By Lloyd A. Cooke, Contributor 
DRIVING THROUGH the town of Mile Gully, Manchester, at the police station and courthouse you will see on the sign post, 'Skull Point'. Beside it is more recent display board saluting, 'Three Famous Slaves'.
The names mentioned are 'George Lewis - our first Evangelist; Damon - Freedom Fighter, and James Knight - Christian Martyr'.
Wanting to know more, I stopped in at the police station, but the officer on duty could offer no information. Together, we decided that the library in town would be a good place to check, and I was directed to Miss Swaby, the librarian. George Lewis, the evangelist I had recently come to know a bit about in the course of research on the Moravian Church. His exploits on behalf of the gospel and the Moravian missionary work are recounted in Seed Time and Harvest by S.U. Hastings and B.L. MacLeavy. More of him anon. But I wanted to know more about this 'Christian Martyr', James Knight.
At the library a few days later, I was helped by Mr. Anthony Reid, assistant to Ms. Swaby, who was on leave, he knew exactly what I was seeking. Going to a file cabinet, he came up with a bulky and dishevelled file jacket titled 'Mile Gully', filled with Gleaner clippings, church, school, and cultural programmes, and a number of brochures and unpublished manuscripts by Hugh E. Nash, a resident of the area.
Nash is a former Chief Executive of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission; of 'Things Jamaican', and for five years, Director of the National Heritage Trust. He has led tours to various historical and cultural sites, Hugh Nash tells the story of this James Knight, Christian Martyr.
A SLAVE ON THE LYNDHURST ESTATE
James Knight was a slave on the Lyndhurst estate, which adjoins Mile Gully on the east, and Grove Place on the west. He got converted and began to preach to the other slaves about Christ somewhere between 1801-1830, Nash estimates. There is no mention as to how Knight came to his knowledge of Christianity. Nash thinks that he may have been a house slave who somehow learnt to read, and read the Bible. My guess is that he was one of the numerous slave converts of George Lewis. For it was in this area, and around the year 1812, that we read of Lewis through the records of the Moravian missionary John Lang of Carmel, near Santa Cruz.
To put the story of Knight into historical perspective, we need to say more about the Moravians. They had arrived about fifty years earlier (December 9, 1754) to the Lancaster, Elim, New Eden, and Bogue area of north eastern St. Elizabeth, having been invited by the owners of these estates to teach their slaves the gospel. But their success in making slave converts had been limited, due to the opposition of the planters' overseers and attorneys, as well as the inhospitable climate which took a tremendous toll in lives on these early German missionaries. Though they had visited various estates in the area of Balaclava and Siloah as well, very few had received their message. It was a time of much discouragement, as they recorded frequently in their letters and diaries.
Real growth in their work didn't begin until about 1812, when they were introduced to a peddler named George Lewis, by one of their slave members, Robert Peart. Lewis, having been allowed by his mistress, one Miss Valentine, to preach as he peddled, sharing a percentage of the profits with her. The latter was not an uncommon practice at the time.
Lewis operated in the Mile Gully area of the parish. (Much of today's Manchester, was then still a part of St. Elizabeth, as Manchester was not designated a parish until 1814). As Lewis peddled and preached many slaves were turning to Christ.
Missionary Lang came to hear of him from those of his slave members coming off the Manchester hills to Carmel. The missionary queried Lewis as to his teachings, found them orthodox, and encouraged his members to contribute 100 pounds to buy Lewis's freedom so he could freely preach the gospel.
"Lewis sparked off a revival in the neighbourhood, and at long last the Moravian Churches began to grow. The ripple effect from Lewis' preaching spread from around the Moravian estates up into the Mile Gully district, and by 1813 the number of baptised Christians were up to 2,282 from 900 odd in 1800. In the same year the number of stations began to rise," says Osbourne and Johnson, in Coastlands and Islands. (UTCWI, 1972, pg. 50).
