October 1, 1776

In July 1776, while the Declaration of Independence spread through the United States, a different uprising was brewing in Jamaica. Enslaved laborers on the island, especially in the Hanover parish, planned an insurrection, realizing that British ships had been pulled away from the island because of the war in North America. Ultimately, the enslaved organizers of the insurrection  were discovered and many people were captured and hanged. 

News of this plot in Jamaica reached Williamsburg, Virginia in September. A ship from Cape Nicolas Mole on the northwestern coast of Saint-Domingue, brought “advice of an insurrection” in Jamaica, attributed to “the scarcity of provisions” rather than the conditions of the enslaved laborers more broadly, a number of whom were “taken and gibbeted.” This account would have prompted fear among enslavers in Virginia and across the United States, as it described how “between sixty and seventy white people had been killed” and “martial law proclaimed through the island.”

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet or the General Advertiser
Printed by John Dunlap

WILLIAMSBURG, (Virginia) Sept. 20.

SINCE our last another vessel has arrived at Hampton with 1200 bushels of salt; and on Thursday one came up to Burwell’s Ferry with a quantity of that useful article, besides rum, sugar, linens, &c. She came from Cape Nichola Mole, and brings advice of an insurrection of the Negroes in Jamaica, on account of the scarcity of provisions. Between sixty and seventy white people had been killed, numbers of the Negroes taken and gibbeted, and martial law proclaimed through the island.