Stephen C. Russell tells the story of the Bible's role in Jamaica's 1865 Morant Bay rebellion and the international debates about race relations then occupying the Atlantic world. With the conclusion of the American Civil War and arguments about reconstruction underway, the Morant Bay rebellion seemed to serve as a cautionary tale about race relations. Through an interdisciplinary lens, the book demonstrates how those participating in the rebellion, and those who discussed it afterward, conceptualized events that transpired in a small town in rural Jamaica as a crucial instance that laid bare universal truths about race that could be applied to America. Russell argues that biblical slogans were used to encode competing claims about race relations. Letters, sermons, newspaper editorials, and legal depositions reveal a world in the grips of racial upheaval as everyone turned their attention to Jamaica. Intimately and accessibly told, the story draws readers into the private and public lives of the rebellion's heroes and villains.

‘Russell gives fascinating insight into the competing ways biblical texts were used during a key moment in Jamaican history and, through this lens, elegantly demonstrates the broader significance of this moment for discourse on race relations around the Atlantic and beyond.’

Rachelle Gilmour - Bromby Associate Professor of Old Testament, Trinity College, Melbourne

‘A fascinating and impeccably researched account of the use of the Bible in the 1865 rebellion at Morant Bay in Jamaica. Ironically, those struggling for black emancipation were divided by a common scripture and Russell shows how different social and political perspectives in the post-abolitionist movement were expressed through different biblical slogans. With the Bible still having significant political potency in certain parts of the world, Russell’s analysis of biblical reception is important and timely.’

Nathan MacDonald - University of Cambridge

‘Russell’s unrivalled command of the biblical material and many often-neglected primary sources related to the Morant Bay rebellion sets a high standard for further volumes in Cambridge’s new series Histories of Slavery and its Global Legacies.’

Jeremy Schipper - author of Denmark Vesey’s Bible: The Thwarted Revolt That Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial