POPULAR REVOLTS, 1831, 1865, 1938:  Uprisings Of The Black Masses For Social Change

The Jamaica Archives is currently  hosting an exhibition in commemoration of the  one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary of  the Christmas Rebellion in 1831. Two other mass rebellions are also featured in our exhibition. These are the Morant Bay Rebellion which followed 34 years later in 1865 and the 1938 Riots which happened
a little over a century after the first. Although these three labour disturbances,  happened many years apart, they all had one thing in common:  the uprising of the black masses for social change.

The references from our archival collection dealing with the disturbances are not evenly distributed. Whereas the 1938 riots are documented through letters to and from the Colonial Secretary and through photographs from private collections, there are very few documents relating to the 1831 Christmas and the 1865 Morant Bay rebellions.

The materials used in the exhibition  were   mainly drawn from the Minutes of the Legislative Council, gazettes and from despatches to the Colonial Secretary. These were supplemented with headlines from the Gleaner newspaper and materials from our printed collection.

NB. Only copies of the documents are being used in the exhibition, but the originals may be consulted at our offices at the corner of King & Manchester Streets in Spanish Town, St. Catherine