Morant Bay 1865: The cry for justice and the blood it bought

On the morning of October 11, 1865 in Morant Bay, St Thomas, a preacher named Paul Bogle led hundreds of men, women, and children in a march to the courthouse. Their cry was simple yet powerful: justice, dignity, relief from crushing poverty, and an end to official indifference. The people of St Thomas-in-the-East had suffered years of neglect: extreme economic hardship, crop failure, epidemics, land dispossession, and a political order that denied most Black Jamaicans meaningful voting rights.

At the courthouse, tensions erupted. Local volunteer militia fired on the crowd, killing several. In retaliation, the marchers set fire to the courthouse and nearby buildings; dozens died that day. But that was only the opening. Within hours, Governor Edward John Eyre, faced with uprisings across the parish, declared martial law (October 13) and dispatched military forces to “restore order”.

The suppression that followed was savage. In a span of weeks, over 400 black Jamaicans, many innocents, were shot or executed, their homes burned, their bodies left in ruins. More than 300 were arrested; many were whipped or tried in drumhead tribunals under martial law. Among those executed was George William Gordon, a mixed-race legislator who had spoken out for justice, tried under martial law on October 23. The next day, Bogle himself was captured (with help from Maroons of Moore Town), swiftly tried, and hanged on October 24, 1865. His last words were: “I’ll never die.”

In scale and brutality, the Morant Bay Rebellion’s suppression stands as the harshest such incident in the British West Indies. Yet the story is more than blood and ashes. It is the story of people who would not remain silent in the face of injustice. The rebels were not elite insurgents but disenfranchised peasants and labourers who had been pushed to the limit. Their cry, though violently silenced, forced changes in colonial governance: Jamaica was transformed (in part) into a Crown Colony under tighter oversight, and public debate in Britain over the limits of colonial coercion stirred controversy.

When we reflect upon Morant Bay today, we should remember it not simply as a tragic episode but as a pivotal turning point. The sacrifices of Bogle, Gordon, and hundreds of unnamed men, women and children exposed the moral bankruptcy of a system that relied on fear and force to maintain inequality. Their courage reminds us that freedom was not handed down, it was fought for. Because they resisted, we live in a Jamaica where more voices can be heard, where dignity is at least a possibility for more. We salute them, we learn from them, and we carry forward their legacy by never again allowing injustice to stand unchallenged.

Contributed by Dr Lorenzo Gordon, a diabetologist, internal medicine consultant, biochemist, and a history and heritage enthusiast. Send feedback to inspiring876@gmail.com