Discourse and Counter-Discourses: Missionaries, Literacy, and Black Liberation in the British Caribbean

Abstract

From the late seventeenth century onward, the central aim of missionary Christianity in the British Atlantic was to Christianize slavery; that is, to render the institution morally and theologically acceptable within a Christian framework. This work of “amelioration” was envisioned as a gradual process, with missionaries from both the established Church of England and a host of dissenting denominations playing a central role in its advancement. Collectively, they promoted a discourse of Christian slavery that aimed both to reassure slaveowners of the compatibility between slavery and Christianity and to frame the conversion of enslaved people as a means of producing a more obedient, industrious, and morally disciplined labor force. To be sure, in promoting a Christianized vision of slavery, missionary societies were deeply complicit in the exploitation of enslaved Africans. Yet, ironically, the very tools they employed to pacify and discipline (biblical instruction and literacy) were repurposed to articulate a platform of resistance, ultimately contributing to slavery’s undoing. This essay employs critical discourse analysis to examine how these dynamics unfolded in two pivotal uprisings in the British Atlantic world: the Demerara Rebellion of 1823 and the Christmas Rebellion of 1831 in Jamaica. In both cases, missionary endeavors contributed to the counter-discursive appropriation of biblical theology that played a critical role in transforming enslaved people into agents of political change. Still, reimagining scripture was only part of the story. Crucially, it was the alignment of a new religious consciousness with unfolding political events, that transformed simmering discontent into open revolt.

1. Introduction

In the production of knowledge, identity, and power, discourse functions as a powerful instrument for shaping and ordering the world. It creates and reinforces group boundaries, structures social hierarchies, and influences how knowledge is produced and interpreted (Gee 1996).1 Decades ago Foucault (1972) emphasized that discourse does not merely reflect existing power structures; it actively constitutes them. It brings into being subjects, regimes, and institutions, and sustains them. In the same era Said (1978) demonstrated how imperial discourses, such as those underpinning Orientalism, constructed racialized and cultural “Others” to legitimize domination, conquest, and exploitation. More recently, Norman Fairclough, building on the work of Foucault, Said, and others has emphasized how language—whether spoken, written, or visual—both reflects and reinforces dominant worldviews, thereby perpetuating the ideologies and power structures of dominant groups (Fairclough 1995, 2003). Crucially, however, Fairclough also highlights that discourse is not merely a tool of domination; it simultaneously opens the possibility for resistance and transformation, particularly through the emergence of counter-discourses from within marginalized or subjugated communities.

Few contexts illustrate the interplay between discourse, identity, and power as vividly as the Protestant world of the British Caribbean. Competing narratives about the place of transatlantic slavery, freedom, and human agency jostled for domination among the various factions across Britain’s empire, in both metropole and colonies. Slave masters, as central actors in this colonial drama, were deeply committed to preserving slavery and maximizing profits through the ruthless exploitation of enslaved people. Their discourse upheld slavery as essential to the imperial economy and framed any challenge to the institution as regressive and destabilizing (Besson 2011; Gerbner 2010; Swaminathan 2016). Missionaries, another key agency in colonial politics, positioned themselves as reformers working within the system to ameliorate the conditions of slavery. Their discourse focused on the Christianization of slavery, envisioning religious conversion as a means of producing a more obedient, industrious, and morally upright enslaved population (Gordon 1996; Kaye 2016; Turner 1982). Slaveholders, by and large, dismissed these efforts, spurning both missionary societies and the imperial authorities who supported them (Edmonds and Gonzalez 2010; Kaye 2016; Scanlan 2022).

To placate the plantocracy, missionary reformers framed religious education as a tool for social control, one that upheld rather than challenged the existing social order. This was especially true of the Anglican Church, which openly aligned itself with planter interests (Glasson 2012; Smith 2023). Nonconformist missionaries, while often more sympathetic to the enslaved and more effective in their conversion efforts, still aimed to shape a religious identity that was compatible with slavery (Edmonds and Gonzalez 2010; Gordon 1996; Matthews 2006; Turner 1982). Nevertheless, while publicly framing their efforts as part of a civilizing mission that upheld the institution of slavery, nonconformist missionaries also believed they were laying the groundwork for its eventual abolition by cultivating a class of disciplined, Christianized laborers suited for integration into the imperial economy (Dierksheide 2014; Edmonds and Gonzalez 2010; Hall 2002).

To be sure, in promoting a Christianized vision of slavery, missionary societies were deeply complicit in the exploitation of enslaved Africans. Yet, ironically, the very tools they employed to pacify and discipline (biblical instruction and literacy) were repurposed to articulate a platform of resistance, ultimately contributing to slavery’s undoing (Lawson 1996; Reid-Salmon 2012). Equipped with these tools, enslaved people gradually constructed their own discourse regarding their position in colonial society. Theologically, they reimagined their enslavers as oppressors of God’s people and located in Scripture a powerful justification for their struggle for liberation. And socially, their assumption of leadership roles within missionary churches fostered a strong sense of self-respect which directly subverted the rigid social hierarchy of the colonial system. In this regard, what slaveholders had long feared, missionaries would eventually come to discover: Christianity was “a double-edged sword,” and the Bible, “a dangerous book” (Coffey 2020, p. 46; Erskine 2017, p. 14).

As enslaved Christians gained the ability to read scripture for themselves, many began to interpret it in ways that departed radically from missionary intent. Literate elites within missionary churches, often occupying trusted roles, developed hermeneutics of liberation that gave rise to subversive counter-discourses (Lawson 1996; Sensbach 2019). They reimagined their experiences through the lens of the Exodus, the conquest narratives of Joshua, and the liberating message of Jesus and the New Testament. In this way, missionaries, though motivated by reformist or paternalistic aims, unintentionally nurtured a spiritually empowered class of enslaved readers whose engagement with scripture provided both the theological rationale and moral urgency for liberation (Gerbner 2018).

What slave masters, missionaries, and enslaved people were doing in advancing their respective interests through language and their use of the Bible can be understood as the construction of discourses. Discourses are the ways in which individuals or groups seek to define, control, and exercise power through language and other signifying practices (Foucault 1972; Said 1978; Fairclough 1995, 2003). They serve the interests of particular groups and are, at their core, about power. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a methodological approach that examines how language and related signifiers are deployed to advance the interests of particular groups. More specifically, CDA investigates how language both constitutes and shapes power relations within a given social context (Fairclough 2003; Locke 2004). It can help to “highlight inequality that is expressed, produced, and reproduced through language” (Young and Fitzgerald 2006, p. 8).

This essay employs critical discourse analysis to explore how the discursive tensions created by slave masters, missionaries, and enslaved people erupted in two pivotal uprisings in the British Atlantic world: the Demerara Rebellion of 1823 and the Christmas Rebellion of 1831 in Jamaica. In both cases, missionary endeavours contributed to the counter-discursive appropriation of biblical theology that played a critical role in transforming enslaved people into agents of political change. Yet it would require more than biblical reimagining to move a subdued population to rebellion; it was the alignment of spiritual belief with key political developments that transformed latent discontent into open revolts.

2. Background of the Rebellions

2.1. The Demerara Revolt

In August 1823, a slave rebellion erupted in the British sugar colony of Demerara (Guyana), with far-reaching consequences for enslaved people, planters, missionaries, and ongoing debates about slavery and emancipation in British society. The colony, which had changed hands between the Dutch and the British since the 1780s, was formally incorporated into the British Empire in 1814. At the time of the rebellion, Demerara had a population of approximately 2500 whites, 2500 free blacks, around 7000 Indigenous people, and roughly 77,000 enslaved Africans (Craton 1982, 1997; Da Costa 1997; Harding 2022).

