JCB Archive of Early American Images, accession number 05684, The Retreat of Lieutenant Brady.
This image depicts a conflict in one of the many sugar slave plantations in the British colony of Demerara, one of the many slave plantations in Latin America. The archival description indicates that the image was created in 1824, one year after the Demerara Rebellion of 1823. Within the picture, most of the individuals were enslaved African slaves wielding different types of weapons in their hands. These weapons range from curved bladed swords to polearms and rifles. Their access to these weapons suggests that they had pillaged the British arms. Many of these Africans are spread out, which showcases the disarray, desperate attempt to rebel and force a retreat of the British. As for the British in the center of the image, they appear to be resisting in uniform with the use of their rifles. As a result, some Africans slaves who participated in the revolt appeared to be dead, lying on the ground by the hands of the British.
In August of 1823, the Demerara rebellion was caused by two main factors: the misinterpretation that slavery was abolished, and maltreatment from slave owning planters. An abolitionist figure by the name of Reverend John Smith in his letter to the Secretary of the London Missionary Society address the maltreatment of the slaves in the Demerara colony. “Ever since I have been in the colony, the slaves have been grievously oppressed . . . When sick, they have been commonly neglected, ill-treated, or half-starved. Their punishments have been frequent and severe.” [1] In addition, author Sheridan writes “the revolt broke out among the slaves because they believed they had been granted rights by the Parliament that their masters were withholding.” [2] Now from the perspective of the slaves, there was reason to believe that such rumor was legitimate as the British were in the path of ending slavery with the conclusion to the Transatlantic Slave Trade in 1807. Such discussions about putting and end the slavery existed within the British political sphere. An English member of Parliament by the named of Thomas Fowell Buxton had argued in May of 1823 that slavery should be abolished because it is “repugnant to the principles of British constitution and of the Christian religion” in the House of Commons. [3] Within three to four months, the Demerara uprising erupted, led by Jack Gladstone in the slave plantation Success. Approximately, 13,000 African slaves joined in on the revolt from different neighboring plantations. However, this uprising was quickly suppressed within the year, with many rebels “tortured to death and decapitated, their heads speared on to poles as a warning to others.” [4] While the rebellion would become suppressed by the British, this event did accelerate the process of slavery emancipation with the Slavery Abolition Act in 1834.
The Demerara Rebellion of 1823 is connected to the Tupac Amaru rebellion in Peru and the Haitian Revolution in Saint Domingue by the sense that all these three events were part of an anti-colonial and abolitionist wave in the Americas. The Tupac Amaru was a collective resistance of different groups ranging from the Creoles and every other group underneath them in the Spanish caste system against Spanish colonial rule driven by discontent and a desire for more autonomy. “Peru also exhibited the necessary conditions for revolt: increasingly oppressed Indian masses, disaffected ‘middle sectors,’ and elites divided over changes emanating from Spain.” [5] Similarly, the Haitian Revolution had sought to liberate themselves as France was dealing with their own civil war, unable to address the problems of slavery. “If the slaves themselves had no taken revolutionary initiative in Saint Domingue, there is no reason to assume that the Convention would have seen the necessity, or even the political expediency, seriously confronting the issues of slavery in the colonies and of abolishing slavery.” [6] In closing, these three rebellions illustrate an interconnected struggle against colonial domination and oppression.
Works Cited (Bibliography):
Fick, Carolyn E. “The French Revolution in Saint Domingue: A Triumph or a Failure?” in A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and The Greater Caribbean, edited by David B. Gaspar and David P. Geggus, 51-75. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003.
Sheridan, Richard B. “THE CONDITION OF THE SLAVES ON THE SUGAR PLANTATIONS OF SIR JOHN GLADSTONE IN THE COLONY OF DEMERARA, 1812-49.” NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 76, no. 3/4 (2002): 243–69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41850197.
Smith, Jonathan, and Paul Lashmar, “‘A huge human drama’: how the revolt that began on the Gladstone plantation led to emancipation,” The Guardian, August 19, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/19/how-revolt-gladstone-plantation-led-to-emancipation-demerara-rebellion.
Walker, Charles F. The Tupac Amaru Rebellion. Cambridge: Belnap Press, 2014.
Works Cited (Footnotes):
[1] Sheridan, Richard B. “THE CONDITION OF THE SLAVES ON THE SUGAR PLANTATIONS OF SIR JOHN GLADSTONE IN THE COLONY OF DEMERARA, 1812-49.” NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 76, no. 3/4 (2002): 247. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41850197.
[2] Sheridan, Richard B. “THE CONDITION OF THE SLAVES ON THE SUGAR PLANTATIONS OF SIR JOHN GLADSTONE IN THE COLONY OF DEMERARA, 1812-49.” NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 76, no. 3/4 (2002): 248. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41850197.
[3] Sheridan, Richard B. “THE CONDITION OF THE SLAVES ON THE SUGAR PLANTATIONS OF SIR JOHN GLADSTONE IN THE COLONY OF DEMERARA, 1812-49.” NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 76, no. 3/4 (2002): 247. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41850197.
[4] Jonathan Smith and Paul Lashmar, “‘A huge human drama’: how the revolt that began on the Gladstone plantation led to emancipation,” The Guardian, August 19, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/19/how-revolt-gladstone-plantation-led-to-emancipation-demerara-rebellion.
[5] Charles F. Walker, The Tupac Amaru Rebellion (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2014), 38.
[6] Carolyn E. Fick, “The French Revolution in Saint Domingue: A Triumph or a Failure?” in A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and The Greater Caribbean, ed. David B. Gaspar and David P. Geggus (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003), 69.