Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761
Slave revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761 is a digital humanities project which focuses on the slave revolt and the counter-revolt by Britain during the British war. The title, the slave revolt, is also known as Tacky’s revolt. Tacky was the leader of the revolt and planned to establish an independent country from Britain. Also, he led the largest slave revolt in history, Tacky’s revolt, played a significant role in preserving African’s human rights, the independence of African countries from western countries.
This project wrote by the principal investigator and curator, Charles warren professor of history and professor of African and African-American studies, the director of a history design studio, Vincent Brown. His brief introduction of the project is in the first paragraph of the “home” of the slave revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761. Also, the Mellon New Directions Fellowship, the National Humanities Center, Duke University, and Harvard University joined this project.
The Project described “the revolt”, Tacky’s revolt is from April, 8th, 1760 to October 1761. However, many researchers have raised concerns about the possibilities of counter-revolt by Britain. Yet there aren’t any official documents about the war but there are only written statements about it. As a result of Tacky’s revolt, 1500 slaves who joined the revolt including men and women were executed, committed suicide, and banished from Jamaica to nowhere. However, there are only 60 British who lost their lives from it.
In “What the Map shows”, the project divided the revolt into three different revolts. St. Mary’s revolt, Westmoreland revolt, and Simon’s march by chronological order. Also, the maps in this section used a digital image technology by putting two different colors on the arrows, the red describes the rebel’s route, and the green shows Britain’s route during Tacky’s revolt.
In “Design”, the project implanted the symbology on the map and described the troop locations by colors and the location of the clash with rebels and the size of the force. Also, the base maps are geo-referenced, which associates physical map and digital image files to transpire the latitudes and the longitudes. A locational database shows the clashes between the British and rebels and the movement of rebels. In conclusion, the cartographies showing that the rebel movement was almost impossible at that time.
In “uncertainty”, the quantitative information took a place. Giving an example of how many rebels died from the revolt. However, It says that it is not a good idea to put exact numbers in this project because there isn’t any official document that proves it. Unfortunately, many Jamaicans who participated in this revolt had sacrificed. It portrayed some scenes during the revolt by using digital drawing. The first scene is where the Jamaicans are enslaved and Britians are taking advantage of them in the ports located in Jamaica and the second scene shows the boy who got executed.
Many westerner historians are claiming that Tacky’s revolt turned out to be a failure even though it was well-planned. The reason behind that is the opponents knew about their plans beforehand. However, many questions are rising from it. Why isn’t there any official documents about it? and why didn’t Britain start suppressing them before they took an action? The planter-historian, Edward Long said that Tacky’s revolt might be a riot where Tacky attempted to take advantage of the revolt to make his own benefits. Edward Long’s look is well-portrayed in the picture that used a digital portrait technology.
In “map”, shows a brief explanation of how Coromantins (the term is from the Ghanaian slave fort “Kormatine.”) started to plan Tacky’s revolt and ended up with losing many lives. It implanted all the digital technologies that are listed above into the map. By chronological order, It allows the readers to search anywhere between from April 1760 to October 1761 to check what happened and what are the statements from the prehistorians and the researchers. Also, there is an option to choose between places map and terrain map. the terrain map gives the readers a better understanding of the route of rebels and Britain’s. Also, the map of the place shows the exact locations of the jamaica to present accurate information about the revolt. It has a zoom-in and zoom-out technology for the readers who want to see the map closer or further. On the bottom left, the symbology shows the troop locations, the clashes, and the size of the force. Also, on the top left, there is a play button where enables the readers to watch the whole story about the revolt easily. There is also a description on the top of each phase of the revolt. The longitude and the latitude are also described in each location by putting different symbols. It makes the readers figure out the size of cities in Jamaica since the big cities have more symbols than the small cities. There is a base map legend right below the map legend, It shows the original picture of a base map where shows the symbols for divisions, roads, anchorage for small and large, ginger, cotton, coffee, dittos, and sugar plantations. It is a helpful tool since many readers are not aware of the ancient map that is full of unrecognizable symbols without any description. On October 14, 1761, there was a rebel from the slaves but the British had suppressed them by capturing and imprisoning. The conclusion implies the failure of Tacky’s revolt and Britain successfully conquer them.