But back to the story of James Knight. Nash depends, for some of his information, on a report in The Gleaner of January 31, 1963 entitled The slave who died for Christianity. The Mile Gully correspondent at that time, Hugh Nash tells me, was a Mr. S.L. Blake. Blake shares with The Gleaner's readers, what seems to be fairly well known oral narrative among the older folk in the area. He says that Knight was a Christian, but doesn't tell us how he became one. He says:
"Preaching the gospel was at that time forbidden by the slave owners... and it was never thought that a slave would dare to preach the gospel to his fellow slaves... James Knight knew that he would be preaching in peril of his life, and so it proved. When work was over in the field for the day, James Knight would gather his fellow slaves... and relate to them the stories of Jesus... There came one sad night when they were discovered and the fury of their masters was terrible. James Knight was held as being the ring-leader, and he was so bitterly persecuted that at last he fled from Lyndhurst," says The Gleaner correspondent. Knight fled to Comfort Hall.
FEARLESSLY PREACHED
The place where he was hidden is now the site of St. Simon's Anglican Church. There he again fearlessly preached the gospel. It wasn't long until he was found out. Knight fled to Raheen, in St. Elizabeth. There he preached for a time. But tracked by his masters from Lyndhurst he again fled, this time to 'Y/S', then later to Middle-Quarters, each place preaching to the slaves the wonderful good news of salvation as he went. But even at Middle Quarters he was not safe. Chased again, he went to Black River. It is thought that he was hoping to stow away on a ship from that port to escape the persecution of his master. Yet he did not cease his preaching.
"There in Black River, probably in the presence of a motley crowd of people, James Knight was killed." Hugh Nash noted, at a civic ceremony to honour James Knight on August 1, 1998 at Skull Point, "...it is reported, through oral history in his family, that his last words were '...oonu se dah same gospel weh oonu a kill me yah fah, it gwine run inna dis country like wata.' And Nash adds rhetorically, "What a prophecy! What a prophecy!"
Knight's head having been severed from his body, his murderers "Leaving his body in Black River... brought back his head with them, and on the way back to Manchester, they visited a number of sugar estates.
At each place they marched in carrying the dead slave's head on a pole, and with the ready permission of the slave owners of each estate, they gathered crowds of slaves together, pointing in scorn to the lifeless head of the man they had killed." Back they came towards Lyndhurst until they reached the spot now occupied by the Mile Gully Police Station - this being a highway to several important towns.
Here in great derision, they finally set up the brave martyr's head to be a perpetual warning to all slaves in the country... of what would happen to them should they venture to keep any more meetings... 'Man Head' was the name given to this gruesome spot... The skull of our hero was never buried, but was ultimately kicked to pieces in contempt and dishonour. Yet, the memorial of this whole- hearted follower of Jesus Christ remains today in these two words 'Skull Point'... outside the Mile Gully Police Station." writes S.L. Blake, The Gleaner's Mile Gully correspondent, in 1963.
At the August 1, 1998 civic ceremony to honour these "Mile Gully Famous Slaves", Nash remarked "And here we pause to recognise Knight's large family in this community and beyond. Bishop Alfred Reid (the current Lord Bishop of the Anglican Church in Jamaica) is proud to be among Knight's descendants, and so is 83-year-old Elder Howard Knight of Mile Gully, a great grandson of the martyr." I talked with Bishop Reid, who acknowledged the family connection, but had little more to add. He himself desires to know more of this story.
Now for me, at least, the mystery of Skull Point has been revealed. Today I parked my car along the Mile Gully main road and walked for half an hour onto the Lyndhurst property, looking for the ruins of the old estate buildings. I found them overgrown by bushes, the owners long forgotten and their names unrecorded for us. Only the cattle now keep them company.
But may the name of this brave son of the Gospel be made known far and wide to us the beneficiaries of his bravery. May he and George Lewis, and other slave pioneers who left us such a legacy of gospel knowledge be long spoken of. Indeed, Knight's dying prophecy has come to pass.
The gospel for which he died is indeed running "... inna dis country like wata".
