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(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--JAMAICA.) Enormous double broadside on the Morant Bay Uprising titled "Gordon and Eyre." Letterpress broadside on two unattached sheets, each 27 x 42 inches; short closed tears at intersection of folds, faint offsetting. Birmingham, England: E.C. Osborne, circa 1866
The Morant Bay Uprising of October 1865 was a series of spontaneous confrontations between black laborers and colonial militias. Although Jamaican slavery had ended decades before, blacks still had minimal political representation and their grinding poverty had been exacerbated by a decade of economic troubles. A confrontation at a courthouse for a routine trespassing case triggered a riot and reprisals. After a few dozen deaths on each side, Governor John Eyre declared martial law, and his troops perpetrated hundreds of random killings, imprisonments, and floggings, including women and children. On flimsy evidence, Eyre determined that the entire uprising had been masterminded by a mixed-race Jamaican politician named George William Gordon (1820-1865), who was arrested and then executed two days later for treason. Eyre's heavy-handed actions were effective in terminating the rebellion, but triggered a backlash back in England. This broadside was produced in England, probably by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Governor Eyre had attacked Gordon's character after the execution, saying he "was universally regarded as a bad man in every sense . . . grossly immoral and an adulterer, a liar, a swindler, dishonest, cruel, vindictive, and a hypocrite." A petition was circulated, asserting that Eyre's allegations were "utterly without foundation." It is here signed in type by 12 prominent Jamaicans including clergymen, missionaries, and politicians. One copy in OCLC, at the British Library.
