CARIBBEAN SLAVE REVOLTS AND THE BRITISH ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT by GELIEN MATTHEWS

Author:GELIEN MATTHEWS
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Published: 2006-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

become so unbearable that there arose from it the celebrated Petitions of Rights … left to this country by that illustrious lawyer, Lord Coke … The petition declares, that all such proceedings shall henceforward be put down: it declares that “no man shall be fore-judged by life and limb against the form of the Great Charter;” that “no man ought to be adjudged by death but by the laws established in this realm, either by the custom of the realm, or by acts of parliament;” and that “the commissions for proceeding by martial law should be revoked and annulled, lest, by color of them, any of his Majesty’s subjects be destroyed or put to death, contrary to the laws and franchise of the land.” Since that time, no such thing as martial law has been recognized in this country; and courts founded on proclamations of martial law have been wholly unknown … Afterwards came the annual Mutiny Acts, and Courts Martial, which were held only under those acts … These courts were restricted to the trial of soldiers for military offences; and the extent of their powers was pointed out and limited by law.89

The colonists could have argued that proclamation of martial law rendered every man to be treated as a soldier and therefore susceptible to be tried by the court. Brougham’s conclusion was that once the revolt had been quelled, martial law should have ceased. The court martial in Demerara had overstepped its jurisdiction. The abolitionists used this abuse of power as an opportunity to call upon Parliament to exercise its duty to reconcile the colonial legal system with that which operated in Britain. The proposal to end courts martial in the colonies also showed that slave rebellion was a basis upon which abolitionists sought to reform the structure of the slave plantation societies of the English Caribbean. Brougham’s June 1824 speeches ended with a motion praying most earnestly that “His Majesty adopt measures … for securing such a just and humane administration of law in that colony as may protect the voluntary instructors of the Negroes, as well as the Negroes themselves, and the rest of His Majesty’s subjects from oppression.”90

Brougham and others used the deaths of slaves following the Demerara rebellion to pressure Parliament and the public to rethink and take corrective action on the regime of slavery. Brougham energized the suffering of the slaves by urging “Parliament to rescue the West Indians from the horrors of such a policy; to deliver those misguided men from their own hands; I call upon you to interpose while it is yet time to save the West Indies … their masters, whose short-sighted violence is, indeed, hurtful to their slaves, but to themselves is fraught with fearful and speedy destruction if you do not at once make your voice heard and your authority felt, where both have been so long despised.”91

The Anti-Slavery Society was convinced that the mode of the trials “will afford no small matter of deep reflection to the people.

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