On this day, 27 December 1831, the Christmas rebellion in Jamaica escalated as 60,000 of the country’s 300,000 enslaved people went on strike and rose up against slavery.
It is known as the Christmas rebellion as it began with a strike on Christmas day, demanding wages and more free time. The plantation owners rejected the demands, and so on December 27, enslaved people on the Kensington estate downed tools and set their sugarcane fields on fire. The rebels organised their own military units, and travelled through other estates, burning buildings and crops and recruiting others to join them.
Lasting 11 days, it was the biggest revolt of enslaved people in the British Caribbean colonies, and cost over £50 million damages in current money. While only 14 whites were killed, over 500 Black people were killed or executed in the aftermath. But as a result slavery across the British Caribbean was largely abolished two years later.