An estimated 12,000 enslaved individuals participated in the uprising, which extended across 60 plantations along a 25-mile stretch of the coast (Craton 1982, 1997; Harding 2022). The rebellion lasted less than a week. The demands of the rebels were somewhat ambiguous: while some called for three days off per week, including Sundays for church attendance, most demanded full emancipation. Neither request was granted, and the revolt was swiftly suppressed. Scholars have noted that the uprising was characterized by a striking degree of restraint (Coffey 2020; Da Costa 1997). Only three whites were killed, and a few others injured by being placed in stocks or otherwise restrained. In the same vein, there was only negligible damage to property and crops. In stark contrast, the planter class responded with overwhelming brutality, killing approximately 250 black people, including nearly 200 who were shot in the immediate aftermath. 2 Those captured were subjected to crude and gruesome punishments following summary trials: executions by shooting, hanging, and decapitation, along with floggings of up to 1000 lashes. Severed heads were displayed on pikes, and bodies left hanging on gibbets as public warnings (Craton 1980, 1982; Da Costa 1997; Harding 2022).

This rebellion was significant not only because it was one of the largest in the British Atlantic world up to that point, but also because its origins were tied to the Bethel Chapel, located on the Success plantation owned by the absentee landlord John Gladstone, the father of future four-time British Prime Minister William Gladstone. The uprising was associated with Quamina, the chief deacon at Bethel, and his son Jack Gladstone, an occasional attendee. Quamina was hunted down and shot, his body displayed on a gibbet at the entrance to the plantation as a warning to would-be rebels. Ironically, Jack Gladstone, although identified as the primary instigator of the rebellion, was spared the worst fate. Due to his testimony (explored further below) and his role in curbing the rebellion’s more violent factions, he was designated a military laborer and exiled to St. Lucia in what was an uncharacteristic act of clemency by the governor (Grint 2024; Harding 2022).

Bethel Chapel had been led by John Smith, an evangelical missionary with the London Missionary Society (LMS). When Smith arrived in Demerara in 1817, he could hardly have imagined that within a few short years, he would stand trial for his life, charged with complicity in one of the most consequential slave revolts in British colonial history.

2.2. The ‘Christmas Rebellion’

Less than a decade after the Demerara rebellion, another major slave uprising would shake the foundations of the British Atlantic world, this time in Jamaica. In late December 1831, a rebellion led by an enslaved man named Sam Sharpe catalyzed the largest slave uprising in the history of Britain’s colonial slave empire (Lawson 1996; Reid-Salmon 2012). What began as a work-stoppage or “sit down” to demand wages for labor quickly escalated into a widespread insurrection. The rebellion mobilized a significant segment of the slave population in the northwest region of the country. An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 enslaved people participated in the revolt which began in the parish of St. James. The uprising spread across five parishes, covering more than 600 square miles and affecting over 200 estates. Unlike the Demerara rebellion, the Jamaican uprising resulted in widespread destruction, with damage to property and crops estimated at well over £1 million (Craton 1982, 1997; Edmonds and Gonzalez 2010; Grint 2024). To contemporary observers, it seemed “as if the whole country had become a vast furnace” (quoted in Craton 1982, p. 303; see also Reid-Salmon 2012; Zoellner 2020).

Predictably, the colonial response was swift and brutal. While approximately 14 whites were killed during the conflict, some 200 blacks were killed in the immediate suppression. In the following weeks, another 500 were tried and executed by shooting, hanging, or flogging, with many bodies left on gibbets or abandoned in the countryside to be devoured by vultures (Fiddes and Kreitzer 2024; Zoellner 2020). Here too severed heads of some victims were displayed on pikes (Grint 2024). In the final analysis, perhaps up to 700 enslaved Africans in pursuit of their freedom were murdered by a colonial regime that treated the demand for liberty as a crime punishable by death.3

This revolt was the most significant in the British Empire because of its size and scope, the extent of the destruction, and the impact it would have on the abolition of slavery. The revolt was also significant because its origins were traced, yet again, to a sectarian missionary society—the Baptists. As a deacon in the Baptist church, Sharpe was able to capitalize on his trusted position which afforded him relative freedom of movement to organize the largest slave revolt in British history (Dick 2009; Lawson 1996). In the end, however, it came at great cost to the enslaved, including Sharpe himself. Perhaps as a humiliating way to demonstrate the total failure of his efforts, Sharpe was the last of the offenders to be executed. He was hanged in Montego Bay on 23 May 1832.

In the aftermath of both rebellions, the central issue debated in the colonies and the metropole was the question of the amelioration of slavery, with religious instruction by sectarian missionary societies taking center stage. The plantocracy argued that enslaved people’s ability to read, combined with radical interpretations of scripture, inevitably led to rebellion. Missionary societies, however, rejected this claim, arguing instead that their teachings had a pacifying effect on the enslaved, as demonstrated by a general decline in the frequency and severity of revolts and an overall reduction in violence against whites (Da Costa 1997; Matthews 2006; Zoellner 2020). These contentions which climaxed in the 19th century had deeper historical roots.

3. Protestant Missions and the “Missionary Discourse”

The battle over how to interpret the Bible was central to the Protestant Reformation which began in the early sixteenth century. At the heart of that movement was a fierce struggle over who held the authority to read, teach, and determine the meaning of scripture (Schreiner 2011). The splintering of Christendom that followed, from magisterial reformers like Luther and Calvin to more radical voices like the Anabaptists, was born from divergent readings of the biblical text (Cameron 2012; McGrath 2021). In England, this legacy produced both the state-supported Anglican Church and a host of dissenting sects, each with distinct theological emphases, church practices, and missionary endeavors (Seed 2022). Despite their theological and institutional divisions in Britain, however, they would find common cause in the colonies—the expansion of Christianity among enslaved populations.

Yet within Protestant circles, the question of whether slavery was compatible with Christianity remained a point of significant tension. Protestant slaveholders and missionaries wrestled with whether it was possible, or desirable, to Christianize people who were legally and socially classified as chattel. Could one be both a slave and a Christian, or did the equality implied by spiritual brotherhood threaten the very foundations of plantation society? Such questions had long been resolved within the colonial empires of Spain, Portugal, and France, where the baptism of enslaved people had been widely practiced and institutionally integrated for centuries. Catholic missions viewed the souls of enslaved Africans as fully within the fold of the Church, and Christian conversion was often considered an expected part of slaveholding (Casares and Delaigue 2013; Gerbner 2018; Glasson 2012). Drawing in part upon this Catholic model, from the late seventeenth century onward, the central aim of missionary Christianity in the British Atlantic was to Christianize slavery; that is, to render the institution morally and theologically acceptable within a Christian framework (Dunkley 2011a; Glasson 2012). Ostensibly, “amelioration,” as this new campaign was informally called, was envisioned as a gradual process of reforming slavery, but its outcome was conceived of differently by opposing factions. While pro-slavery advocates saw it as a way to strengthen and extend the institution, critics viewed it as “a very slow process” toward slavery’s eventual abolition (Dierksheide 2014, p. 4; see also Heuman 2006).

When the tide of amelioration swept into the British Caribbean, it carried with it missionary enterprises bearing the banners of both the established Church of England and a range of dissenting, or “sectarian,” denominations. The Moravians, whose origins can be traced to the Hussite movement of the 15th century, were the first to begin working among enslaved people in British colonies (Dunkley 2011a; Frey 1998; Gordon 1996; Schneider 2018; Turner 1982). They were soon followed by Anglicans, and later by Wesleyan Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and others. Missionaries across these traditions maintained that their role was not to oppose the institution of slavery but to redeem the souls of the enslaved within it (Da Costa 1997; Hall 2002). They insisted that Christian instruction would uplift African “heathens” and “savages,” thereby rendering slavery a “benign institution” with benefits to both planters and enslaved (Gerbner 2018). We may call this the “missionary discourse,” the aims of which were to Christianize slavery, pacify unsettled slave owners, and “convert” African savages into docile, willingly submissive Christian slaves.

