Search

The antagonistic racial, economic and cultural climate Afro-Jamaicans faced during and following enslavement led to numerous revolts, plots and conspiracies. Whereas numerous studies on Jamaica's revolts, from the 1820's onward, credits the fight for social change to missionary based religions, of the Baptists, Moravians and Methodists, I highlight contrary to this view that Obeah, the target of missionary disdain, was the driving force in Afro-Jamaica's fight for justice and freedom. Supporting this view are the various plots and revolts that occurred between the 1820's and 1860's. Within these events Obeah specialists and rituals were indispensable. To illustrate Obeah's primacy the article features Guinea Jack, a renowned Obeah man in the 1820's with a prominent role as spiritual doctor and diviner for the 1824 Boxing Day Conspiracy. And for the emancipation period the paper examines Paul Bogle and his Morant Bay War. Bogle in most studies is typified as a Baptist minister however he performed Obeah rituals Guinea Jack had used in the 1820's. Doing so enshrines Obeah as a coherent religious cultural system inherited between generations rather than a hodgepodge free for all superstitious practice as white missionaries had implied. Exposing this aspect in Paul Bogle's spirituality challenges previous assumptions where he is strictly viewed through Christian lens. Interrogating Bogle's association with African spirituality showed that as late as 1865 Obeah for many Afro-Jamaicans remained valuable in the fight for freedom. And to explain Obeah's contribution in struggles to combat the evils of slavery and colonization, between the 1820's and 1860's, the article discusses oath rituals, herbal baths, animal sacrifices and divinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jamaica's criminalization of Obeah after Tacky's 1760 Revolt resulted in many accusations and prosecutions of alleged clients and practitioners by planters who intended to prevent similar future slave rebellions and eliminate rivals who competed for enslaved people's loyalty. Such efforts produced many slave laws and policing efforts, which legitimized and expanded slaveholders' dominance and power, but ironically, increased enslaved people's bargaining powers. Exploring how legal definitions of poison and Obeah changed over time and the political and social purposes poison and Obeah accusations served, reveals the complex ways in which the enslaver and enslaved struggled for dominance and survival within Jamaica's slave society. While poison and Obeah laws, accusations and prosecutions give us good insights into the complicated conflicts, tensions and negotiations between enslaver and enslaved and among members of slave communities, they yield an unfortunate legacy that defame Obeah as witchcraft and fraud and erroneously attribute poison as a key element. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the cultural and political practice of Jamaican Maroons, and assesses their roles in the eighteenth-century colonial orders. It examines the contributions of Jamaican Maroons in British colonial power, in the plantation industry, and in the syncretism of Jamaican culture. It narrates the characteristics of Jamaican planters in the eighteenth-century Jamaica, the brutal nature of slave punishments during this time as well as the secular practices of everyday life. It recounts the oppositions of Maroon communities against Jamaica's slave society and early British settlers, and later, their peaceful relationship with the British. It also mentions Maroons' expertise in the belief known as Obeah, their passion for dances, and influence in the Atlantic sound.