CHAPTER 2

Petitioning Government: Women and the Colonial Justice System

In the 1930s, freedom of expression was one of the main issues that was being discussed by women in the colonies of Great Britain. The suffragists forced men to recognize that every woman had the right to participate in national politics. These women advocated universal adult suffrage, which became law in Great Britain in 1928 and inspired women in the colonies.¹ As such, Black women in Jamaica were organizing to assert their independence and political perspectives. Increasingly, they expressed strong interest in matters such as voting rights, racial discrimination, gender bias, and economic development. On March 20, 1934, the Gleaner reported that a meeting was held in the Queen Street Baptist Church, Kingston, to mark the sixth anniversary of the Lloydon Branch of the Baptist Women’s Federation, formed in 1928. The Federation was “started through the enthusiastic energy of one woman, Mrs. Garland Hall, known to them all as ‘Mama’ Hall.” Based on annual pledges, members could contribute “a penny a week,” and the newspaper observed that “these littles have a wonderful way of mounting up into a respectable sum.” Women of the organization spoke to large audiences about women’s solidarity and independence in the home and society at large. They discussed how the notion of “Sisterhood” could help them in the struggle to be recognized as men’s equals in both the private and public domains.²

Increasingly, Jamaican women had been expecting their voices would be heard in national as well as international politics. In 1935, Beryl DeLeon, a feminist writer and pan-Africanist, writing in the Gleaner, asked, “What are the women of Jamaica going to do about the war in Abyssinia [Ethiopia]?” In reminding her readers of women’s accomplishments, DeLeon also stated that “Perhaps the women of Jamaica do not realize that they are, though only indirectly at present, represented in Geneva in the activities of a body of organized women who through the sheer power of united numbers is making the moral force of their desperate opinion felt?”³ DeLeon anticipated a strong response from the Black women of Jamaica against the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia, which started in 1935. In 1944, with the granting of universal adult suffrage in Jamaica, women asserted their role in managing the political and economic affairs of the country. The Women’s Federation of Jamaica, established in 1944, encouraged women to band together to protect and advocate for their civil rights and “become members of Parochial Boards and members of the House of Representatives,” the legislative arm of the government.⁴

Unfortunately, early Rastafari women were never privy to the solidarity and protections offered by the Baptist organizations or even the more inclusive, all-island Women’s Federation. Among the obstacles that prevented the admission of Rastafari women to these organizations were the religious and class prejudices of upper-class and middle-class women. In observing these prejudices, Rhoda Reddock commented that it was unfortunate that “in terms of class relations, some of the middle-class feminists” basically “saw their relationship to working-class women more as one of charity than solidarity, although issues related to the working conditions of working-class women were raised.”⁵ Middle-class women saw their relationships with women of the working class and peasantry as a way to advance and maintain their status. As a result, their concern about the socioeconomic challenges of poor women did not include empowering these women to pursue upward social mobility. The self-help programs assisted women of the working class and peasantry in becoming more proficient in low-income work, thereby maintaining their low-income status.

Even though they were among the vocal opponents of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, Rastafari women were members of a movement whose followers were widely viewed as a “Dangerous Cult” causing “Harm” to the society.⁶ The colonial government also effectively designated the Rastafari as a serious threat to the status quo. These were among the main reasons why the Rastafari founders had been convicted of sedition in 1934. Nevertheless, Rastafari women continued to insist on their rights to freedom of worship and expression and contested agents of the state, including policemen and judges, whom they perceived as oppressive. This chapter examines the case of Delrosa Francis, a Rastafari woman who defended her right to freedom of expression against a district constable, Robert Powers. Francis’s story shows how early Rastafari women challenged the colonial justice system while also challenging patriarchy in the 1930s. While other women had expressed their sense of agency through their defense of the movement’s leaders in court, Francis used her understanding of her civil rights, particularly the right to freedom of expression and political consciousness, to pursue justice for herself and her supporters through petitions that were sent to Acting Governor Arthur S. Jelf.⁷ Francis’s case, however, was another indication that women were instrumental in defending their Rastafari identity against colonial suppression.

THE VALUE OF PETITIONS

While it may have been difficult for Francis and her counterparts to attain legal counsel, they recognized the value of petitions. Petitions have been critical to stimulating major changes in society. In the 1830s, for example, they were used in the campaign to abolish the British system of slavery in the Caribbean. As historians have noted, a significant challenge to slavery came from persons who signed petitions submitted to Parliament and the Crown, most notably, “British women.” In 1833, women also submitted the “greatest single petition” of the abolition era, one “loaded with more than 180,000 names.” Thus, women petitioners might have outnumbered “men as combined signers of petitions to Parliament and Addresses to the monarch.”⁸ In Jamaica, poor Black women used petitions because they had limited access to other means of addressing their concerns to the government. Many also had to commission scribes to write these petitions to voice their grievances, as even basic or elementary education was largely determined by race, ethnicity, and economic status during the colonial period. In 1943, for example, the illiteracy rate showed that Black Jamaicans lagged significantly behind other racial groups in the society, except for East Indians (see table). Many Indians could read and write in their own languages, such as Telegu, Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu, but not in English, the language of instruction in Jamaican schools. Among English speakers, African or Black Jamaicans had the highest rate of illiteracy, an estimated 28 percent. The illiteracy rate among the mixed-race population was 14 percent and was the second highest among English speakers in Jamaica.⁹