Operating under the banner of amelioration, the missionary discourse sidestepped the slavery of the body and concentrated on what they termed the “slavery of sin”—a spiritual bondage from which they believed the African could be liberated through Christian instruction and conversion (Matthews 2006; Reid-Salmon 2012). The separation between the heavenly and the earthly, the spiritual and the temporal, was thus strictly delineated: one belonged to God and the other to Caesar (Dunkley 2011a; Kaye 2016). Enslaved Africans were to be taught humility, obedience, and Christian virtue, with the hope that religious formation would yield more docile, industrious, and heaven-bound laborers (Erskine 2017). A missionary from the London Missionary Society (LMS) captured both the spiritual and temporal dimensions of the missionary discourse in writing that he had always sought “to direct the poor negroes, how they may be delivered from the bondage of sin and Satan, and to teach them the pure principles of Christianity, which will … make them loyal subjects, obedient servants and children” (quoted in Craton 1997, pp. 270–71). In this discursive framework, evangelism served the dual purpose of moral reform and social stability: Christian conversion became both a salvific and disciplinary tool, mediating spiritual grace while ensuring a more compliant slave population. From this missionary construal, Christianity was ultimately “irrelevant to the quest for freedom” (Rugemer 2013, p. 450).

4. Protestant Missions and the “Planter Discourse”

4.1. Planter Discourse and Aglican Missionaries

Following on the heels of the Moravians, the Anglican Church established a network of state-supported missionary organizations, including the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG, 1701), the Church Missionary Society (1799), and other affiliated groups (Dunkley 2011a; Frey 1998; Gerbner 2018). These institutions functioned as arms of both church and empire and given a central role in the civilizing project. Glasson (2012) has argued that for Anglican missionary societies, the project of Christianizing enslaved Africans was not only about moral reform but equally about demonstrating the truth and universality of the Christian message. The conversion of enslaved people was thus framed as a means of extending Christianity’s global influence and demonstrated that even those considered most distant from civilization could be transformed by the Gospel. To realize this goal, Anglican missionaries sought to allay the anxieties of slaveholders by affirming the compatibility of slavery with Christianity while touting the creation of a more compliant and productive workforce. In effect, Anglican missionaries firmly declared themselves defenders of the existing social order (Besson 2011; Glasson 2012; Smith 2023).4 While the transformation of enslaved Africans was the ostensible goal of the established Church, their missionaries had minimal success in converting enslaved people and remained largely aligned with the interests of the white planter class (Frey 1998; Gordon 1996; Turner 1982).

Yet even the conservative religious program of Anglican missionaries were met with some resistance from the plantocracy, stemming from a persistent fear that Christian conversion itself could be socially disruptive (Dunkley 2011a). As early as 1663, planters in Barbados warned that baptizing and instructing enslaved Africans in Christianity would “destroy their property” and “endanger the island,” noting that converted slaves were often “more perverse and intractable than others” (quoted in Gerbner 2018, p. 67). And as late as 1824, the proslavery Jamaican author James Macqueen similarly lamented that religious instruction for enslaved people would inevitably “bring about emancipation” (quoted in Dunkley 2011a, p. 48). Macqueen’s concern reflected a central tenet of the broader “planter discourse,” which cast missionary activity as intrusive, unwanted, and ultimately detrimental to both the institution of slavery and the economic interests of the empire. Yet some planters found reassurance in figures like Anglican parson George Wilson Bridges, a staunch defender of slavery and a slaveowner himself. Bridges wrote extensively against the abolitionist impulse emanating from Britain, portraying enslaved Africans as “primitive,” “barbarous,” inferior to whites, and barely distinguishable from animals (Hall 2002; Zoellner 2020).5 His extreme brutality, which at least twice involved him in civil proceedings, earned him a reputation for cruelty and diabolism (Craton 1997; Dunkley 2011b; Smith 2023; Turner 1982). Over time, Bridges emerged as a vehement critic of dissenting missionaries, denouncing “the poison of sectarianism” and working tirelessly to oppose their influence (Hall 2002, p. 101).

4.2. Planter Discourse and Slave Conversions

Yet even with allies like Bridges, many planters remained uneasy with the general idea of slave conversion. Their discursive strategy had long promoted the view that Christianity was the birthright of white Europeans to the exclusion of African “savages” (Gerbner 2018). Slaveowners had fought long and hard to prevent non-whites, especially enslaved Africans, from converting to Christianity. By excluding the “heathen” from Christian fellowship, slave masters aimed to sustain the system of human bondage indefinitely. This binary discourse, which positioned European “Christians” against African “heathens,” is what Gerbner (2018) terms Protestant Supremacy. Thus conversion of enslaved people threatened to destabilize the carefully constructed binary that had undergirded Protestant slavery from its inception.

Baptism, in particular, posed a profound danger to this ideological edifice. It undermined one of the central justifications for slavery: the claim that Africans were less than human (Smith 2023). The bestialization of Africans was a fundamental tenet of planter ideology, reinforced in myriad ways, from the castration of enslaved men to the persistent association of Africans with primates (Smith 2023). The English travel writer Richard Ligon illustrates this view in writing that the purpose of his 1647 voyage to Madeira was “to trade for negroes, horses and cattle which we were to sell at the Barbados” (Ligon 1657, p. 2). Ligon’s explicit association of “negroes” with “horses” and “cattle” expresses an a priori assumption of their kinship. He further reinforces this view by his description of other enslaved people he encountered on Barbadian plantations: they were “most often near to beasts as may be” (Ligon 1657, p. 47). Such comparisons were common throughout the history of transatlantic slavery, implying that Africans were intellectually and morally no higher than beasts and therefore incapable of receiving the Christian religion (Gerbner 2018). Perhaps the most elaborate articulation of this thesis came in the eighteenth century from Edward Long. In his three-volume History of Jamaica (Long 1774), Long argued for the close affinity between Africans and orangutans, even asserting that the latter possessed greater intelligence (Ellis et al. 2024; Smith 2023).

Within such a framework, acknowledging that Africans were capable of receiving Christian instruction threatened to collapse the logic of their alleged intellectual deficiency. More importantly, baptism conferred full spiritual equality with whites, placing enslaved Africans on the same footing as their masters (Smith 2023). As Gerbner (2018) has shown, it was precisely the growing number of black conversions to Christianity that would ultimately force slave masters to shift their discourse from Protestant Supremacy to white supremacy, as Africans could now lay legitimate claim to the Christian identity once reserved for Europeans (Africans could not, however, make an equivalent claim to white skin color or phenotype in the new ideological binary). This background helps to explain the deep aversion slaveowners had for missionary interference. Nevertheless, they had little choice than to tolerate the presence of missionaries who had the official backing of the English Crown (Da Costa 1997; Dunkley 2011a).

4.3. Planter Discourse and Nonconformist Missionaries

Planter fears intensified with the arrival of missionaries from nonconformist denominations in the colonies. Unlike their Anglican counterparts, evangelical missionaries from the Baptist, Methodist, and Congregationalist traditions were especially threatening due to their emphasis on societal reform, religious liberty, and the universal brotherhood of mankind (Coffey 2020; Matthews 2006).6 By insisting on the spiritual dignity of the enslaved, these missionaries unintentionally provided a discursive framework through which enslaved people could reinterpret the Bible, assert a moral authority of their own, and, in time, articulate aspirations for liberation that far exceeded the intentions of their would-be evangelizers (Da Costa 1997; Scanlan 2022; Turner 1982). Because of these theological emphases, and especially their affiliation with anti-slavery movements, planters regarded such missionaries not merely as religious intruders but as potential agitators, perennially suspected “of fomenting the cause of freedom amongst their slaves” (Smith 2023, p. 349).

