Term Paper Fighting the Colonial Identity Trap with Creole Religion: Jamaica Word Count: 4,991

Abstract: Throughout the colonial period, Jamaican Afro-creole populations relied on various forms of religious expression informed by traditional African religiosity and influenced by biblical Western Christian teachings to combat British imperial dominance. Due to the lack of pathways to upward mobility for slaves and former slave populations within the political and economic spheres, cultural resistance, and particularly the development of religious identities separate from white control allowed for the retention of a distinct Afro-creole identity. In Jamaica in particular, the lack of a large white missionary presence until the mid1850s reinforced the position of religious worship as a semi-autonomous space for black slaves and their descendants. Religious resistance was also highly linked to forms of outright rebellion in both the slave and post-emancipation periods due to the influence of charismatic leaders, but more importantly because of the self-deterministic elements of religious expression, and the popular use of African religious practices as a means for seeking practical remedies to social injustice. Religious movements including Kumina-inspired myalism, Native Baptist traditions, and Revival Zionism all built upon one another as black religious worshipers throughout the colonial period continuously sought methods to protect themselves against the anthropological poverty that British colonial domination threatened to bring about. Although the Rastafarian religious heritage which originated in the 1930s goes further than some of the prior attempts at religious resistance in its connections to distinct forms of postcolonial ideologies, it nonetheless retains key linkages with earlier Afro-creole religious resistance through its attempts to maintain a distinct African religiosity as a means of counteracting British imperial norms. Rastafari and earlier Afro-creole religions empowered the colonized descendants of black slaves in Jamaica by offering a space for the development of a distinct identity

necessary to combat colonial cultural, political and economic systems of dominance. In the post-colonial period, cultural identity and confidence are important indicators that go hand in hand with economic and political development. The development of a successful nonEuropean dominated culture depends most importantly on the development of a strong culture. Therefore, in countries like Jamaica which face with a legacy of domination and the cultural denigration of the majority of its inhabitants, the liberation of the entire society from all kinds of racial chauvinism therefore depends, in an elemental sense, on the self-liberation of the exiled African. 1 The process towards self-liberation began with the earliest forms of Myalism and Native Baptist religious expressions, and continued through Rastafari practitioners attempts to contest colonial legacies which still remain important influences on the island. Although the unique historical and cultural context of Jamaican colonialism was critical to Rastafarianism's emergence, its empowering rejection of white-European norms inspired other anti-colonial resistors across Africa and the world.

Key Terms: colonial Jamaica, anti-colonial resistance, creole religion, Rastafarianism, religious resistance

Throughout the colonial period, Jamaican Afro-creole populations relied on various forms of religious expression informed by traditional African religiosity and influenced by biblical Western Christian teachings to combat British imperial dominance. Due to the lack of pathways to upward mobility for slaves and former slave populations within the political and economic spheres, cultural resistance, and particularly the development of religious identities separate from white control allowed for the retention of a distinct Afro-creole identity. In Jamaica in particular, the lack of a large white missionary presence until the mid1850s reinforced the position of religious worship as a semi-autonomous space for black slaves and their descendants.2 Religious resistance was also highly linked to forms of outright rebellion in both the slave and post-emancipation periods due to the influence of charismatic leaders, but more importantly because of the self-deterministic elements of religious expression, and the popular use of African religious practices as a means for seeking practical remedies to social injustice.3 45 Religious movements including Kumina-inspired myalism, Native Baptist traditions, and Revival Zionism all built upon one another as black religious worshipers throughout the colonial period continuously sought methods to protect themselves against the anthropological poverty that British colonial domination threatened to bring about. The term anthropological poverty refers to the process of enslavement and forced deportation that attempted to strip Jamaican slaves and their descendants not only of their material possessions but of their identity, history, ethnic roots, language, culture, [and] faith and the internalized notions of British imperial superiority that such cultural stripping often brought about.6 Although the Rastafarian religious heritage which originated in the 1930s goes further than some of the prior attempts at religious resistance in its connections to distinct forms of post-colonial ideologies, it nonetheless retains key linkages with earlier Afro-creole

