|
In 1865, impoverished peasants on the British island of Jamaica petitioned
Queen Victoria (1819-1901) for permission to use government-held lands for
planting, but were denied. Discontent centered in the Jamaican parishes of St.
Ann and St. Thomas, where a mob of natives stormed and set fire to the
courthouse in Morant Bay while the parish council was in session; the chief
magistrate and 18 other white persons were killed. Declaring martial law,
Jamaica's Governor Edward John Eyre (1815-1901) ruthlessly suppressed the
rebellion, one of whose leaders, George William Gordon (d. 1865), a member of
the Merchants and Free Persons of Color, was tried, convicted, and executed.
Eyre, who had exaggerated the extent of the threat of native rebels to the white
planters, induced the Jamaican assembly to vote itself out of existence. In
1866, he was recalled to England, and the British Parliament established Jamaica
as a crown colony under a new royal governor.
|
