Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823.

Emilia Viotti da Costa. Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823. New York: Oxford UP, 1994. 400 pp. $17.95.

Historians of the Caribbean have long been familiar with the general contours of the 1823 slave revolt in Demerara and the martyrdom of Reverend John Smith. The present volume adds significantly to our understanding of the tensions that were present in this then-recently acquired British colony at a crucial period of its socioeconomic development and at a time when slavery was facing increased assaults from within as well as outside the Caribbean. Emilia da Costa draws on the vast trove of material available from the trial records, on correspondence between missionaries in Demerara and their colleagues and superiors in Britain, and on official government reports to provide us with the most comprehensive and nuanced treatment to date of an important phase of the colony's history.

Despite the limits suggested by the title, da Costa's beautifully crafted book treats more than the uprising in August 1823 of several thousand slaves in Demerara. It is more fittingly an examination of slave society as a whole, with major emphasis on missionary activity over a thirty-year period as a stimulus for the revolt. The author presents a sophisticated analysis of the major tensions that this burgeoning slave-based plantation society experienced in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, as planter impulses ran counter to both the slaves' natural wish for freedom and Imperial imperatives for amelioration. The major players were the planters, slaves, and missionaries. Always in the background, however, were the local officials, whose duty it was to implement policies sent out from Britain and to administer this multiethnic colony with due though unequal regard to the often competing interests of planters and slaves.

da Costa highlights the degree of dissatisfaction that the slavery issue in its overseas possessions evoked in Great Britain. A major component of this growing anti-slavery sentiment was a broadly based petition movement that sought to influence both popular opinion and Parliamentary votes. At one level, slavery aroused strong emotions among a British working class that was beginning to develop a radical sense of self-identity and a notion of the universal brotherhood of the working man. At another level, however, was an anti-slavery sentiment firmly grounded in the British nonconformist evangelical movement. Of the various groups that actively promoted this credo of equality and saw slavery as abhorrent, the actions of the London Missionary Society most profoundly affected the hastening of the final denouement. With their emphasis on missionary work, the LMS sent to Demerara a number of individuals whose behavior touched off the sequence of events that culminated in the revolt of 1823.

These missionaries came at a time when planters were already fighting a dogged, rear-guard action to maintain their hegemony in response to mounting abolitionist pressure in England. Planters, too, viewed most officials as generally insensitive to and non-supportive of their concerns. Fearful of emancipation from above, they perceived missionaries as yet another group of individuals who were interposed between their authority and the slaves; in fact, they accused some missionaries of being rabid anti-slavery agitators. The missionaries would, therefore, have needed considerable tact to navigate the treacherous waters of the planter-slave relationship during this critical period. The klutzy behavior of a number of missionaries who hailed from lower-middle-class and working-class backgrounds evoked the wrath of planters, who invariably accused them of meddling in plantation management and undermining their authority.

The master-slave world was experiencing considerable tension at the very period that missionary activity intensified. A declining, aging slave population was now working longer and harder in response to the demands necessitated by the elimination of coffee and cotton production and the emergence of sugar cultivation as the major export crop. With the virtual taking away of what all parties had customarily regarded as "free time," slaves complained of being denied "rights" they had long enjoyed through either law or custom. Moreover, with a world view enhanced by antislavery rhetoric and the Caribbean-wide effects of the Haitian Revolution, Demerara's slaves, like their counterparts throughout the British Caribbean, became increasingly restive as they sought to redefine their role in society.

The missionaries, then, found an unsatisfactory situation awaiting them. Some planters, like Hermannus Post, on whose plantation of Le Resouvenir he lived, welcomed Reverend John Wray, the first arrivant, in the hope that missionary presence would promote slave subservience and enhance plantation management. Wray, however, almost immediately met with immense opposition from hostile planters who refused to give their slaves Sundays off or to permit them to attend services at his chapel. Wray's successes can, however, be measured by the fact that some slaves walked a distance of fifteen miles to attend his Bethel Chapel, that he crafted catechisms for local use, and that he endeared himself to the slaves. These accomplishments, however, came at a price. The strains of working in a hostile environment necessitated that he reassure doubting whites that his actions and teachings posed no threat to the social order, and this took its toll on Wray, who was replaced in 1817 by John Smith.

Smith was a firm believer in the equality of all, but his devout religious convictions were offset somewhat by his immense lack of finesse in human relationships. Deeply devoted to the slaves' plight, he "had gone to Demerara to convert the slaves to the cause of Christ but he was being converted to the slaves' cause" (146). Like Wray, Smith was convinced that planters were deliberately finding work for slaves to perform on Sundays so as to prevent their attendance at chapel. Some even prohibited their slaves from going to night meetings under Smith's supervision. His frequent protestations aroused the unmitigated wrath of planters, who wrongly suspected him of deliberately spreading seditious sentiments among the slaves. When, therefore, the 1823 slave uprising unfolded, from the planters' standpoint Smith's role as agent provocateur was unquestioned.

da Costa provides us with a succinct, gripping treatment of the events of August 1823. For some time rumors--later proved to be without foundation--had been circulating among the slaves not only that Parliament had approved emancipation but also that colonial planters were deliberately withholding this information from them. These reports, coupled with a sudden increase in planter crackdowns on church attendance, brought smoldering slave resentment to a flame. On August 18 slaves on plantation Success rose in arms, an act that quickly spread to sixty plantations and involved some 10,000 to 12,000 slaves of the total 77,000 then in the colony. Official reaction was prompt and harsh. Within a few days, army and local militia units had killed several hundred slaves and captured a large number who, designated as ringleaders, were promptly put on trial. Among the latter were two prominent members of Smith's congregation. Arguing that Smith must have been aware of his lieutenants' intentions--if indeed he had not encouraged their action--the authorities accused him of inciting the revolt. Condemned to death by hanging after the guilty verdict was reached, Smith died in his cell before the hangman's rope could be placed around his neck. da Costa is firm in her conviction that, rather than being guilty of precipitating the revolt, Smith was the victim of a reactionary planter elite that had determined to take whatever means necessary to maintain its control over a tottering slave system.

Finally, the book places the 1823 revolt and Smith's death within the larger context of the move to abolish British Caribbean slavery, da Costa argues that the events of 1823 created considerable stir in Britain and contributed to the decision in 1833 to abolish slavery. While this may be the case, she fails to point out the equally powerful impact that the 1831-32 Baptist War in Jamaica had, or for that matter the reduced power of the plantocracy over British policy making because of the diminished economic role of the West Indian colonies by the 1820s.

Meticulously researched and written in clear, moving prose, this work adds much vitality to the experiences of Wray and Smith in Demerara. It also provides us with additional insights into the joys and frustrations of missionary initiatives in the Caribbean, and of the slave society in which missionaries worked. Though sent out to convert the "heathen," Smith and his associates were ill- prepared to deal with "humanity in the slaves and savagery in people of their `own kind'" (xvii). Their inability and/or unwillingness to compromise the principles and guidelines that had informed their training for missionary work overseas I virtually ensured that missionaries would run on a fateful collision course with intransigent and excessively paranoid planters. It is to da Costa's credit that, through her skillful use of the immensely rich body of primary sources, she has not only weaved an intricate net around and through the events of 1823 but also permitted us to understand and appreciate the hatred, fears, hopes, and frustrations of members of that slave society.