religious resistance through its attempts to maintain a distinct African religiosity as a means of counter-acting British imperial norms. The forced uprooting of black slaves from their homeland and the voluntary migration of white settlers to Jamaica led to the creation of distinct creole cultures separate from the cultures present in the African or European homeland. Creolization entailed a complex negotiation between populations of both European and African descent.7 For Jamaicans of African descent, the development of a unique Afro-creole culture signified a pathway through which the anthropological poverty of their community could be rectified. Anthropological poverty was not just an outcome of the process of enslavement, but rather a product of the much larger colonial enterprise which sought to justify European global dominance through appeals to Western racial superiority. Employing Christian religious doctrines to substantiate their claims, European powers used biblical passages to connect those of African ancestry to a position of moral and racial inferiority. Europeans turned to an Old Testament story that described Noahs punishment of Ham by cursing Hams son Cain with a debt of servitude to justify their treatment of African slave populations. Enslavement came to be viewed as the natural lot in life for African peoples, whom Europeans claimed were the descendants of Cain. The supposed congenital Hamitic African curse became the basis not only for racialized colonial hierarchies but also justified the cultural stripping that followed as the only means to 'purify' otherwise damned races.8 As Moore and Johnson remind us, "colonialism [after all] demands that the native [or slave] willfully repudiate himself and acknowledge European spiritual and political order.9 This denigration of non-white cultures continued even after independence as outside imperial norms retained their position of authority over native or Afro-creole cultural values. Although the British administrators had made their exit, ideas of white cultural superiority

and the internalized feelings of black inferiority that accompanied them were not so easily dismissed. The character of the early Jamaican colonial system produced opportunities for the formation of distinct forms of Afro-creole religiosity among the colonized slave population perhaps not available in later periods of colonization or under non-British imperial systems.1 Almost no Christian missionary population to speak of existed on the island until 1784. 10 Prior to this time, the white population (mostly made up of slave-owning planters) made few attempts to spread Christian teachings to African populations. Instead, planters largely viewed conversion as a threat to the underpinnings of the slave system, often justified by appeals to the uncivilized and barbaric nature of black slave populations. Despite the anthropological poverty and notions of black inferiority inherent to the British slave system, the absence of proselytizing authorities permitted slave populations to draw on African religiosity as a centre-point of [their] identity.11 Due to the lack of early missionaries and because of the near-constant arrival of new African-born slave populations, the religiosity of enslaved Africans was distinctively African-derived.12 Specific elements of African religiosity enabled religion to take hold as a particularly potent form of cultural resistance for slaves in early colonial Jamaica. The Central and West African religions black slaves brought with them to Jamaica placed a strong emphasis on the co-existence of the physical and spirit worlds. Unlike Western European Christianity which reserved religious salvation or damnation as a reward for the afterlife, spirits could be utilized to right day-to-day societal wrongs. This close connection between the physical and spirit worlds allowed for an empowering belief in the divinity of man and the humanity of God, who acted through objects, spirits, and persons.13 1415 Because African-derived rituals such as mysticism, healing, and ancestor veneration ultimately represented tools for social control,
1

Whereas French and Spanish Catholic colonies used attempted religious conversion to justify their presence in foreign lands, such a strong missionary fervor generally did not develop in British colonies until the mid-1800s.

black religious beliefs and practices were not merely confined to the realm of the cultural but rather were viewed as ways to right the power-imbalance inherent in the relationship between slave and master. Ceremonies featuring drums and music were meant to induce spirit possession to remedy individual sickness as well as societal injustices.16 African religiosity remained particularly important in Jamaica not just because of its emphasis on real-world retribution. Unlike other slave communities such as those in the Thirteen Colonies, a large proportion of Jamaican slaves were African-born as the influx of new arrivals continued to outstrip the pace of natural replacement on plantations. Thus, a majority of the slave population still remembered the African homeland and retained knowledge of African religious traditions that might have otherwise declined in significance over time.17 The memories of life in Africa that new slave populations retained not only reinforced the importance of the African continent in the slave consciousness, but also led to the continued practice of religious beliefs that emphasized Africa as a spiritual place. In the Central African Kumina religion especially, many believed that the Atlantic Ocean represented the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead. As such, the forced removal from Jamaica represented not just a removal from freedom and familiarity but resulted in a removal from the land of the living and from the land of their descendants.18 Due to the important role of ancestors in African religious traditions, a wide variety of religious ceremonies concentrated on the return to Africa as the ultimate goal. For instance, it was believed that death signified an opportunity to reunite with the ancestors in Africa. A belief in the spiritual significance of herbs led many slaves to suggest that not eating salt (a mineral thought to sap one's sacred powers) would enable individuals to fly home to Africa.19 Just as with other aspects of Jamaican Afro-creole religiosity, the focus on the spiritual importance of Africa had practical implications for resisting colonial norms. An emphasis on the symbolic importance of Africa made religious worship an empowering experience for