Although it seemed that many people from low-income backgrounds did not do much writing, petitions can bridge the gap left by the absence of records in their own handwriting. In addition, petitions contained ample evidence of women’s agency by offering information on various aspects of their lived experiences, including conjugal relations, parenting, employment status, altruism, religious affiliation, economic condition, political consciousness, and social justice activism. Petitions can also shed light on women’s counteractions of patriarchy. A close examination of the use of petitions by early Rastafari women has provided access to their perceptions of the social, economic, and political context of the 1930s and their social justice activism as members of their movement. Essentially, these petitions indicated the antihegemonic struggles of women that emerged as a result of their interactions with agents of the state. Some of these petitions were sent to high-ranking officials in the executive and legislative branches of the government. The suppressive tactics of the colonial system and its failures to represent the interests of the Black majority were often suggested in the petitions submitted by Rastafari women. Francis and her supporters used their petitions as a form of legal representation.

The case involved seven handwritten petitions that were between two and four pages long from five women and three men and dated September 1 and September 3, 1934. They all maintained that Francis’s case was handled unfairly by the resident magistrate and justices of the peace in the parish of St. Thomas. Francis and her supporters were disgruntled at the decision made by the resident magistrate to have the case presided over by justices of the peace. Justices of the peace, also known as local magistrates, were middle-class and upper-class residents of the community who could be mixed race, white, Black, East Indian, or Syrian. The petitioners accused them of colluding with District Constable Powers to have Francis and her witnesses illegally fined and imprisoned.

THE RASTAFARI AND JAMAICAN IDENTITY

The petitions submitted by Francis and her supporters are the only known records about the case. Perhaps, the case would have simply disappeared had it not been for her agency in pursuing the matter. Francis was charged with assault and disturbance of the peace on Saturday, August 4, 1934, by Powers, who also charged her supporters for the same infractions. Francis, however, accused Powers of starting the altercation when he interrupted a conversation she was having with her friend, Francella McNish, another Rastafari woman. Following her trial in the Resident Magistrate Court of St. Thomas, Francis, along with her supporters, most of them eyewitnesses, submitted the petitions calling for “fair justice,” which they believed “every British Subject ought to have.”¹⁰ Francis herself did not want to be judged based on her Rastafari identity and therefore did not explicitly state this identity in her petition. In addition, Francis and her supporters indicated that they were “loyal and dutiful” subjects of the British monarchy.¹¹ While this phrase is suggestive of formality and respect of authority, it was also a reminder to the colonial government that every British subject of Jamaica deserved to be treated fairly, the main principle upon which the petitions were submitted. After reading the petitions, Acting Governor Jelf decided to send them to his second-in-command, Bertie H. M. Easter, formerly the director of education, but who “had been discharging the duties of Colonial Secretary” for some “several months,” until October 1934.¹²

Since Francis and her supporters only alluded to an affiliation with the Rastafari movement, government officials who viewed the petitions found it difficult to use her Rastafari identity to dismiss the claims, even though they saw the movement as an affront to the society. The petitioners indicated that Powers identified Francis as a Rastafari practitioner to justify his charges against her. Powers, they contended, was prejudicial and was being supported by the justices of the peace in St. Thomas. It was these local magistrates who had found them guilty of assaulting Powers and disturbing the peace on statements provided only by Powers himself. In deliberating the accusations of prejudice, Easter seemed mainly concerned about how the executive branch of the government could circumvent becoming implicated in such a potentially harmful case.

Though many Jamaicans viewed the Rastafari as an “Ethiopian menace” to the society, one that was disturbing the peace and safety of especially the “White and high coloured folk” of Jamaica, Easter knew that he could not use such views against the petitioners.¹³ The letter describing the movement as an Ethiopian menace was addressed to John Maffey, the colonial secretary in London, by an anonymous writer, who believed that the government of Jamaica was not able or perhaps slow to take a decisive stance against the Rastafari movement. However, Easter adhered to the petitioners’ deflection from the religious elements of the movement because mentioning those elements would have amounted to evidence of his own biases against their religious beliefs. Thus, Easter was impelled to address the petitioners’ claims of colonial injustice. Francis forced the government officials away from discussions about her religious faith or the anticolonial politics of Rastafari and into discussions about government misconduct and insufficiencies. In this way, her petition was indicative of a critical element in the resistance of Rastafari women, the defense of their civil rights.

