence. They had been badly frightened, and they took vengeance like frightened men.

About the revolt Bleby gives us more information than perhaps he intended. He is delightful—unconsciously.

“Information reached the Commanding Officer,” he says, “that it was the intention of the insurgents to attack and pillage the town; and as the number of men was inadequate to the purpose, he required all who were capable of bearing arms to enrol themselves for its defence” (it certainly seems to me a very natural desire on the part of the Commanding Officer), “myself, a Scotch missionary and a curate included, the rector and another curate having already presented themselves as volunteers. I was far from yielding a cordial consent to this demand upon my services,” how they must have loved him. “He gave promise that we should not be required to leave the town, and should only be called upon to act if the safety of the place should be menaced.”

And now, listen to the sufferings of this noble gentleman. One day they were asked to go a little way into the country and to return in the evening, but when they had been gone some distance he found they had no intention of returning for several days. I can see the Commanding Officer smiling secretly over the discomfiture of his valuable recruit. Incredible as it seems, considering the country was in the throes of a slave revolt, with all its possible horrors, this gentleman can actually write that they were “harassed by journeys day after day amongst the woods and mountains, often riding for eight or ten hours in succession beneath a scorching sun, and sleeping without pillow, sheet or mat, or any other accommodation on the boarded or earthen floor of the house where we might happen to stop for the night.”

Truly a very gallant gentleman! I quite feel for the pleasure the Commanding Officer must have got out of making him as uncomfortable as he possibly could. Doubtless he would have joyfully put him in the forefront of the battle had there been a battle, but there wasn't one.

After the first riotous outburst, when the whites were taken by surprise, there seems to have been no hope for the wretched slaves.

The militia was composed naturally of planters, the officers being in many instances men whose property had been destroyed by the insurgents, and who regarded themselves as ruined or reduced to the verge of ruin by the revolted negroes. We cannot but agree with Bleby that these were the last men who should have tried them, but try them they did, and the reprisals were terrible. As in the old days the Romans in Sicily, if I remember rightly, crucified their rebellious slaves along the sea-shore, so these Jamaican planters hanged and shot the deluded people without finding out whether they were guilty or not. After six weeks of trials, one of the newspapers at Montego Bay gravely announced: “The executions during the week have been considerably diminished, being in number only fourteen.”