enslaved populations by rejecting Britain as the center of civilization. Along with more overt forms that religious retribution often took, Jamaican slaves symbolic emphasis on Africa offered a means of psychological resistance to a colonial authority that sought to root out non-British and non-white influences. Afro-centric religious ceremonies often carried overt political implications as well. As an integral element in the slave's diet the rejection of salt by some slaves represented a symbolic rejection of slavery and of the oppressive conditions that accompanied it.20 The two major forms of African religious practices that directly influenced the development of Afro-creole religious systems were obeah and myal. Although often presented in British documents as opposing forms of white or black magic, obeah and myal in fact largely complemented one another as different parts of broader religious practices.21 Although the two terms carry several various meanings, the major distinction between the two is that obeah rituals could be performed individually while myal almost always connoted group ritual led by a charismatic practitioner, often involving dance to invoke spirit possession. These two different forms of religious practice lent a great deal of flexibility to religious practices as tools of resistance. Even under the harsh conditions of slavery which often made large-scale religious gatherings difficult to arrange, individual obeahmen could still use ritual practices to exert underground resistance. The frequent use of poison and cursed objects as weapons against the slave master demonstrate just two of the ways in which even individual religious practices could undercut the slave system in a very real way.22 23 More significantly than individual obeah rituals, African-derived religious ceremonies involving large groups of worshipers known as myalism reinforced communal ties based on a connection to the African homeland. The coming together of various distinct ethnic groups that comprised the black slave population to perform religious ceremonies allowed for a

common sense of identity separate from the dominant colonial white powers.24

Often in the

dead of night, religious meetings performed a key social function in plantation life.25 On the one hand, a joining together for worship and the molding of distinct religious practices and beliefs allowed for the formation of a desperately-needed collective consciousness that could counter-act the dehumanizing impacts of the slave system. Gatherings also allowed for the creation of community leaders. The obeahmen who attracted followers by virtue of their magnetism used their religious positions to inspire outright and physical confrontation against the British colonial regime in Jamaica. In 1760, one such leader led the largest slave uprising in the Americas until the Haitian Revolution of 1790. Although ultimately a failure, the rebellion drew attention to the power of religious resistance among the slave populations and offered inspiration for later movements.26 When a missionary presence did arrive in Jamaica, the first attempts to bring Christianity to the slave population were driven largely by former black slaves coming from the United States. George Liele, a former American slave arrived in 1784 and established the Ethiopian Baptist Church. Liele and the other black Baptist missionaries that would follow him founded what would come to be known as the Native Baptist tradition. While many white British missionaries still saw black slaves as unworthy of efforts to Christianize, Liele's group of former slaves freed during the American Revolutionary War wanted to focus their efforts on uplifting enslaved peoples through the Christian religion.27 As in the earliest days of Jamaican colonialism, the Native Baptist church offered an opportunity for the development and continuation of Afro-creole religious practices separate from the religion of the British white population.28 Although some authors look to the Native Baptist period as the beginning of a process of assimilation into Europeanized religious institutions and the loss of traditional practices, it would be more apt to argue that Jamaican Native Baptist practitioners instead Africanized

