A look into the life of….SAMUEL SHARPE

Samuel Sharpe was a devoted Baptist deacon at the Burchell Baptist Church and hailed from the parish of St. James. Sharpe’s date of birth is believed to be somewhere during the 1780s. Sharpe was not an ordinary slave, in the eyes of many he was brilliant and intelligent and many saw him as an exemplar leader thus he was given the name “Daddy Sharpe”. Sharpe spent most of his time traveling to different parishes in Jamaica, educating the enslaved about Christianity, which he believed promised freedom. 

In 1831, Sharpe began to plan a passive rebellion. The rebellion was just to include slaves refusing to work on Christmas Day, in an attempt to display their frustration surrounding the ill treatments and deplorable working conditions that they were enduring. Word about the rebellion spread rapidly across parishes such as St. James, Trelawny, Hanover, Westmoreland, St. Elizabeth and even as far as Manchester. What was planned as a passive rebellion, turned out to be one of the most active rebellions reported in Trans-Atlantic Slave history. 

On December 27,1831, the Kensington Estate Great House was set on fire, as a signal that the Slave Rebellion had begun. During this time, several estates across the western section of the island were also set ablaze. The uprising lasted for 10 days and spread throughout the island, mobilizing as many as 60,000 of Jamaica’s enslaved population. 

The colonial government used the armed Jamaican military forces and Jamaican maroons  to quell the uprising, and it was suppressed within two weeks. Some 14 whites were killed by armed slave battalions, but more than 200 slaves were killed by troops. 

In the months that ensued, many slaves were put on trials, including Daddy Sharpe. Samuel Sharpe was hanged on May 23, 1832. Sharpe who echoed this mantra while in prison before his execution “I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery” is believed to have contributed to the passing of the slave abolition bill in 1833.

On March 31, 1982 the Right Excellent Sam Sharpe was conferred the Order of the National Hero as per Government Notice 23 Jamaica Gazette.

Sources Used:

Jamaica Information Service. (n.d) Samuel Sharpe. Retrieved from 

https://jis.gov.jm/information/heroes/samuel-sharpe/