History slavery Jamaica
📅 23 January 1866
📍 Jamaica
On 23 January 1866, the Jamaica Royal Commission began its inquiry into the Morant Bay uprising and the colonial government’s response. The commissioners interviewed witnesses and examined the actions taken under martial law. The investigation recorded evidence of state violence and later criticized excessive punishment. Its official process gave colonial officials and witnesses a hearing, but the inquiry’s frame and surviving records did not give equal authority to the political claims and testimony of Black Jamaicans who had resisted colonial injustice.
On 13 October 1865, Governor Edward John Eyre declared martial law in Surrey County, excluding Kingston, after the Morant Bay uprising. Although the uprising was suppressed within days, martial law...
On 21 October 1865, Jamaican politician George William Gordon was sentenced to death by a court-martial at Morant Bay. He had been arrested in Kingston, which was outside the martial-law zone, and...
On 23 October 1865, George William Gordon was hanged after a rapid court-martial during martial law. The execution of an elected Jamaican politician who had not been present at the Morant Bay...
On 24 October 1865, Baptist deacon and community leader Paul Bogle was hanged at Morant Bay after capture and trial under martial law. Bogle had organized resistance to court injustice and led the...
On 13 November 1865, the thirty-day period of martial law in Surrey County ended. The uprising had been suppressed within days, yet emergency rule continued while Black Jamaicans faced military...
👉 The Royal Commission begins investigating Morant Bay and its suppression
Current
23 January 1866
On 23 January 1866, the Jamaica Royal Commission began its inquiry into the Morant Bay uprising and the colonial government’s response. The commissioners interviewed witnesses and examined the actions...
On 23 March 1866, the British Parliament enacted the Jamaica Act, providing that constitutional acts passed by Jamaica’s legislature would take effect after the Queen’s assent was proclaimed in the...
Dated 9 April 1866, the Jamaica Royal Commission report criticized the repression following Morant Bay. It found that martial law lasted longer than necessary, executions were too frequent,...
On 11 June 1866, an Order in Council established a new Crown Colony constitution for Jamaica, replacing the former representative arrangement with a Legislative Council under direct imperial...
On 18 June 1866, Colonial Secretary Edward Cardwell sent Governor Henry Knight Storks a dispatch accepting the Royal Commission’s criticism of the repression. The British Government condemned Gordon’s...
On 28 November 1867, Law 8 of 1867 came into force, creating a new police force for Jamaica. Jamaican institutional histories place this reorganization in the aftermath of Morant Bay and the shift...
