![]() ![]() ![]() The story of Sam Sharpe’s rebellion had stayed alive, thanks to an underground oral tradition in the island as well as the British legal apparatus and its obsessively kept court records. Two other posts were given to contemporary prime ministers.īut what of Jamaica’s period of enslavement under Europeans, from the time when Christopher Columbus first spotted it in 1494 to the British emancipation in 1832? Was there nobody from that time who might have qualified? The independent government established a category called the Order of National Heroes, and included three historical figures: the separatist advocate Marcus Garvey (who had spent considerable time in Harlem), and two martyrs of an attempted coup d’état in 1865. ![]() The first was said to represent the beauty of the island, the second its natural wealth, and the last the dark chapters of its past.Īnother important part of building the national identity was to do away with the traditional British lions of the past-mainly sovereigns and governors-whose names were honored on public monuments and replace them with Afro-Caribbean figures. Some of the ambivalence can be seen in its flag, vaguely mimicking the saltire of the Union Jack but colored green, gold and black. ![]()
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