Devon Dick
Devon Dick
ON SUNDAY coming, the Annual Emancipation Service and Lecture, sponsored by Bethel and Boulevard Baptist Churches, The Church of St. Mary the Virgin and Meadowbrook and Webster United Churches, examines the interesting subject of the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the Emancipation of Slavery in Jamaica.
This annual cultural and spiritual activity, which began eleven years ago, aims to remind us of the legacy of emancipation and affords us an opportunity to learn the lessons from the most important event in the history of Jamaica. It is widely regarded that the 1831 Rebellion, also known as 'Christmas Rebellion', or 'Sam Sharpe Rebellion' or 'Baptist War', is regarded as one of the great slave-inspired and led wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The other great one was the St. Domingue (Haitian) Revolution of 1791, which climaxed in the first and only successful Black revolution in the Western Hemisphere in 1804. It is therefore appropriate that in the year of the 200th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution the issue of the connection and impact between these two great revolts should be examined.
RESEARCH
The task has been assigned to a young man, the Rev. Dr. Dave Gosse of the University of the West Indies and the Secretariat of the Church of God in Jamaica. This graduate of Howard University, USA, is a member of the History Department of UWI and has done some research in issues related to that period. He is following a line of excellent presenters including professors Rex Nettleford, Barry Chevannes, Verene Shepherd and Horace Russell and Drs. Edna Broder, Olive Lewin and Veront Satchell. Satchell in last year's presentation made a successful case for reparations. This year Gosse's challenge is to explore the impact of the link between Haiti and Jamaica.
Earlier this year, Professor Carl Campbell reminded an audience at UWI that in 1817 about 15 slaves from Jamaica stole a boat and sailed it, not to the United States where slavery was still in existence, but to Haiti to seek refuge and freedom. The 3rd Haitian President after the declaration of independence in 1804, President Petion, despite all entreaties from the Jamaican authorities, sent back the boat but refused to send back the Jamaicans. Haiti was a beacon of hope for Blacks in the Americas as a place of refuge where he or she could escape slavery and become a free citizen.
The historic records show that there was a link between the Haitian Revolution and Jamaican Emancipation. Even historical novels such as Herbert G. deLisser's The White Witch of Rosehall which is set in December 1831 has Annie Palmer, the main character, as growing up in Haiti and learning witchcraft there. In addition, there are some who also claimed that the Haitian revolution had an impact on the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865. What is clear was that the ruling class always believed that the Haitian revolution was always an inspiration to the Blacks.
EXTENT OF THE IMPACT
Gosse's task is to evaluate the extent of that impact. The nation will, free of cost, be able to hear his address at Boulevard Baptist Church and to either agree or disagree with what he has to say.
There are some who despise any examination of emancipation claiming that it breeds hatred and division. There was a learned former Senator who did not want Jamaicans to recall emancipation. However, emancipation is about freeing the oppressed as well as the oppressors. It is good to remember the words of a Professor of Harvard, Orlando Patterson, who stated in his novel, Die The Long Day, "How ironical and absurd it is that being master should itself be a form of enslavement. For this is what I am becoming, just like the rest of them. Outwardly, a slave to the very condition I master; inwardly, a slave to my passions which comes about as inevitably as death" (pp. 152-3).
Emancipation freed the blacks, coloureds and whites and ought to be celebrated as such. The Haitian revolution freed the blacks and also the French.
This Emancipation Day, let us celebrate the Haitian revolution and the Jamaican emancipation and try and have a better understanding of the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the Jamaican Emancipation.
Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church and author of 'Rebellion to Riot: the Jamaican Church' in nation-building (2004).
