Paul Bogle

At the beginning of the 1860s, economic conditions in Jamaica were grim as the cost of living soared and unemployment increased. Wages paid to the ex-slaves were also on the decline, dropping from 2s6d a day in 1840 to less than a shilling, coupled with irregular payments and heavy taxation. Added to that, flour and salt fish, (food that the peasantry relied on), imported from North America since the days of slavery, were scarce and expensive due to the American Civil War. An educational leaflet about Paul Bogle detailing his life and his part in the Morant Bay rebellion. Paul Bogle lead rebellion in 1865 in Morant Bay, St Thomas, Jamaica, against the government's social and economic treatment of Black people in the area. A number of individuals in St.Ann drafted a petition to Queen Victoria, which the acting Jamaican Governor Edward Eyre forwarded, complaining of their poverty. They received in reply the famous “Queen’s Advice” which read as follows: ‘...the prosperity of the labouring classes…depended… upon their working steadily and continuously at times when their labour is wanted and for as long as it is wanted.’ It continued : ‘Add prudence to industry, lay by an ample provision for seasons of drought and dearth… It [is] only from [your] own industry… [that you] can look forward to an improvement in [your] condition.

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