Samuel Sharpe: Emancipation hero

We must be content to die for the benefit of the rest. I, for one, am ready to die, in order that the rest may be free…. I depend for salvation upon the Redeemer, who shed his blood upon Calvary for sinners.

Samuel Sharpe

Until a few days ago I had only vaguely heard of the Jamaican, Sam Sharpe. I guess in the pantheon of Emancipation heroes we readily know of Toussaint L'ouverture, Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass.

But yesterday as part of the 50th year of Jamaican independence the Jamaican High Commission in London officially launched the Sam Sharpe website.

In 1831, Sam Sharpe organised a peaceful General strike across many estates in western Jamaica at a critical time for the plantation owners: harvest of the sugar cane. Sharpe was an extraordinary figure who worked in the Slave owner’s house. There he would have received better food, and more importantly he had the opportunity to read and write.

It is often argued that those enslaved who worked in the ‘Master’s house’ where far less conscious of their oppression than those who worked in the fields. But Sharpe used his education particularly his knowledge of the bible to articulate just how abhorrent slavery was. In many ways Sharpe was one of the great proponents of ‘Liberation theology’.

The Christmas Rebellion or, as some have described as the ‘Baptist war’ began on Christmas day at the Kensington Estate. Reprisals by the plantation owners led to the rebels burning the crops. His peaceful protest turned into Jamaica's largest slave rebellion, killing hundreds, including 14 whites. The rebellion was put down by the military and many of the ringleaders, including Sharpe, were hanged in 1832. As he reached the gallows awaiting his fate , Sharpe said, ‘I would rather die among yonder gallows, than live in slavery.’ The rebellion caused two detailed Parliamentary Inquiries which contributed to the 1833 Abolition of Slavery across the British Empire.

Now the Jamaican High Commission and their partners including The Baptist Union of Great Britain, The Jamaica Baptist Union and the Oxford Centre for Christianity and culture want to use the legacy of Sam Sharpe to inform and inspire generations to come.

Sam Sharpe is undoubtedly a true hero. Not just for Jamaicans and the African Diaspora but for the whole of humanity.

Long live the legacy of Sam Sharpe.

http://www.samsharpeproject.org

Simon Woolley