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357 conclusion It had been a century since property in persons had officially ended in Jamaica . But the passage of the Act of Emancipation in 1833 and the formal end of slavery in 1838 could not destroy the habits of thought and behavior that had nurtured and fertilized the institution of African slavery in the island since its introduction by the Spaniards in 1511. Their English successors had expanded and strengthened it, continuing the psychological maiming of the society and all of its people. Emancipation did not exorcise the invisible demons of slavery; they were too pervasive, ubiquitous, and entrenched. Jamaican society was not static in its century of freedom. A minority of the descendants of the enslaved had inched their way into the middle class, and some even sat in the Legislative Council. There was a glass ceiling, however, and black Jamaicans could not aspire to fill the top positions in the colonial administration. The changes that would have created a dominant space for the majority of Jamaicans in the political and economic systems of the island did not occur. Marginalized and battered by the brutish circumstances of their lives, these people made the most of their situation, surviving as best they could. The enslaved peoples in Jamaica had a tradition of resistance, and that rebellious spirit continued in freedom. Occurring in 1865, the Morant Bay Rebellion was one dramatic example of violent protest. But resistance took other forms as well. The society had grown accustomed to the landless occupying other people’s property, work stoppages, sabotage at the workplace, verbal attacks on employers, and so on. Unlike the more-privileged members of the society who employed their rhetoric, pen, typewriter, and votes as sites of opposition to conditions they disliked, the working people used their bodies as the vehicles of resistance. Underneath the society’s veneer of calm for long periods existed a rage that awaited an igniting spark to destroy the old order. Discontented workers rebelled in May and June 1938. Their actions were spontaneous outbursts, the product of the accumulated grievances of a people upon whom life had not smiled too brilliantly. Angry and atomized, these workers did not yet possess a well-defined class consciousness. Their 358 | Conclusion primary loyalties were to family, boss and workplace, church, local affiliations , and home district. Deeply suspicious of differences, most workers did not share a larger consciousness and an identity with those who labored at similar jobs in another village, town, or city. Employers used these atomized workers as strikebreakers and encouraged competition among them in order to pay lower wages. The rebellion produced a series of epiphanies among them as they came to recognize that they shared similar experiences , travails, and challenges. Jamaican workers began to forge a common consciousness as they appreciated the efficacy of collective action. Their searing experiences in the struggles of 1938 made of them an embryonic working class, anxious to become members of modern trade unions and supporters of the political parties in formation. Long the victims of race, color, and class prejudices, Freedom’s Children assaulted the physical and symbolic exemplars of their oppression during the rebellion. Their long-term victory over these forces cannot be measured only by the usual tangible criteria, such as improvements in wages and working conditions. Their victory fueled the process of changing the zeitgeist of their homeland. This troubling and shuffling of the social and racial status quo would be slow, painful, and frequently frustrating, but the process could not be contained and remains in progress. Alexander Bustamante emerged as the principal voice of the workers, although he had not come from their ranks. A member of the privileged colonial elite by color and self-proclaimed wealth, Bustamante had embraced the cause of the workers before May 1938, but with modest success. Bustamante did not stimulate the rebellion in Frome. Nor was he its architect on the Kingston waterfront. The heroes of the island-wide rebellion were the workers and their unemployed allies. Bustamante hurried to Frome after the outbreak of the revolt, and he was invited by workers on the Kingston waterfront to lead them after they had begun their protest. They shouted their decision to strike when Bustamante asked their intentions on May 22. The newly minted leader was not the proponent of this course of action. He had not been a worker on the waterfront or anywhere else, so he lacked the moral authority to recommend such...

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