The revolutionary undertones of egalitarian ideals were especially poisonous to the social order that colonial authorities sought to preserve. Keenly aware of the dangers, they took various measures to suppress them. In the 1830s, the Jamaican House of Assembly expressed this suspicion directly to Baptist missionaries:

“You Missionaries are a body of persons whom we (the House of Assembly) do not acknowledge. You have intruded yourselves on the Island, unsolicited and unwelcomed. So long as you proceed on your own resources you are licensed on the ground of toleration; but we have passed this law (The Consolidated Slave Act) that you may receive no assistance here for carrying out your purposes, and to prevent your further increase amongst us.”

(quoted in Henderson 1931, p. 10)

Similarly, in Demerara, planters recognized that “the Gospel the missionaries preached could be turned by the slaves against their masters” (Da Costa 1997, p. 10). Faced with increasing scrutiny and suspicion, leadership of nonconformist societies directed their members to steer clear of politics and focus solely on the spiritual conditions of their enslaved parishioners. Despite such admonitions, slave masters became increasingly hostile to missionary interference, engaging in their own campaigns to subvert the work of sectarian missionaries, especially as it pertains to the teaching of literacy to their slaves. Planters’ perception of the threat of a literate slave population was not unfounded (Turner 1982). Indeed, enslaved people capitalized on their newfound knowledge to develop a discourse of their own which ran counter to both that of their “masters” and their evangelical sympathizers.

5. Masters, Missionaries, and the “Enslaved Discourse”

Due to the nature of the available evidence, the perspectives of enslaved people have been notoriously difficult to discern, as numerous scholars have pointed out (Reid-Salmon 2012; Coffey 2020; Zoellner 2020; Harding 2022). Their perspectives are almost always mediated through colonial documents authored by members of white society, whose accounts are inherently biased toward their own social and political interests. As a result, enslaved voices are often filtered through hostile perspectives—appearing primarily in court records, missionary reports, planter correspondence, and public commentary. Nevertheless, with appropriate caution and critical engagement, it is still possible to gain meaningful insight into how enslaved individuals sought to construct a counter-discourse of liberation against those of slave masters and missionaries.

Central to the discourse of enslaved people was the pursuit of freedom. Every dimension of their existence longed for freedom, hoped for freedom, prayed for freedom, and was often prepared to fight for freedom. The introduction of biblical instruction among enslaved communities provided new opportunities both to develop a theological discourse on slavery and freedom and to seek practical avenues for realizing that freedom. Despite the aim of the missionary discourse to support slavery through amelioration, missionary endeavors nonetheless created multiple opportunities for enslaved people to subvert the system of their oppression. Chapels provided spaces for gathering, communication, the exchange of information, and even the planning of rebellion (St. Pierre 2007). Furthermore, chapel instruction offered enslaved people time away from the plantation, and masters were increasingly pressured to permit attendance at Sunday services. In some cases, services were also held at night, which further expanded opportunities for collective action (St. Pierre 2007; Gerbner 2018). Chapels included large numbers of “supporters” in addition to formal “members,” since many were drawn to Christianity for benefits other than conversion. Predictably, slave masters in the British Atlantic became increasingly anxious about the freedom that such gatherings afforded enslaved people and took steps to curtail their attendance at church services (Lawes 2008; Matthews 2006; Gerbner 2018). In Demerara in 1823, for example, Governor Murray issued measures restricting attendance at the Bethel Chapel out of “fear that the chapel had become the focus of slave intrigue” (Craton 1982, p. 276).

Beyond opportunities for collective action, Christian conversion (or association) also offered crucial benefits in the social dimension. While missionaries sought to cultivate submissive Christians accepting of their conditions, religion often had the opposite effect: it affirmed the dignity and self-worth of enslaved people by recognizing their humanity and spiritual equality before God (Turner 1982; Reid-Salmon 2012). As a result, enslaved people became less willing to accept their social condition. Participation in church life as deacons, catechists, and lay preachers conferred dignity and authority that sharply conflicted with the daily degradations of slavery (St. Pierre 2007). Such leadership roles “humanized” the enslaved in their own eyes, raising their social status within church and community (Gerbner 2018), and producing an inward discontent that only awaited the right catalyst to erupt. The irony, then, is that the very message intended to cultivate obedience unintentionally furnished enslaved people with networks, education, and opportunities that enabled them to deploy religion to their own advantage (Reid-Salmon 2012). Indeed, scholars have long observed that rebellions have most often emerged from within such “textual communities” (Coffey 2020, p. 31).

Within the social dynamics cultivated by missionaries among the enslaved, literacy became the decisive means by which their discourse was shaped, as it enabled firsthand access to the biblical text (Schneider 2018; Coffey 2020). Enslaved Africans flocked to chapels for biblical instruction and eagerly sought out any reading material they could obtain (Gerbner 2018). In 1832 the Baptist congregation in Falmouth, Jamaica, overseen by the missionary William Knibb, reported a membership of 983 and 2500 “enquirers,” of whom “a great many were learning to read, and about 100 adults could read.” Knibb “found the desire for knowledge very intense” among his congregants, suggesting that this hunger was motivated by “the power it would give them of gaining information relative to slavery” (Analysis of the Report 1833, p. 110). Similarly, in Demerara, many Black church leaders, as well as local members were able to read and, in turn, were actively teaching others (Harding 2022). Thus, central to the discourse of enslaved Africans was the conviction that literacy was the key to knowledge, knowledge was power, and power was the indispensable vehicle for their eventual emancipation. Consequently, they pursued every available means to acquire or improve their reading abilities.

Of significance, enslaved people discovered that the liberative power of the Bible was not found merely in the ability to read it; power lay within the text itself. Within many African cultures, sacred objects were revered for their talismanic value. Similarly for enslaved Christians, the Bible came to hold profound symbolic meaning as a totem of power and protection (Reid-Salmon 2012; Dick 2009; Craton 1982). Court proceedings from both the Demerara revolt and the Christmas rebellion reveal that rebel leaders required their followers to swear allegiance and secrecy upon the Bible, often kissing it for good fortune (Coffey 2020; Da Costa 1997; Craton 1982). When the bush hideout of the Demerara rebel leader Quamina was discovered, among his few possessions was a Bible—but no weapons—revealing the extent to which the Bible had become a power symbol and token of protection (Harding 2022). With increased literacy, however, the Bible’s significance deepened well beyond totemism. Enslaved people came to recognize that they possessed not only the power and intellect to read the text, but also the authority to reinterpret it for their own purposes and within their own context.

Alternative readings of the Bible were inevitable, if the history of the Reformation provided any instruction. After all, it was alternative interpretations of scripture that had produced the proliferation of nonconformist movements which were now a thorn in the flesh of West Indian slaveowners. It follows that placing the Bible in the hands of enslaved people, even with relatively few being able to read, would eventually generate interpretations that clashed with those of the dominant class. While missionary societies distributed Bibles widely among their members and supporters, they had little control over how enslaved people engaged with the text beyond the confines of chapel instruction (Coffey 2020). Once enslaved readers began to confer among themselves, it was improbable that they would adhere to “authorized” interpretations.

What, for instance, did it mean to possess “freedom” in Christ? For enslaved Africans, there was an evident incompatibility between the reality of bodily enslavement and the missionary claim of spiritual freedom. They quickly discerned that certain interpretations of scripture were deployed to legitimate their subjugation. At the same time, they recognized that the adoption and adaptation of Christian beliefs and practices could serve as gateways to their ultimate pursuit. Scriptural knowledge thus enabled enslaved people to craft, justify, and sustain their own theological discourse on slavery and freedom. Hence, far from being passive recipients of missionary doctrines, enslaved Africans “actively transposed and subjected religion to the realization of their main political aspiration” (Matthews 2006, p. 85). In a word, oppressed peoples pursued biblical knowledge with objectives distinct from those of the missionaries: where missionaries read “conversion,” the enslaved frequently read “liberation” (Turner 1982; Gerbner 2018; Craton 1978).

