Revisiting Paul Bogle published: Tuesday | October 21, 2003 Devon Dick LAST THURSDAY, while Jamaicans were commemorating the contribution of National Heroes, Gleaner columnist Martin Henry in his weekly article, raised questions about what really happened at Morant Bay in October of 1865. I would recommend that he starts by reading the Jamaica Royal Commission (JRC) Report. The Commissioners were Lt. General Henry Storks, who was later knighted and acted as Governor of Jamaica for a short time, Russell Gurney and J.B. Maule. The report was completed in April 1866 and there are hundreds of pages of testimonies, their conclusions and summary. On page 510, the Commissioners said that the issue was, to ascertain whether what occurred on this day was an accidental riot, followed, when passion was excited in the heat of the context by killing of opponents or whether it had its origin in a planned resistance to constituted authorities, and whether the killings were pre-meditated murders. The verdict of the eminent Commissioners was, all that was proved-was that an oath was administered, a pledge of secrecy required and the names of the persons sworn registered. These Commissioners were not sympathisers of Paul Bogle and his protesters based on their conclusions, That praise is due to Governor Eyre for the skill, promptitude and vigour which he manifested during the early stages of the insurrection. INSTRUCTIVE Nevertheless, their final comment was instructive and most important, That the punishments inflicted were excessive. 1. That the punishment of death was unnecessarily frequent. 2. That the floggings were reckless, and at Bath positively barbarous. 3. That the burning of 1,000 houses was wanton and cruel. All which we submit to Your Majestys gracious consideration. Likewise, I submit this to the consideration of fellow Jamaicans. It is truly amazing that Henry could ignore this monumental document and instead quoted, Viscount Ellibank, insisted in old age that from second-hand information (that) the men opened the skulls, scooped out the brains into calabashes mixed them with rum and drank the mixture in the Baptist Chapel. Then Henry displays his heart and asks, Exaggeration and the forgetfulness of old age or some smattering of truth, at least?. If Henry believes that there is even a grain of truth in that then he will believe in obeah. Listen to the Commissioners again, It was proved that after the murders Bogle returned to Stony Gut, and that there was a service in his chapel in which he returned thanks to God that he went to this work, and that God had succeeded him in his work. Does this sound like a cannibal? Henry owes the nation an apology. BASIC TEXT Unfortunately, persons write on the events of 1865 without consulting this basic text. That is one of the reasons why some authors claim as a fact that Bogle and his men fired first but the JRC Report said, there was some conflict of evidence on the point, whether stones were thrown before the firing commenced. In addition, Leonard Tucker, G. Henderson and Edward Underhill all put the sequence as shots were fired into the crowd and then Bogle and his men retaliated. It is equally sad that the Jamaica Historical Society (JHS) which speaks about the authenticity of sources in writing history, the importance of critical judgment, veracity and impartiality in handling of sources, did not follow its own advice. In their October 2000 issue, in response to my lecture entitled, The Cross and the Cutlass: Paul Bogle, a Man of Peace and Justice, they published 1865 and 1868 letters by Reverend A.G. Hogg which countered my lecture. How do they know that what Reverend A.G. Hogg said was not hogwash? There are persons who have problems with seeing Bogle as a man of peace while conceding that he was a man of justice. These persons fail to recognise that in the Bible, justice and peace go hand in hand in the concept of Shalom. Peace is not the absence of conflict but can be a state of harmony from which a person agitates for justice. One would have expected that the JHS would have quoted from the JRC which examined the testimonies of hundreds of persons who were cross-examined; rather than Hoggs letter. SIMILAR TRADITION Following in a similar tradition, Henry quotes the late Professor Douglas Halls adverse comments of 1959 on Paul Bogle without examining Professor Don Robothams rejoinder in 1981 or Dr. Clinton Huttons PhD thesis of 1991 which conclusively demonstrated that Bogle was inspired by the Bible. Henry alleges cannibalistic possibilities to Bogle and his people while not mentioning the carnage of 1,034 Blacks being executed in a three-week period. Those lives were important. Their skulls were truncated. On Sunday, quite appropriately, St. Thomas residents revisited Paul Bogle in a worship service at which 1,000 candles were lit. The Rev Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 23:05:22 +0000