Christianity.29 Lieles arrival did not signify the beginning of the end for African-derived religious practices among the black creole population. Instead, the loose structure offered by the churchs leader system allowed for the continuation of the important role played by local community spiritual leaders within black plantation communities.30 Pre-existing spiritual leaders now merged understandings of myalism and obeah into new Christian teachings. Rather than evidence of a greater acceptance of Europeanized culture, the surfacelevel adoption of more 'legitimate' practices added to the importance of religion as an arena for contesting British colonial norms and institutions. Under the auspices of missionary churches, leaders could continue to use religion as a space for the development of a culture of resistance.31 Rather than heeding missionary calls to subservience and obedience, previous obeahmen continued to focus on the power of spirits to bring about changes to the existing social order. Native Baptist preachers emphasized the notion of the Holy Spirit to legitimate traditional practices and spirit possession and visions were viewed as a necessary part of baptism. Instead of focusing on the central role of Jesus, practitioners drew attention to John the Baptist as the more important figure or his role as ceremonial leader. This focus on John the Baptist can be explained by the strong parallels between the power of water in baptism and Afro-creole religious beliefs in the spiritual components of nature and objects.32 Thus, the appropriation of the Christian religion, rather than defeating religious resistance, allowed slaves to take on the appearance of more 'legitimate' religious beliefs in the eyes of colonizers without sacrificing key aspects of African religiosity. Rather than taking missionary teachings at face-value, enslaved African religious leaders used the bible as evidence to undercut arguments of black inferiority. Native Baptist preachers used individual interpretations of biblical passages to prove the equality of all humanity. The use of the bible as a new tool to invert European dominance once again created a situation that allowed for uprising.33 In 1831, the Baptist War led by Sam Sharp,

10

a well-known Native Baptist leader precipitated the end of the slave system. Lasting for 10 days from Christmas into the New Year, the uprising mobilized at least 20,000 African Jamaicans.34 Because the adoption of Native Baptist practices not only allowed for the development of a collective consciousness among the slave population, but also offered the ability for leaders to access education and literacy (as part of the civilizing process that went hand in hand with the adoption of European Christian beliefs), Sharp was well-versed in both biblical teachings as well as the burgeoning abolitionist movement gaining prominence in London. Although once again put down, the rebellion led to a series of inquiries eventually leading to emancipation in 1838.35 Such events indicate the continued power of religion for African resistance and the political implications associated with continued black cultural distinctiveness. By the late 1830s and after, a new cadre of white missionaries began to preach on the island. These new unofficial representatives for the British colonial project launched a broad campaign in the middle of the century to civilize the Jamaican black population. This civilizing mission inextricably linked British imperial Victorian ideals of morality and respectability to Western-European Christianity. As Johnson and Moore note, the parallels between empire and Western Christianity also clearly entailed an element of race; calls for loyalty to a white British monarch closely mirrored calls to worship a white Christian god.36 Due to the by then well-established tradition of black religio-cultural practices separate from colonial forms of domination, white missionaries experienced extreme frustration at their inability to reshape black cultural norms and practices in their own image. The appearance of a new church known as Revival Zion represented a direct affront to missionary goals. Drawing upon the 'Christian Myalism' of Native Baptist practices, Revival Zion offered a route through which frustrations of continued landlessness and disenfranchisement in the aftermath of emancipation could be channeled. Zionism once more offered an opportunity to

11

counter British attempts to fully erase Afro-creole cultural distinctions. Although on the surface the Great Revival associated with the emergence of Revival Zion in the 1860s represented an overflowing of Christian emotions, the phenomena associated with the Revival can be better understood as a rejection of [white] Christianity and a revival of the African religions.37 In an inversion of European arguments for black inferiority, Revival Zion leaders proclaimed their version of Christianity to be more pure than that of their British counterparts. Religious leadership in the local community once again provided a way for those with the least ability to influence political and social affairs of the colony to gain a sense of selfconfidence and direction. In a further inversion of the dominant British imperial vision, revivalist leaders often rejected the emphasis on materialism that had become the end of empire. As with the prior periods of religious intensification leading up to armed struggle, overt political elements can be seen in the preachings of prominent Revival leader Charles Higgins and Alexander Bedward. Higgins, a street preacher openly attacked colonial authorities including the governor, the Anglican bishop and conventional Western Christian ministers.38 Connections to this long tradition of religion as a pathway for psychological and overt resistance to British colonialism in Jamaica can be seen in the development of the Rastafarian religion in the 1930s. In the early days of Rastafarianism, many scholars tended to dismiss it as an insignificant fad-like cult.39 Authors focused on Rastafarian practitioners' withdrawal into isolated communes and their proclamations of a coming apocalypse as a sign of Rastafari's escapist tendencies. In the growing literature on Rastafarian religiosity in the 1960s and 70s, authors generally tended to reject this earlier understanding. Instead, a greater emphasis was placed on Rastafari as a legitimate new religion with beliefs that represented practical adaptations to the cultural, social, economic, and political challenges for blacks in

