3-021-529 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Hordley Estate, Morant Bay, Jamaica, 1865. Engraving from a photograph by Messrs. J. S. Thompson and J. Tomford. 'The ladies, women, and children at Morant Bay were fetched away as soon as possible by H.M. ship Wolverine, which brought them safe to Kingston...but much anxiety was still felt as the fate of a large party of defenceless persons who...remained at the Hordley estate [a white-owned sugar plantation]...and elsewhere, in a situation of great peril, till the arrival of some troops, a detachment of the 1st West India Regiment, under Captain Lake, brought them deliverance on the 13th. These refugees, numbering about a hundred altogether, were taken on board the gun-boat Onyx on the 14th, and conveyed to Kingston'. The Morant Bay Rebellion (11 October 1865) began with a protest march to the courthouse by hundreds of people. After seven men were shot and killed by the volunteer militia, the protesters attacked and burned the courthouse and nearby buildings. Twenty-five people died. Over the next two days, poor freedmen rose in rebellion across most of St. Thomas-in-the-East parish. The Jamaicans were protesting against injustice and widespread poverty. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.