Tacky's War

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Tacky's War, or Tacky's Rebellion, was an uprising of black African slaves that occurred in Jamaica in 1760. The leader of the rebellion, Tacky, had been a Coromantee chief before being enslaved. Beginning in St. Mary in the early morning of Easter Monday, Tacky and a group of supporters, most or all Coromantee, moved inland. They took over plantations and killed the white plantation owners. Unfotunately for the rebelion, a slave from one of the rebel controlled plantations escaped and informed white authorities. After the mobilization of a planter militia, regular troops and a maroon force allied to the British, many of the rebels returned to their plantations. Some, including Tacky, fought on, but when Tacky was killed by a Maroon sharpshooter, the last fighters killed themselves before capture. Tacky's Rebellion was, like many other Atlantic slave revolts, put down quickly and mercilessly by colonial authority. However, Tacky's actions spurred unrest and disorder throughout the island, and it took the local forces some weeks to reestablish order.

[edit] Further Reading

Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006.