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Abstract
This article examines the prosecution of Alexander Bedward, a religious leader in the Jamaican Native Baptist Church, for sedition in the 1890s. In Jamaican folklore Bedward is portrayed as a lunatic who was committed to an insane asylum after he failed an alleged bid to ascend to heaven. Less is known of his commitment for lunacy by a jury, unable to find him guilty of sedition, after he urged his followers to resist White authority. Even prior to Bedward's time, the Native Baptist Church had played an important role in both pre- and postemancipation Jamaica in striving for better conditions for Blacks. Bedward's commitment for insanity took place in the context of the fear of the privileged classes that the Native Baptist Church was becoming a social force in Jamaica and that such a situation would lead to an uprising by the lower classes in an attempt to change the status quo.
Introduction
Alexander Bedward was a Black religious leader in St Andrew, part of the corporate area in Jamaica, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1895 he was charged with sedition for a speech that allegedly advocated the overthrow of the White government by force. He was acquitted on the charge but found to be mentally insane and sent to an asylum.
This article traces Bedward's trial in an effort to understand the role of religious movements, particularly the Native Baptist Church, in the political agitation of Blacks for equality in Jamaica during the latter part of the nineteenth century. It relies heavily for information on this matter on Gall's Daily News Letter and the Daily Gleaner, two major Jamaican newspapers in the late nineteenth century. Gall's newspaper takes an objective stance in reporting the trial, but political scientist Rupert Lewis wrote that the Gleaner joined the crusade of the authorities to weaken the Bedwardite movement by "maligning" the group's religious practices, and calling for the suppression of the movement.1 In the absence of official court records of Beward's appeal against the court's decision, the article also relies on J. E. R. Stephens's book, which consists of a compilation of Jamaican court cases between 1774 and 1923.2 Jamaican lawyers use this book widely to refer to cases between...