12

Jamaica. However, many authors still failed to fully understand the connections that existed between Rastafari and earlier forms of religious resistance in Jamaica. Because of Rastafari's outright rejection of Christian teachings and its overt connections to the post-colonial rhetoric of the 1960s, many experts focused on Rastafari's unique characteristics rather than the cultural legacies that had influenced its rise to popularity among the poor Afro-Jamaican masses. Barry Chevannes' in-depth participant observations of Rastafari communities in the 1960s and 70s questioned this failure to root Rastafarianism in the long-term historical context of Jamaican colonialism. By drawing attention to the strong similarities between Rastafarian beliefs and earlier Afro-creole Christianity, Chevannes effectively placed Rastafari within the structures of colonial domination over Afro-Jamaicans that gave Rastafarianism its potency.40 The name Ras Tafari derives from the Ethiopian word for king (Ras) and the birthname of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I (Tafari Makonnen).41 The most important Rastafari principle is the belief in Selassie as divine (as both man and God). This belief in a new Messiah clearly separates Rastafarianism from earlier forms of Africanized Christianity in that Rastafarians explicitly formed their own separate religious belief system around a new Messiah or God, rather than combining elements of pre-existing Christian and African religions. However, upon further examination one can begin to recognize the parallels between Rastafari and earlier Afro-creole religious traditions. As in Native Baptist traditions that relied on biblical texts to question British dominance, Rastafarians used passages of scripture referring to Ethiopia as evidence of Haile Selassies divinity.42 The Afro-centrism of Native Baptist and Revival worship in fact paved the way for the Rastafarian belief in a divine African leader. The central spiritual importance of Africa in black Jamaican religious belief systems meant that as overt anti-colonial sentiments began to emerge more strongly in the early 20th century, evidence of African power held not only great cultural meaning, but

13

also continued to offer support for colonial resistance. As almost the only free sovereign nation in Africa at the time, the political implications of the crowning of an Ethiopian emperor were not lost on black Jamaicans.43 For many new Rastafari converts, Selassies crowning offered a source of ethnic pride, and a means of subverting notions of white superiority. In its earliest expression in the 1930s, Rastafarianism drew upon the legacies of the teachings of Marcus Garvey, who was himself a prominent Revival Zion preacher who had returned to Jamaica after many years in the United States in the early 1900s. Garvey utilized prior black consciousness that had since the earliest days of slavery connected religious identity with Africa. Drawing inspiration from the Kumina-inspired Afro-creole religious belief that at the time of death persons of African descent would be reunited with their ancestors, Garvey envisioned a present-day return of Black Jamaicans to Africa. Using the legacy of religion as a space for positive cultural development and the retention of some say in their everyday lives, Garveys slogan Africa for Africans became a rallying cry for selfawareness and liberation.44 Once again, religion became a space for the reinforcement of a strong and separate Afro-creole identity, this time taking on an even more overt form. As Garvey himself proclaimed, we shall worship [God] through the spectacles of Ethiopia, suggesting the development of a greater understanding of the importance of maintaining a distinctive black African identity in the face of imperial attempts to suppress difference.45 The Rastafarians took Garveys emboldened form of Africanized Christianity even further. Successfully drawing on religion as a way to rectify the frustrations and injustices that continued white domination and extreme poverty meant for most of the black population, the Rastafarians offered an even more radical form of self-empowerment and resistance. In line with prior attempts to resist British cultural domination, former followers of Garveys took full use of the symbolic importance of the crowning of a black emperor in Ethiopia in

