Remembering the 1823 Demerara slave uprising

By Winston McGowan

Each year in the month of August some Guyanese remember an important event in our country’s history. I am referring to a slave uprising, which broke out on the East Coast of Demerara on August 18, 1823.

This uprising was numerically the most massive slave rebellion in Guyanese history and one of the largest slave revolts in the entire history of the Americas. It is estimated that about 11,000 to 12,000 enslaved Africans from about 55 plantations between Liliendaal and Mahaica participated in the uprising.

Massive slave rebellions were rare in the history of servitude in the Americas. This was partly because they were very difficult to organise for they were likely to be discovered or betrayed during the planning stage and nipped in the bud by the colonial authorities and slaveholders. It was therefore to the credit of the slaves in 1823 that they succeeded in staging a revolt, which was not detected before its outbreak.

One of the striking features of the uprising was the role played by Christianity, Christianised slaves and a white English clergyman, Reverend John Smith. Christian slaves, especially deacons, class teachers and other committed members of Bethel Chapel, the London Missionary Society (LMS) church at Plantation Le Ressouvenir of which Smith was the minister in charge, were deeply involved in the rebellion. This Demerara uprising was the first major slave revolt in the history of the British Caribbean where religion and Christianised slaves played a prominent role.

Some of these slaves were influenced by the religious instruction they received. For example, some of the doctrines of the Christian faith, especially those of the equality of man in the sight of God and Christian brotherhood, made certain slaves have an enhanced view of their self-worth, which was incompatible with the inequality that distinguished slavery. As some of them told Governor Murray shortly after the uprising commenced, “God had made all men of the same flesh and blood.” They were tired of being slaves.

The principal specific religious grievance which these Christianised slaves had in 1823 was the imposition by their masters of restrictions on the practice of their faith. They were annoyed because some masters who were opposed to the religious instruction of their slaves placed them in the stocks on Saturday evening or Sunday morning and kept them confined there so that they could not attend Sunday services at Bethel Chapel. They also resented the fact that illegal compulsory labour on Sundays often made it impossible for them to attend church.

Although slave owners were aware of these religious grievances of slaves, they believed that the main cause of the uprising was the influence allegedly exerted over the slaves by John Smith. They accused Smith of being the principal instigator of the revolt and had him charged with inciting the slaves to rebel.

The relationship between Smith and the slave owners had become very bitter for several reasons, especially the clergyman’s general opposition to slavery and his objections to slave labour on Sundays. He objected strongly to such labour not only because it was illegal and adversely affected attendance at church services at Bethel Chapel, but more fundamentally because in his opinion it was a violation of the fourth commandment, “Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy”.

Smith was partly responsible for the uprising, but not anywhere near the extent the planters believed. His personal intense hatred of slavery must have strengthened the feeling of resentment, which the enslaved Africans had towards servitude. Furthermore, his teaching, especially the doctrine of the equality of man in the sight of God, served to reinforce the slaves’ view about the injustice of slavery. Smith, however, did not incite the slaves to rebel or to resist their masters, as he was charged and convicted. In fact, Smith tried unsuccessfully to persuade members of his congregation that they were misled in their belief that the British government had granted them freedom but that liberty was being withheld illegally by their masters and the colonial authorities. This erroneous belief was the immediate cause of the slave uprising.

This article has focused only on some of the religious causes of the rebellion. It has not examined other causes. This focus has been prompted by the current celebration of the Congregational church in Guyana of its bicentenary.

The church grew out of the work of John Wray and John Smith, the two principal pioneer missionaries at Bethel Chapel, which in several ways was the centre of the 1823 Demerara slave uprising.