19th Century Colony
After the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 and slavery itself in 1834, however, the island's sugar- and slave-based economy faltered. The period after 1834 initially was marked by conflict between the plantocracy and elements in the Colonial Office over the extent to which individual freedom should be coupled with political participation for blacks. In 1840 the House of Assembly changed the voting qualifications in a way that enabled a majority of blacks and people of mixed race to vote.
But neither the change in the political system nor the abolition of slavery changed the planters' chief interest, which lay in the continued profitability of their estates, and they continued to dominate the elitist assembly. Nevertheless, at the end of the eighteenth century and in the early years of the nineteenth century, the crown began to allow some Jamaicans — mostly local merchants, urban professionals, and artisans — into the appointed council.
Slave uprisings, or rebellions and revolts, were frequent and were ferociously put down by plantation owners. The idea was to put off future rebels by showing them how any rebellion would be punished. At least 400 were executed for joining Tacky, a slave who led a rebellion in Jamaica in 1760. As late as 1832, the rebellion known as the ‘Baptist War’ or Emancipation Rebellion (1831-2) on the island of Jamaica resulted in the killing of over 200 slaves in battle and the execution of 344 more.
In 1846 Jamaican planters, still reeling from the loss of slave labor, suffered a crushing blow when Britain passed the Sugar Duties Act, eliminating Jamaica's traditionally favored status as its primary supplier of sugar. The House of Assembly stumbled from one crisis to another until the collapse of the sugar trade, when racial and religious tensions came to a head during the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865. Although suppressed ruthlessly, the severe rioting so alarmed the planters that the two-centuries-old House of Assembly voted to abolish itself and asked for the establishment of direct British rule.
In October 1865, an uprising in St. Thomas, called the Morant Bay Rebellion, was led by Paul Bogle. Bogle and his men stormed the Morant Bay Courthouse while it was in session. A number of white people was killed including the custos of the parish. The rebellion was put down by the Governor, Edward John Eyre. The governor, E.J.Eyre, declared martial law and launched a punitive campaign of ruthless severity, with several executions without trial. More than 430 people were executed or shot, hundreds more flogged and 1,000 dwellings destroyed. Paul Bogle and George William Gordon, now National Heroes, were hanged. George Gordon was a prominent black legislator who was sympathetic to the problems of the poor people and was blamed for the trouble caused by the masses, though he had not instigated any violence.
The reaction in Britain was astonished outrage. Governor Eyre was removed from office and subsequently recalled to England, but not before exchanging the ancient Constitution for the Crown Colony system. Jamaica’s first colonial constitution gave considerable power to settlers. The governor’s council included senior figures such as the bishop and Chief Justice, but the representative assembly was controlled by white settlers. On 17 January 1866 the legislative assembly voluntarily dissolved itself and abrogated the old popular constitution, leaving it to the home government to administer the island as a crown colony. After the imposition of direct Crown colony rule in 1866, settlers lost their power and the Governor was advised only by the mainly nominated privy council. With amendments, this constitution was retained until 1944.
In 1866 the new crown colony government consisted of the Legislative Council, which replaced the House of Assembly, and the executive Privy Council, but the Colonial Office exercised effective power through a presiding British governor. The Legislative Council included a few handpicked prominent Jamaicans for the sake of appearance only. In the late nineteenth century, Britain modified crown colony rule on the island and, after 1884, gradually reintroduced representation and limited self-rule. Britain also reformed the colony's legal structure along the lines of English common law and county courts and established a constabulary force.
The smooth working of the crown colony system was dependent on a good understanding and an identity of interests between the governing officials, who were British, and most of the nonofficial, appointed members of the Legislative Council, who were Jamaicans. The elected members of this body were in a permanent minority and without any influence or administrative power. The unstated alliance—based on shared color, attitudes, and interest — between the British officials and the Jamaican upper class was reinforced in London, where the West India Committee lobbied for Jamaican interests. Jamaica's white or near-white propertied class continued to hold the dominant position in every respect; the vast majority of the black population remained poor and unenfranchised.
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