14

1930 as a means of destabilizing British norms of black inferiority. Rastafarianisms direct focus on an African as divine shifted the external reference point from Europe to Africa not just in the religious spectrum but in political and economic ways as well, helping to overturn British imperial attempts to impose a white god and a white crown on an oppressed people group. In their worship of a black man as God, Rastafarians clearly rejected the long-existing imperial link that tied Christianity to whiteness.46 As indicated above, this was not a new idea, but drew on long-held beliefs in the spiritual significance of the African continent in present Afro-creole religious practices. As with the movements before it, Rastafarianisms subversion of British norms and values represented a direct threat to colonial rule. The conservative white paper, The Gleaner, accused the Rastafarians of attacking imperial and local government, and indeed they did. Just as in other movements, religious expression was not simply a form of escapism. Rather, it was a clear and conscious attempt to retain a separate cultural identity from Europeans, while at the same time attacking the British colonizers and their racialized institutional structures directly. Overturning traditional British interpretations of the bible that suggested those of African descent had been cursed for their sins, Rastafarians used the bible against European powers to subvert their attempts to destroy black racial pride and the creation of a separate Afro-creole culture just as the Native Baptists and Revival Zionists had before them.47 Although clearly influenced by overtly anti-colonial movements including the nyabinghi in Uganda, the Afro-creole religious undertones and the continuities with former Jamaican forms of black religious expression should not be overlooked.48 Rastafarians drew on the spiritual emphasis on repatriation and the more present-day Garveyite repatriation attempts to demonstrate that the only way to maintain their own distinct identity free from the anthropological poverty that had come out of the hundreds of years of colonialism would be a

15

return to the homeland. Just as with prior movement leaders, Rastafarians were singling out the colonizers as the oppressors and embraced blackness over British attempts to denigrate it. By declaring Haile Selassie God on Earth, Rastafarians re-emphasized long-held beliefs in the closeness of spirits that had acted as a mechanism for empowerment in Jamaica for hundreds of years. By overturning the transnational racial hierarchy by upholding the goodness of blackness, embracing a dyophysite49 religion, and rejecting European materialism, the Rastafarians were clearly drawing upon prior legacies of earlier colonial religious expressions in order to once again employ religion as a means of subverting the dominant powers on the island.50 In many ways, the informal practices of Rastafarians mirror earlier Afro-creole religious expressions in that trances, ancestor veneration, and a belief in repatriation all have a continued presence in Rasta religious ceremonies. Even when leaders clearly expressed disdain in public for African traditional religious practices, herbs and trances, as well as drumming and dancing remained important parts of Rastafari religious expression.51 Even in the post-colonial period, Rastafarianism still held much of the same role that previous religious movements had in combating cultural legacies of British white dominance which did not simply disappear after independence in 1962. Even where some sects have attempted to reject practices such as ceremonial spirit possession, the basic religiosity of Rastafarianism remains distinctly African. As with Kumina and Myal/Obeah religious beliefs that influenced the development of slave creole religions, Rastafari maintains a particular emphasis on the closeness of individuals to the divine. As with prior religious movements, this has allowed for the possibility of a belief in terrestrial salvation through retribution directed by natural processes and everyday objects. Many practicing Rastas interviewed in the 1960s referenced natural disasters such as fire and rainstorms as evidence of spiritual retribution that had been invoked on enemies. Aside from the spiritual belief in the power of the ganja plants

16

empowering abilities, Rastafarians also reject salted and processes foods, a direct connection to the legacies of slavery.52 Religious practices and leadership continue to be mostly informal, with leaders of specific communes (such as the one formed by the Bobos near St. Johns) deriving their power from their charisma and the persuasiveness.53 The Rastafari focus on the individual worshiper as the arbiter of religious practices combined with a focus on the community similar to that seen in the dual obeah/myal rituals of early Afro-creole religious traditions has allowed for the type of flexibility necessary for worshipers to fit practices with practical needs. Rastafari and earlier Afro-creole religions empowered the colonized descendants of black slaves in Jamaica by offering a space for the development of a distinct identity necessary to combat colonial cultural, political and economic systems of dominance. In the post-colonial period, cultural identity and confidence are important indicators that go hand in hand with economic and political development. The development of a successful nonEuropean dominated culture depends most importantly on the development of a strong culture. Therefore, in countries like Jamaica which face with a legacy of domination and the cultural denigration of the majority of its inhabitants, the liberation of the entire society from all kinds of racial chauvinism therefore depends, in an elemental sense, on the self-liberation of the exiled African. 54 The process towards self-liberation began with the earliest forms of Myalism and Native Baptist religious expressions, and continued through Rastafari practitioners attempts to contest colonial legacies which still remain important influences on the island. Although the unique historical and cultural context of Jamaican colonialism was critical to Rastafarianism's emergence, its empowering rejection of white-European norms inspired other anti-colonial resistors across Africa and the world.