Finally, and significantly, biblical liberative ethics provided the enslaved with “a code with which to judge their oppressors” (Da Costa 1997, p. 10). In reinterpreting scripture, enslaved people also reimagined the identity of their masters, casting them as tyrannical oppressors of biblical proportions rather than as fear-inspiring overlords or even paternalistic benefactors. In this way, they wrested interpretive authority from white hands, transforming the Bible into a weapon of critique rather than an instrument of control. This act of re-reading illustrates Terry Locke’s observation about the power of texts to construct discourses: “the same text can also be read in different ways to generate different meanings” (Locke 2004, p. 13). Ironically, nothing instilled greater fear in West Indian planters than the prospect of a literate slave population with the ability to wield their text against them (Zoellner 2020). Indeed, slave masters evinced a palpable and persistent suspicion that enslaved Africans sought religion precisely because of its liberative potential (Gerbner 2018; Zoellner 2020).

The enslaved discourse of freedom was thus multifaceted. It encompassed literacy, the reinterpretation of scripture for liberative ends, and the elevation of the Bible itself as a sacred object. It also involved the acquisition of social status through church offices and leadership, which challenged rigid hierarchies by affirming the humanity of the enslaved in defiance of planter attempts to dehumanize them. Theologically, it affirmed their dignity as children of God, free in Christ, while recasting their masters as tyrannical figures aligned with the devil. In this way, enslaved people were not passive recipients of missionary discourse but active creators of a counter-discourse that redefined both their own position and that of their oppressors. Even if they could not immediately reorder the system politically or economically, they did so morally and theologically, employing biblical discourse as a lens through which to envision their emancipation. As will be discussed further below, oppressed peoples naturally gravitated toward biblical narratives that “spoke to their condition” and, in doing so, arrived “at more militant readings of Scripture” (Coffey 2020, p. 40).

6. Biblical Discourse and the Demerara Revolt

It was in an atmosphere of hostility that John Smith arrived in Demerara in 1817, carrying a strong sense of divine mission to minister to the enslaved. His superiors had aptly warned him of the challenges he would face. “Some of the gentlemen who own the estates, the masters of the slaves, are unfriendly to their instruction,” they noted, further cautioning that misunderstandings on the part of the enslaved “could jeopardize public safety.” Smith was therefore urged to “take the utmost care to prevent the possibility of this evil.” Most emphatically, he was admonished:

Not a word must escape you, in public or in private, which might render the slaves displeased with their masters, or dissatisfied with their station. You are not sent to relieve them from their servile condition, but to afford them the consolations of religion… The holy gospel you preach will render the slaves who receive it the most diligent, faithful, patient, and useful servants; will render severe discipline unnecessary, and make them the most valuable slaves on the estates.

(Demerara 1824, p. 28)7

The message was clear: avoid all social or political commentary in your ministry. Straying from this instruction was not simply imprudent—it was a threat to public safety. Despite this warning, Smith soon discovered that the realities on the ground made strict adherence to such directives more difficult than he imagined, just as it had been for his immediate predecessor (Craton 1982; Da Costa 1997; Kaye 2016). Though Smith took care to avoid content that might be deemed inflammatory, especially under the watchful eyes of white “spies” planted in his congregation, it was ultimately the content of his sermons and his views on slavery that formed the crux of the prosecution’s case against him (Coffey 2020; Harding 2022).

At Smith’s six-week trial following the revolt, his journal (submitted by the prosecution as evidence), reveals that, early in his ministry, he engaged in selective Bible readings to avoid potentially provocative passages (Coffey 2020; Da Costa 1997). In his entry for 8 August 1817, for instance, he recorded skipping a passage from Genesis 13 because it contained “a promise of deliverance,” explaining, “I was apprehensive the negroes might put such a construction upon it as I would not wish.” Adding that, “It is easier to make a wrong impression upon their minds than a right one” (Proceedings of a General Court Martial 1824, p. 5).

Yet this is far from the whole story. Smith’s journal provides ample evidence that teaching obedience and subjection was not a central emphasis in his ministry (Coffey 2020). On the contrary, Smith soon began to intentionally select passages that conveyed a more empowering message. Less than a year later, in his journal entry dated 30 June 1818, he recorded preaching from 1 Peter 1, which he believed was “very suitable in their present circumstances,” given that it was originally written to persecuted Christians. Drawing a clear parallel—“which is the case with our people”—he preached the passage with “determination.” The impact was immediate: “the subject of the discourse” sparked spirited “conversations” among his listeners (Proceedings of a General Court Martial 1824, pp. 5–6).

Here, Smith openly acknowledges that he chose scripture passages that resonated with his parishioners’ circumstances. What prompted this shift? For one, he observed that the enslaved often failed to remember certain passages he preached—not even five minutes after his message (Da Costa 1997). Yet, other passages were eagerly and readily recalled. Such texts spoke directly to their experience of slavery, portraying God as a defender of the oppressed or as one who condemns the wicked (whom the enslaved converts no doubt identified with their masters). Clearly, enslaved Christians exerted a powerful, though unspoken, influence on Smith’s preaching. They communicated their preference for messages that engaged their interests and reflected their lived realities.

As a result, Smith soon began deliberately focusing his sermons on topics he knew his audience wanted to hear. In effect, his parishioners tacitly demanded that his preaching be contextualized to their situation; otherwise, he risked losing their attention. Smith met this demand with cautious enthusiasm. Seen in this way, his choice to preach from 1 Peter 1 was strategic, paralleling the situation of his congregants, who, in Smith’s view, were also suffering for their faith. Indeed, plantation owners persecuted them, often brutally, for their religious devotion. Numerous entries in Smith’s journals document the abuses inflicted by masters to prevent enslaved people from attending services at the Bethel chapel (Kaye 2016). To Smith, enslaved Christians in Demerara were in the same situation as many of their biblical forebearers. Thus, Coffey (2020) concedes to one of the prosecution’s main claims; namely, that Smith was consciously shaping “his congregation’s identity as a persecuted people” (p. 37). Unlike missionaries from the established church, Smith positioned himself as an ally, a role the enslaved recognized and readily embraced (Craton 1997).

Additionally, living among enslaved people meant that Smith regularly mediated conflicts within the community, offered comfort in the face of injustice and abuse, advocated for their rights within the limited scope available to him, and frequently lamented both the brutality of the masters and the suffering of the enslaved (Da Costa 1997; Harding 2022). In a word, Smith’s close contact with his Black parishioners and their grievances deepened his sympathy for their plight. Confronted with their stories of hardship and injustice, Smith began to consciously set aside his earlier training and instead chose scriptural passages that directly addressed their condition. In this context, his sermons, often delivered beyond the hearing of white overseers, began to impart biblical messages that resonated deeply with the oppressed. He became emboldened in preaching moral lessons about freedom and oppression, subjects clearly “suited to the condition” of “our people.” During his trial, testimony from many enslaved witnesses revealed that Smith had taught them about the Exodus, the conquest narratives in Joshua, the parable of the unmerciful servant in the Gospels, and other liberative texts, the particulars of which the prosecution was keen to excavate (Coffey 2020). When Smith preached on the Exodus, enslaved people identified themselves with the Israelites and their enslavers with Egyptian taskmasters. When he spoke on the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18, both enslaved people and planters recognized that the message was contextually suited to them (Da Costa 1997). These were the very charges brought against him, and for which his journal provided incriminating evidence.

On the stand, many of the witnesses were coerced into implicating Smith with promises of pardon or reduced sentences (Grint 2024).8 In the case of Jack Gladstone, the acknowledged leader of the rebellion, his dictated testimony, recorded by a young lawyer, was later altered without his knowledge. Crucially, the added section implicated Smith as having instigated the rebellion (Harding 2022). Coming from the leader of the rebellion, Jack’s doctored “testimony” was damning. According to court records, Jack solemnly declared:

“Many of the lessons and discussions, and the parts of Scripture selected for us in Chapel, tended to make us dissatisfied with our situation as slaves… the half sort of instructions we received, I now see was highly improper. It put those who could read on examining the Bible and selecting passages applicable to our situation as slaves … and served to make us dissatisfied and irritated against our owners, as we were not always able to make out the real meaning of these passages.”

