‘LET’S GET SOMETHING STRAIGHT,” the politician told me, “we are now owning you.” Though this was meant as a warm welcome, hearing it from a state official made me wonder what I had got myself into. Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s minister of culture, gender, entertainment and sport, looked me in the eyes: “You are Jamaican now, you are part of us.” I met Grange last April, on a hot day in Port Maria in St Mary parish on the northern coast of Jamaica. Both of us had come to commemorate the second annual Chief Takyi Day. Grange had established the holiday in 2022, instigating the government’s proclamation that henceforth 8 April would honour Takyi, or Tacky, as he was generally called in English, the best-known leader of the largest uprising of enslaved Africans in the 18th-century British empire. I was invited to the event because I had written the first book about Tacky’s revolt.
I was honoured, but I wasn’t comfortable. It was a sweltering day at the start of mango season, and I was sweating in my suit and tie. A crowd of about 80 people sat on plastic chairs under a canopy that kept us shaded but blocked any breezes that might have brought relief.
The heat did not stifle the festive mood. Roots reggae music vibrated from the sound system. Two troupes of dancers performed traditional choreography between speeches. Locals were dressed up, many of them in the green, gold and black of the Jamaican flag. St Mary is a 90-minute drive over the Blue Mountains from Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, and while tourists visit the parish’s beautiful coves and beaches, the region is lightly developed and materially impoverished. An appearance by a cabinet member such as Grange was a big deal, as was the event itself: it signalled official recognition of local history, which many people hoped would gain national attention.
My presence, as a Harvard professor and the author of the most extensive scholarly treatment of the slave uprising, was supposed to add the authority of a global institution. But the event was also a big deal for me. Grange and others involved in the commemoration of Tacky’s rebellion had cited my book as an inspiration for the holiday, and I’d been flattered when the organisers asked me to give remarks from the perspective of an American historian.
Academics don’t often get to see the impact of their books, and initially I was as eager as the locals to see Tacky celebrated with a national holiday. A historian’s job is to help us remember the past, so there are few greater satisfactions than knowing that you helped bring some previously obscure slice of history into common awareness.
During my time in Jamaica, however, I came to realise that the situation was not simple. This was a national effort, and I was not a Jamaican national. I was grateful to hear the minister’s words, but they weren’t quite true. I was
