BRITAIN HOSTS CONFERENCE ON JAMAICAN SLAVE LEADER AND REBEL
A conference on slave rebel and Jamaican National Hero Samuel Sharpe was held at Regent’s Park College, Oxford
University, from April 13-15, 2010.
Sharpe, who has become a subject of serious scholarly study in recent times, was a Baptist deacon and slave leader who
led the slaves to strike for wages in December 1831. The strike eventually turned violent and erupted into what came to
be known as the “Sam Sharpe Rebellion” or the “Baptist War.” It was finally crushed in May 1832 when more than 500
slaves, including Sharpe, were hanged.
A number of scholars contend that the rebellion hastened the end of slavery by Britain in its colonies, which occurred
in 1838. Sharpe was named by the Jamaican government as a National Hero in 1975, the highest honor given by the
country.
The conference had as its theme, “Sam Sharpe and the Quest for Liberation: Context, Theology and Legacy for Today,”
and was a collaboration of the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture, BMS World Mission, the Baptist Union of Great
Britain (BUGB), and the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU). Leadership in planning the event was offered jointly by Paul Fiddes,
university professor at Oxford, Delroy Reid-Salmon, research fellow at the Oxford Centre, and Nicolas Wood, director of
the Oxford Centre.
Jamaica Baptist historians and theologians reflected on the story of the “Baptist War,” the theology informing it, and its
implications for church and community in the Caribbean today.
British and American-based theologians and racial justice coordinators reflected on the significance of Sharpe’s work for
people from the Caribbean and elsewhere living in North Atlantic diasporan communities.
Among the themes that arose during the conference were the relation of faith and freedom, with its linking of death and
life, and its affirmation of racial inclusiveness in human community as willed by God.
The conference addressed the contours of freedom, underscoring that something more than a master-slave relationship is
needed if social harmony is to become a possibility.
The story of Sharpe “is of a Baptist Christian whose actions were clearly motivated by his faith and by his reading of
scripture,” a release on the conference states. The release quoted Sharpe as saying, “In reading my Bible, I found that
the white man had no more right to make a slave of me than I have to make a slave of the white man.” Sharpe, it says,
“remains a witness to the principle of ‘liberation from below’: that is, true liberation comes when those who are oppressed
or marginalized participate in making their own freedom and justice, rather than simply having it granted to them by those
who have power and authority.”
BWA General Secretary Neville Callam delivered the sermon at the opening service. Presenters included Horace Russell
and Cawley Bolt, members of the BWA Commission on Baptist Heritage and Identity and the Academic and Theological
Education Workgroup; Burchell Taylor, past president of the Caribbean Baptist Fellowship and a member of the BWA
General Council and Executive Committee; Wale Hudson-Roberts, the BUGB National Racial Justice Coordinator;
Rosemarie Davidson-Gotobed, former Racial Justice Coordinator for the London Baptist Association; Dwight Hopkins,
professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School; David Muir, former Executive Director for Public
Policy and Public Theology at the Evangelical Alliance; and Lynnette Mullings of the Queens Theological Foundation in
Birmingham, England.

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