(quoted in Coffey 2020, p. 20; see also Craton 1982, p. 288)

Smith’s journal also implicated him with clear evidence of his opposition to slavery. He repeatedly expressed horror at the violence he witnessed on the plantations, noting in one entry his disgust at “the constant cracking of the whip,” one episode which, he noted, was occurring “even while writing this” (Proceedings of a General Court Martial 1824, p. 6). Elsewhere, he was unsparing in his contempt for slavery: “O Slavery, thou offspring of the Devil, when will thou cease to exist?” (quoted in Da Costa 1997, p. 152). And similarly: “the system must be abolished” (Proceedings of a General Court Martial 1824, p. 7).

Taking all of this into account, the prosecution made its case against Smith:

[T]hough the Prisoner well knew that [the slaves’] minds were thus irritated [by slavery], and though he was well aware that they would pervert, and take as applicable to themselves, any passages which could at all be brought to bear on their situation as slaves, he yet read to them the history of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, and of the wars of the Jews, and explained it to them in words most exactly fitting their own condition”

(Proceedings of a General Court Martial 1824, p. 84)

Smith was found guilty of complicity in the rebellion by a jury composed almost entirely of slaveholders and their sympathizers and sentenced to hang (Harding 2022). Though the Crown later commuted his sentence, the news arrived too late. Smith died of acute tuberculosis in a damp prison cell on 6 February 1824, after six months in detention (Rutz 2011).

Fundamentally, Smith’s case revolved around the contested issue of interpretation; specifically, what constituted the “real meaning” of Scripture. By the prosecution’s implication, a correct reading of the Bible would not have made enslaved people dissatisfied with their condition. Proper biblical interpretation, in their view, supported slavery. Tacitly, their real sentiment was that enslaved people should never have been given Christian instruction in the first place. Smith’s condemnation was thus an indictment of missionary Christianity itself and its ameliorative goals (Burnard and Candlin 2018). In the minds of the planters, their discourse regarding the dangers of missionary Christianity was confirmed: Christianizing enslaved people only leads to rebellion, jeopardizing both life and property. The immediate outcome of this conclusion was the expulsion of nonconformist missionaries from the colony; they would not return until 1829 (Craton 1982, 1997).

In retrospect, while Smith did not intend to incite a slave rebellion, his teachings undeniably contributed to the growing dissatisfaction among the enslaved, many of whom longed to hear texts that spoke of freedom, and which Smith was increasingly eager or pressured to share. In the planters eyes Smith had weaponized the Bible as a political tool (Coffey 2020). To abolitionists, however, Smith became something else entirely: “He alone was christened the Demerara Martyr” (Craton 1982, p. 289).

7. Biblical Discourse and the Baptist Revolt

In a different trajectory to the LMS in Demerara, the Baptist movement in Jamaica was initiated by an ex-slave and Loyalist refugee from the United States, George Liele. Fleeing with British troops after the American Revolution, Liele arrived in Jamaica in 1783 and quickly began spreading the Baptist faith to which he had previously converted. Despite operating under close scrutiny and often with the disapproval of the colonial authorities, Liele and a few friends succeeded in establishing the island’s first Baptist congregations (Edmonds and Gonzalez 2010; Lawson 1996). These early communities grew rapidly and included religious instruction, which notably emphasized reading and writing (Dick 2009; Turner 1982).

In 1791, Liele wrote to Baptist leaders in Britain requesting financial assistance and other forms of support (Liele 2021). At that time, he reported having baptized some 450 members. With “well-wishers and followers” they counted some 1500 in their ranks (Liele 2021, p. 127). The movement he founded came to be known as the Native or Black Baptist Church. As Reid-Salmon (2012) observes, this tradition was “the creation of Caribbean peoples” and was “defined by an African-derived cosmology, praxis and leadership” (p. 48). That is, Native Baptists blended Christian doctrine with African religious traditions, incorporating elements such as spirit possession, ecstatic worship, and charismatic preaching (Dick 2009; Gordon 1996; Lawson 1996; Turner 1982). Over time, this synthesis gave rise to a theology of resistance and liberation, rooted in the Africanization of Christianity (Dick 2009; Lawes 2008).

When British Baptist missionaries arrived in Jamaica in 1814, they had come at the invitation of the Native Baptists. They were given strict instruction to avoid entanglement in local politics or agitation against the planter class. Similar to the directives given to London Missionary Society members in Demerara, the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) warned its workers:

[Y]ou must ever bear in mind, that, as a resident in Jamaica, you have nothing whatever to do with its civil and political affairs; and with those you must never interfere…. The gospel of Christ, you well know, so far from producing or countenancing a spirit of rebellion or insubordination, has a directly opposite tendency.

(quoted in Thomas 2010, p. 25)

When Baptist missionary William Knibb arrived in Jamaica in 1825, he endeavored to adhere to this guidance. He was later chosen to give testimony pertaining to the 1831 uprising in Jamaica. In his defense, he emphasized that his preaching clearly distinguished between spiritual and temporal freedom. Upholding the missionary discourse, he insisted that Christian liberty “had respect to the soul and not to the body.” Thus in his instruction to the enslaved he “took care to make it understood that Christian freedom meant spiritual, not temporal, freedom.” Maintaining this theology of bodily submission, Knibb “thought it right and what every good man would do” (Analysis of the Report 1833, p. 110). With the Baptists under public scrutiny, Knib wished to make unequivocal his support for the missionary code.9

Samuel Sharpe was a leading deacon within the missionary Baptist tradition represented by Knibb. However, many scholars contend that Sharpe also aligned closely with the Black Baptist tradition, whose theology profoundly shaped his understanding of freedom and his desire for emancipation (Gordon 1996; Hall 2002; Lawson 1996; Reid-Salmon 2012; Turner 1982; Zoellner 2020).10 Literate and intellectually engaged, Sharpe became a key figure in an underground intelligence network among enslaved Afro-Jamaicans. His relative freedom of movement and his familiarity with the Montego Bay area enabled him to gather news from incoming ships and pick up port gossip. He was known to seek out and study British newspapers, which he would then read aloud and interpret for his fellow enslaved Africans (Zoellner 2020).

Like other literate enslaved Christians, Sharpe turned repeatedly to Scripture, drawing on passages that emphasized the divine imperative of liberty. His charisma and deep biblical knowledge earned him widespread respect as both a teacher and spiritual leader. Among Afro-Jamaicans he was distinguished by the informal ascription, “Daddy Sharpe” (Kennedy 2008). According to Baptist missionary Henry Bleby, who visit Sharpe in prison, Sharpe told him that he had learned from the Bible that “whites had no more right to hold black people in slavery, than the black people had to make the white people slaves” (Bleby 1868, pp. 128–29). We have no direct evidence to support which specific biblical texts shaped this conviction. However, based largely from the report of Sharpe’s contemporaries, scholars such as Zoellner (2020) have emphasized four main texts that may have shaped Sharpe’s liberation theology (p. 80).11

• “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, nor male or female; for all are one in Christ” (Galatians 3:28)
• “No man can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24)
• “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36)
• “Ye are bought with a price: be ye not the servants of men” (1 Corinthians 7:23)

Sharpe’s theology, rooted in such texts, stood at odds with that taught in the missionary Baptist churches where he served. Departing from the submission and spiritual liberty doctrine that Knibb and others upheld, Sharpe taught that freedom entailed both that of the spirit and the body. Aligning squarely with Black Baptist theology, for Sharpe, freedom was not merely a spiritual aspiration but a God-given right (Dick 2009; Lawson 1996; Reid-Salmon 2012). On the eve of his execution in May 1832, Sharpe reportedly told Bleby that he never intended to instigate a violent revolt; he only wanted his freedom. Offering no apology for that aim, he affirmed his conviction, stating, “I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery!” (Bleby 1868, p. 129; see also Craton 1978, p. 157).

Notwithstanding Sharpe’s unflappable self-assurance, his uprising became yet another weapon in the arsenal of pro-slavery advocates in Jamaica and beyond (Edmonds and Gonzalez 2010). For them, the rebellion offered undeniable proof that missionary Christianity had failed. The notion of Christianized slavery was a dangerous illusion. As in Demerara, the nonconformists bore the brunt of the backlash. According to the plantocracy, it was these dissenting ministers who were the cause of the destruction of “the fairest portion of Jamaica,” and the bloodshed that followed. With unfiltered indignation they declared, “we abhor the race of Methodists and Baptists” (quoted in Matthews 2006, p. 92). Because of Sharpe’s affiliation, it was particularly the Baptists who were targeted as the chief instigators of the revolt (Besson 2011; Grint 2024; Hall 2002).

The 1831 Christmas Rebellion is better known as the “Baptist War,” a name rooted in official planter reports claiming that “it appeared, from a mass of evidence, that the Baptists had been instrumental in misleading the slaves by inculcating doctrines teaching disobedience to their masters.” Condemning the Baptists as proxies for the broader nonconformist movement, the report declared:

As sectarianism leads to revolution both in church and state, it behooves us to adopt means to prevent any other than duly authorized ministers of the established churches of England and Scotland from imparting religious instruction to the slaves; and in furtherance of this measure we call upon all proprietors of estates, or their attorneys to put down all sectarian meetings on their respective properties, and that the magistracy should be most strongly urged to withhold for the future their license to sectarian ministers and their places of worship.”

(quoted in Analysis of the Report 1833, p. 110)

The repression of the revolt was quickly followed by a violent crackdown on nonconformist missionaries. A reign of mob terror broke out, targeting dissenting clergy and chapels. Churches were torched, missionaries assaulted, imprisoned, or threatened with lynching. Many leading Baptists and other non-established missionaries were forced to flee the island for safety in wake of the intensified campaign led by the Anglican rector and enslaver George William Bridges, introduced earlier (Gordon 1996; Matthews 2006; Smith 2023; Turner 1982). The Baptist War bears a strong resemblance to the Demerara Rebellion, as both were blamed on the influence of nonconformist missionaries (Hall 2002). Each uprising became a pretext to justify their suppression.

But was this justification warranted? Were these revolts solely the product of Christian teachings that affirmed the dignity of the enslaved? Or were they, more profoundly, a testament to the creativity and agency of enslaved people who reimagined biblical narratives to speak to their own suffering and hopes for freedom? In the end, can these uprisings be reduced solely to matters of biblical re/interpretation, as important as these may have been? Missionary influence was significant, indeed, as was the ability of enslaved people to connect scripture to their lived reality, but both factors were only parts of a much more complex social landscape, one in which the abolitionist discourse and parliamentary proceedings also played pivotal roles.

8. Parliamentary Proceedings, Royal Edicts, and the “Abolitionist Discourse”

The rebellions in Demerara and Jamaica must be understood within the fraught dynamics between the planter class, missionary efforts, and a British metropole increasingly energized by the abolitionist movement. Mounting pressure from abolitionists in the late eighteenth century compelled the British government to begin implementing reforms aimed at the eventual abolition of slavery (Dierksheide 2014; Heuman 2006). With each new reform measure, planters grew more defiant toward metropolitan authorities, often obstructing or outright ignoring directives (Blackburn 2011; Matthews 2006). As we have seen, although nonconformist missionaries frequently viewed their educational work as contributing to the eventual abolition of slavery, their more immediate objectives were centered on inculcating Christian virtues, promoting obedience to enslavers, and discouraging any pursuit of freedom through violent means (Hall 2002; Matthews 2006). While many were affiliated with abolitionist circles in Britain, their discourse emphasized emancipation as the outworking of divine providence operating in tandem with the advocacy of abolitionist organizations in Britain. Attempts to secure freedom through rebellion, in their view, lacked both church and divine sanction. In this sense, nonconformists missionaries positioned themselves as allies of the state in a project of gradual, controlled emancipation (Blackburn 2011; Dierksheide 2014; Edmonds and Gonzalez 2010; Scanlan 2022). While at the same time, as Craton astutely observes, they “were among the last to recognise the truly revolutionary implications of the faith they taught” (Craton 1978, p. 154).

If missionaries failed to realize the import of their message, planters did not. Plantation elites increasingly saw nonconformist missionaries as political agents of the government (Craton 1997; Turner 1982). In Demerara, increased parliamentary arguments in favour of abolition had raised the planters anxieties, and the Bathurst policies aimed at improving the lives of enslaved Africans served only to “throw the colonists into a rage” (Da Costa 1997, p. 34). This anti-slavery impulse emanating from Britain simply widened the ideological gulf between colony and metropole. As the apoplectic Demerara planters inveighed against their government, many considered secession following the American precedent, with the hopes of securing American aid (Grint 2024; Heuman 2006). Similarly, in Jamaica, in hopes of preserving slavery, planters also widely agitated the question of secession, here too looking to America for both inspiration and assistance (Analysis of the Report 1833; Heuman 2006). Enslaved people in both contexts interpreted these tensions as a struggle between a reformist British government and a reactionary planter class. These clear divisions which enslaved people were adept at detecting, revealed that there was significant sympathy towards their plight in the British public and parliament. This emboldened their desire for emancipation and made them ready to exploit any potential vulnerabilities in the system (Da Costa 1997). It was indeed this reformist momentum fueled by abolitionism and the resistance it provoked that served as a major catalyst for three significant slave uprisings in the British Caribbean during the early nineteenth century.12 Thus, political outcomes in the “Mother Country” had a direct bearing on slave revolts.

In Demerara, the issuance of the Bathurst reforms in the spring of 1823 was an inflection point. These measures, considered the most significant to date, were inspired by abolitionist discourse and included limitations on flogging (most notably, a ban on the whipping of women), improvements in material conditions, and support for religious education (Harding 2022). For many, the Bathurst circular signaled that the end of slavery was on the horizon. Governor John Murray, himself a planter, withheld the declaration from public knowledge, failed to enforce the reforms, and instead obstructed religious initiatives. Enslaved individuals were largely restricted from attending nonconformist chapels like Bethel through the denial of slave passes (Craton 1982; Da Costa 1997). Despite this suppression, news of the reforms began to circulate among the enslaved population, leading many to believe that the Crown had actually granted emancipation (Harding 2022; Sheridan 2002). The suppression of the measures fueled this belief, according to a prominent British abolitionist, declaring “it was natural that the slaves would believe that the hidden circular was freedom” (quoted in Matthews 2006, p. 87).

A similar dynamic unfolded in Jamaica during the 1831 uprising. As recorded in the 1832 parliamentary hearings, “The insurrection arose partly from these [parochial] meetings, partly from a knowledge of what was passing in England, and a belief that the king of England had resolved on freeing them; and partly from an idea that the planters, to frustrate this design, were going to transfer the island to America” (Analysis of the Report 1833, p. 106). Once again, developments in the metropole discussed in newspapers and public gatherings reached the ears of the enslaved population. Thanks to increasing levels of literacy from the missionary endeavour, many enslaved persons followed these political developments closely, particularly news involving the Crown.13 This growing access to reading and writing enabled enslaved communities to build communication networks and gather intelligence (Matthews 2006; Zoellner 2020). The interpretations they formed in both Demerara and Jamaica were entirely plausible responses to the circulating rumors during a period marked by heightened expectations and deep anxieties. The political climate in both colonies created a tinderbox ready to ignite. In each case, the decisive spark was tied to parliamentary actions and abolitionist agitation from abroad.

