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The Morant Bay rebellion began on 11th October 1865, when Paul Bogle led 200 to 300 black men and women into the town of Morant Bay, parish of St. Thomas in the East, Jamaica. The rebellion and its aftermath were a major turning point in Jamaica's history, and also generated a significant political debate in Britain. Today, the rebellion remains controversial, and is frequently mentioned by specialists in black and colonial studies. ==Background== Slavery ended in Jamaica on 6 August 1834, with the passing of the British Emancipation Act, which eventually led to full emancipation on 1 August 1838 after four years of apprenticeship – the date on which former slaves became free to choose their employment and employer. On paper, former slaves gained the right to vote. However, most blacks remained desperately poor, and a high poll tax effectively excluded them from enfranchisement. During the election of 1864, fewer than 2,000 black Jamaicans were eligible to vote out of a total population of over 436,000, despite outnumbering whites by a ratio of 32:1. Prior to the rebellion, conditions in Jamaica had been worsening for ex-slaves. In 1864 there were several floods which ruined many crops, whilst 1865 marked the end of a decade in which the island had been overwhelmed by plagues of cholera and smallpox. A two-year drought preceding 1865 made economic conditions worse for the population of former slaves and their descendants. These conditions led to several bankruptcies in the sugar industry, widening the economic void. Consequently tensions between white farmers and ex-slaves increased, and rumours began circulating that white planters intended to restore slavery. In 1865, Dr. Edward Underhill, Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society of Great Britain, wrote a letter to the Colonial Office in order to express Jamaica's current poor state of affairs. This letter was later shown to Jamaica's Governor Edward Eyre, who immediately tried to deny the truth of its statements, and Jamaica's poor blacks began organizing in "Underhill Meetings." In fact, peasants in St. Ann parish sent a petition to Queen Victoria asking for Crown lands to cultivate as they could not find land for themselves, but it passed by Eyre first and he enclosed a letter with his own comments. The Queen's reply left no doubt in the minds of the poor that Eyre had influenced her opinion – she encouraged the poor to work harder, rather than offering any help. George William Gordon, a wealthy mulatto politician, began encouraging the people to find ways to make their grievances known. One of his followers was a church deacon named Paul Bogle. Keeping the Haitian Revolution in mind, the British population in Jamaica, as in many other British colonies, was fearful that the Jamaicans, like the Haitians before them, would seize control of Jamaica. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Morant Bay rebellion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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