17

1 2

Nettleford, 207. Diane M. Stewart, Three Eyes for the Journey: African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience (Oxford U Press, 2005), 27. 3 Nathaniel Samuel Murrell and Burchell K. Taylor, Rastafari's Messianic Ideology and Caribbean Theology of Liberation, in Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, ed. Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 398. 4 Andrew Porter, "Empires in the Mind" in The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire, ed. Peter James Marshall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 212. 5 Joseph S. Gbenda, Impact of Colonialism on African Indigenous Religion (Makurdi, Nigeria: Benue State University), 4. http://thembosdev.com/imapact_of_colonialism_on_african_indigenous_religion-gbenda.pdf 6 Stewart, 5. 7 Delle, 61. 8 Stewart, 72. 9 Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led Nor Driven: Contesting British Cultural Imperialism in Jamaica, 1865-1920 (Kingston: University of West Indies Press, 2004), xiii. 10 Noel Leo Erskine, Roots of Rebellion and Rasta Theology, Black Theology 5, no 1., (London: Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2007), 108. 11 Horace Campbell, Rasta and Resistance, (London and Hertfordshire: Hansib Publications, 2007), 19. 12 Stewart, 27. 13 Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, Adrian Anthony McFarlane, eds., Chanting Down Babylon The Rastafari Reader (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 5. 14 Joseph Owens, Dread: The Rastafarians in Jamaica (Kingston: Sangster's Book Stores Ltd., 1976), xvi. 15 Barry Chevannes, Rastafari: Roots and Ideology (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1994), 181. 16 Moore, 66; Campbell, 25. 17 Campbell 23 18 Chevannes, 26; Owens, 50. 19 Chevannes, 35-36. 20 Ibid., 36. 21 Moore, 58; Stewart, 41. 22 Erskine, 105-106. 23 Stewart, 42, 78. 24 Gbenda, 4. 25 Nettleford, 188. 26 Erskine 106-107. 27 Erskine, 109 28 Moore 53. 29 Neil J. Savishinsky, "African Dimensions of the Jamaican Rastafarian Movement," in Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, ed. Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 150. 30 Ennis B. Edmonds, "The Structure and Ethos of Rastafari, in Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, ed. Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 359. 31 Porter, 212. 32 Erskine 109; Chevannes 19. 33 Clinton Hutton and Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, "Rastas' Psychology of Blackenss, Resistance, and Somebodiness, in Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, ed. Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 47. 34 Campbell, 28. 35 Murrell and Taylor, 394; Erskine, 110. 36 Moore 194, 315. 37 Stewart, 108. 38 Chevannes, 117; Hutton and Murrell, 42. 39 F. van Dijk, Sociological Means: Colonial Reactions to the Radicalization of Rastafari in Jamaica, 19561959, New West Indian Guide/ Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 69, no 1/2 (Leiden:1995),70,80. 40 Rex Nettleford, "Discourse on Rastafarian Reality," in Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, ed. Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 313-316. 41 Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, Tuning Hebrew Psalms to Reggae Rhythms: Rastas Revolutionary Lamentations for Social Change, Cross Currents 50, no 4. (2000). http://www.crosscurrents.org/murrell.htm

18

42 43

Chevannes, 77; Owens, 15. Hutton and Murrell, 37. 44 Erskine, 116. 45 Erskine, 118. 46 Murrell et al., 15. 47 Campbell, 42, 71. 48 Stewart 221, Chevannes, 164. 49 Campbell, 77. 50 D. Austin Broos,Politics and the Redeemer: State and Religion as Ways of Being in Jamaica, New West Indian Guide/ Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, 70, no 1/2 (Leiden:1996), 81. 51 Shavishinsky, 126; Stewart, 132. 52 Chevannes, 26, 100, 205. 53 Edmonds, 351, 357. 54 Nettleford, 207.

19