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The Abeng made from a cow horn known as the Akete was the main instrument of communication among the Maroons during the wars. They had a regular series of calls on the horn which summoned each other over great distances, such as warnings of the soldiers approaching. Even today horn-men still blow the Abeng. |
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Discover the inherent charm of villages with names like Standfast, Wait-A-Bit, Me-nuh-sen-yu-nuh-come, or Nonsuch |
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Resort Areas
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| | Montego Bay |
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| | Ocho Rios |
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| | Port Antonio |
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| | South Coast |
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Morant Bay |
| Morant Bay is one of the most historic towns in Jamaica because of the Morant Bay Rebellion; a peasant uprising that had significant and far-reaching effects on the governance of the country and on the lives of ordinary people.
Beginning on October 11 1865, peasant citizens of Morant Bay and surrounding communities in St. Thomas marched to protest the treatment of recently freed blacks by plantation owners. The crowd was loud and demanding, aggravated and provoked by escalating hardships. In the years after the colony’s slaves were emancipated, free blacks endured mounting unemployment, heavy taxation and most significantly, the brutal punishments delivered by whites for even the smallest of offences. A few days before, led by the effusive and determined lay-preacher Paul Bogle and aided by a wealthy elected government official George William Gordon, a small group of protesters marched from Stony Gut, a small village in the hills of St. Thomas to the colony's capital, Spanish Town, forty five miles away, to present their concerns.
The Governor of the time, Edward Eyre, refused to even grant an audience to the leaders of the movement, a poorly thought out action that proved to have disastrous consequences. After Bogle returned to Morant Bay, events catapulted into open rebellion during the trial of a peasant farmer. The violence escalated, and most of the buildings in the town were set afire, including the courthouse, which was the focus of the rebellion. The uprising was brutally repressed; in all, close to five hundred people were killed by soldiers after the Governor at the time, Edward Eyre, declared martial law against the people. The colonial government, fearing an all-out civil war over-reacted, and after the first revolt, scoured the countryside, rounding up suspected troublemakers and executing them, dumping the bodies in mass graves around the town.
The rebellion had serious and far-reaching effects; in fact, it completely altered the course of Jamaican history. The most critical effect of the rebellion was the change in the system of government; outraged at the show of force by the local militia, the British government ordered the dissolution of the House of Assembly, and Jamaica reverted from Representational government to Crown Colony government, at the time a serious blow to planters seeking Jamaican sovereignty. The demands of the peasants were not met immediately, but eventually conditions improved once Eyre was removed from office. At the end of the rebellion, George William Gordon was arrested and hanged in Morant Bay. Days later, Bogle was captured by a group of Maroons and executed on the only remaining beam of the burnt-out courthouse.
Today, both George William Gordon and Paul Bogle are Jamaican National Heroes, and a statue of Bogle stands at the entrance of the rebuilt courthouse. The statue is haunting and defiant, depicting Bogle clasping a machete in a bold stance. Just behind the courthouse, guarded by a number of ancient canons used to defend the bay from invaders, lies the 1865 memorial, where remains found in one of the mass graves were re-interred with plaques commemorating the live of the hundreds of people who died in the struggle. |
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