Thus, to be sure, the uprisings in Demerara and Jamaica were not simply spontaneous eruptions of anti-colonial violence inspired by Christian theology. Rather, they were deliberate and calculated actions undertaken by enslaved individuals who believed they were responding to royal directives (Klooster 2014). The governor of Demerara testified that the rebels believed “their Good King” had already granted their freedom, but that colonial authorities were unjustly withholding it (Craton 1982, p. 283). Similarly, Jack Gladstone affirmed that he would not have initiated a revolt “had I not been told that we were entitled to our freedom, and that it was withheld from us by our masters” (quoted in Harding 2022, p. 170). In Jamaica, Knibb reported that it was “a belief that the King of England had resolved on freeing them” that prompted Sam Sharpe to organize the work stoppage (Analysis of the Report 1833, p. 106). In both cases, enslaved people perceived themselves not as rebels against British rule, but as loyal subjects resisting the local planter class whom they believed were flouting royal decree (Analysis of the Report 1833; Bleby 1868). This explains why, in the aftermath of the 1831 uprising, Knibb observed that many of the rebels were genuinely shocked to find themselves under attack by the King’s troops (Klooster 2014). A similar reaction occurred in Demerara, where some rebels had been assured by their leaders that “the imperial troops in Georgetown would not march against them” (Craton 1982, p. 280).

The preceding analysis has significant implications for how we understand these two momentous revolts in the British Atlantic. The 1823 and 1831uprisings were not merely spontaneous acts of religiously inspired insurrection, as planter discourse purported. Rather, they reveal a complex interplay of political tensions, social and economic anxieties, the pent-up hope for emancipation of enslaved people, and their potential of misunderstanding inherent in their abilities to glean information from the agitations of press and speech. The enslaved drew upon their literacy, religious instruction, and informal networks to interpret events in according with their discursive aims which ultimately made revolt not only logical but dutiful. Their actions emerged from a political imagination shaped by both hope and surveillance, legislation and rumor, loyalty and resistance, scripture and circumstances. Emphatically, it was the rumoured royal decree announcing their freedom that was the immediate catalyst for political action by enslaved people in both Demerara and Jamaica.

Though the decrees they acted upon turned out to be fictive, the sentiment behind them was real: they believed freedom was both promised and delayed (Heuman 2006; Klooster 2014). These rumours provided the moral imperative and permission structure for revolt. Enslaved people thus bolstered their theological discourse by integrating notions of royal edicts attributed to their “good king”. By invoking the king’s authority, they could more easily set aside religious inhibitions that urged submission and find justification in taking matters into their own hands. These rebellions thus constituted a radical affirmation of the monarchy’s presumed benevolence and a direct challenge to the planter class’s obstruction of emancipation (Klooster 2014). These insights not only reshape the nature of the rebellions but underscore how the discourse of Christian slavery worked in tandem with political circumstances to create a framework through which enslaved people imagined, demanded, and actively pursued their liberation.

9. Conclusions

Slaveowners had long resisted the religious instruction of enslaved Africans for fear that Christian conversion would undermine the institution of slavery and disrupt their social and economic order. However, mounting pressure from abolitionist movements eventually forced them to confront two major turning points: the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, and the implementation of Amelioration policies, which effectively signaled the beginning of slavery’s gradual demise. Central to the Amelioration campaign were the efforts of missionaries, both from the established Church of England and from various nonconformist denominations. It was especially the latter group that provoked the strongest resistance from slaveowners. Their message of spiritual equality and universal brotherhood, along with their ties to abolitionist circles, raised planter anxieties that enslaved people were being emboldened to challenge their subjugation. The slave revolts of 1823 in Demerara and 1831 in Jamaica appeared, to many planters, to confirm their worst fears that religious instruction and literacy would inevitably inspire bloody revolts. In this, they were both wrong and right.

They were mistaken in assuming that the revolts were solely motivated by Christian teachings. Enslaved peoples in both colonies certainly embraced a Christian discourse of liberation and held a deep longing for freedom, but their actions were not driven solely, or even primarily, by religious convictions. Theology may have awakened in them a thirst for emancipation, but it was the immediate belief that powerful allies in Britain, including the king and Parliament, supported their cause that gave them the courage to take decisive action (Heuman 2006). As we have seen, enslaved Africans in both contexts believed that freedom had already been granted by royal decree but that it was being unjustly withheld by the planter class. Based on their reading of scripture they also believed that God intended for them to be free. As one enslaved man named Bingham, who was well acquainted with Sam Sharpe, put it: “The Baptists all believe that they are to be freed; they say the Lord and the King have given them free, but the white gentlemen in Jamaica kept it back” (quoted in Zoellner 2020, p. 82). Absent this combined belief in both human and divine sanction, the missionaries’ call for pacifism and submission in all probability would have carried the day.

In this regard, missionaries were not entirely mistaken in believing that their teachings tended to encourage compliance and suppress overt forms of resistance among the enslaved. The relatively minimal loss of white lives during both uprisings suggests that the insurgents did not in fact intend to initiate violent revolutions but rather sought to organize peaceful resistance in the form of mass strike action (Gordon 1996; Harding 2022; Kaye 2016; Zoellner 2020).14 Thus, slaveowners were incorrect in their claim that Christian instruction would necessarily result in bloodshed. Yet they were right to suspect that Christian education and literacy would ultimately contribute to the erosion of the Atlantic slave system (Gerbner 2018; Hall 2002; Turner 1982). The theological and moral empowerment fostered by Christian teachings provided enslaved people with the intellectual tools and ideological framework to question and ultimately resist the legitimacy of their subjugation.

Ultimately, these rebellions and their broader impact on the abolitionist movement illustrate the unintended consequences of religious instruction; consequences that slaveowners feared but which many missionaries failed to anticipate. As Da Costa observes, enslaved Africans transformed the very symbols intended to oppress them into instruments of resistance and liberation (Da Costa 1997, p. xvii; see also Schneider 2018). The 1831 Christmas Rebellion, in particular, proved to be the decisive step in the long march toward abolition. In May 1832, the same month that Sam Sharpe was executed, the British House of Commons established a committee “for the purpose of effecting the extinction of slavery, not only in Jamaica, but throughout the British Empire” (quoted in Schneider 2018, p. 58). What missionaries and imperial authorities had envisioned as a long and gradual process of emancipation came about abruptly by the actions of enslaved peoples themselves, driven by religious faith, a thirst for liberty, and confidence in the perceived moral support of a sympathetic British public and monarchy. Paradoxically, while British authorities and missionaries envisioned emancipation as a gift to be bestowed from above, in the end, it was seized from below, and at great personal cost to those who dared to claim it. But indeed, “they had waited long enough, and would be slaves no longer” (quoted in Craton 1982, p. 304).

This analysis has shown that discourses are fundamentally about knowledge: the ability to construct meaning, define identity, shape social reality, and deploy interpretation in the service of power and domination—points consistently highlighted by Foucault, Said, Fairclough, and other discourse analysts referenced in this essay. Their analyses perfectly capture the discursive dialectics of the British Caribbean following the introduction of Christianity among enslaved people. The narratives of enslavers, missionaries, and enslaved people reveal how knowledge, power, and ideology functioned as instruments of both domination and resistance.

Slaveowners’ discourse constructed Africans as inferior, bestial, and incapable of receiving Christianity, thereby justifying the perpetuation of slavery. Missionaries, in turn, promoted a discourse of amelioration that both affirmed planter privilege and challenged their authority. Against the discourses of slave masters and missionaries, enslaved Africans forged a rival discourse that redefined their own ontology as well as that of their oppressors. By reframing their place within colonial society through biblical knowledge, they claimed a powerful tool of legitimation—one that directly confronted the discourses of colonial domination and contributed to the discursive and political shifts that culminated in emancipation. This interplay of discourses, as this essay has demonstrated, illustrates the inseparability of knowledge, power, and language in shaping social realities, revealing that discursive struggles have profound material consequences, capable of reshaping power structures and catalyzing social change.