Essentially, Francis made a strategic decision not to identify herself as a Rastafari member. Women of the movement felt empowered by their religion but often interacted with the society through nonreligious discussions. They chose to focus on their civil rights and circumvent the criticisms of religious zealotry that could serve as a means of deflecting from their complaints against discrimination in the society. They dealt with patriarchy in the movement without interference from outsiders. As Horace Campbell has observed, Rastafari women addressed the movement’s patriarchy on their own while they engaged in antihegemonic struggles against the wider society. In public, these women were silent on the movement’s ideas about the “vestiges” of African and Jamaican patriarchy that they believed could be used to subdue their own civic advocacy as members of the movement.¹⁴ Such silence in public about their struggles against patriarchy in the movement allowed the women who identified as both Rastafari and Jamaican to focus on their rights as members of the society. Fueled by these “claims of belonging” to Great Britain by virtue of colonial citizenship in Jamaica, many poor and middle-class Jamaicans volunteered to fight in the wars fought by Great Britain.¹⁵ After World War II, Jamaican and other Caribbean people’s claims of belonging to the British empire helped to counteract the notion of Britishness as exclusively white or Anglo-Saxon. Rastafari women, such as Francis, helped to further complicate the meaning of belonging to Britain with their strong political and cultural ties to the Ethiopian monarchy. For them, fairness and justice should be universal, regardless of political or cultural affiliation. The women recognized their rights to justice and fairness as British subjects, but they pledged loyalty to the emperor and empress of Ethiopia as their rightful rulers. In this sense, British rule was considered an imposition that was temporary but one that should guarantee that Black people were also treated impartially and had fair access to justice.

It would have been easy for Francis to accept the ruling by the local magistrates, in light of her limited access to formal education and the disadvantages caused by a repressive colonial society that censured her Rastafari identity. However, neither the condemnation of her Rastafari identity nor her educational deficiency resulted in her inability to understand or acquire knowledge. She sought to obtain justice by petitioning the colonial government, which she knew was averse to the Rastafari movement. Francis and some of her supporters had their petitions written by scribes and signed them with an “X” between their first names and surnames.¹⁶ A total of five of her fellow petitioners also declared their willingness to testify for her in court. The petitioners included Francella McNish, Gertrude Nathan, Rachel Patterson, Amelia Gordon, Augustus B. Gordon, James Findley, and Denvil Price. They also asserted that Powers had treated them unjustly because of their connections to Francis. The petitions all highlighted corruption in the justice system of colonial Jamaica that had severely diminished the integrity of the due process of law. Most notably, the petitions showed how Francis challenged the power relations that suppressed Rastafari women and discredited the view that they depended on their male counterparts.

In her petition, Francis asserted that her actions during the verbal altercation and fight with Powers were not a rejection of his authority but a rejection of the abuse of his authority. Powers, she noted, initiated a fight between him and her because of a conversation she was having with McNish. The two women were discussing the poor socialization and disrespectful behavior of young people on the evening of August 4 when Powers approached them asserting that he “have a wife and children that cannot misbehave themselves.”¹⁷ He then became upset and started uttering violent threats after Francis told him that he was unmarried, and she was not “speaking” to him. Powers started “pointing his finger into my face,” Francis stated, to indicate that she should be mindful of him.¹⁸ But Powers threatened to arrest her as she continued to assert her views. It was not apparent whether Powers knew Francis or McNish. However, his intervention in their conversation suggested that he prided himself on being domineering. Francis indicated that after she insisted that her arrest was unwarranted because she was “not misbehaving,” Powers declared that “he will arrest me because he is out for every dam[n] Rasta-people in Seaforth,” thereby indicating antipathic sentiments toward the Rastafari movement.¹⁹

Powers’s aggression toward Francis was not only driven by his stereotypical views of women but also his aversion to the Rastafari movement. As suggested by Patterson, one of Francis’s supporters who was a Rastafari woman, antipathy toward Rastafari members was common within the Jamaica constabulary. The police had previously arrested the most prominent Rastafari founders, resulting in their imprisonment at hard labor. In January 1934, after more than twelve months of police surveillance, the St. Thomas police charged the founders with sedition. Further, in February 1934, the inspector general of the force, writing to Jelf, reported that Howell, the principal defendant, who was still under police surveillance, “still continues his activities at his Tabernacle at Port Morant,” St. Thomas.²⁰ Despite the surveillance and prosecution, the Rastafari movement was committed to the abolition of British rule, and both women and men were involved in this anticolonial struggle.

Francis’s refusal of Powers’s demand to take her to the police station can be construed as defiance to obey a law enforcement officer; however, it should be noted that she also invoked the law to justify such action in the petition. Francis believed that Powers had violated her right to freedom of expression, whereas both the resident and local magistrates had violated her right to a fair trial. After being taken into custody by another policeman, Constable Taylor of Seaforth district, Francis “was confined for the night and obtained bail Sunday evening, and was summoned to appear in court on the instant,” that is, on Wednesday, August 8, 1934. But on that day, her trial, without any explanation, was “differed to the 22nd inst. [instant] when it was ordered to be tried by local Majestrates [sic] down stairs [sic].” Powers did not have any witnesses, and the local magistrates and resident magistrate did not allow any of Francis’s witnesses to testify. Furthermore, Francis charged the local magistrates with concluding the trial abruptly and said that they then “impose a fine of £2.15.6 [an estimated £198.50 in 2020] or (therty) thirty day imprisonment in the G.P. [General Penitentiary] Kingston.”²¹ Located at Tower Street in Kingston, the General Penitentiary was the largest prison on the island and was over thirty miles away from Seaforth. Common tickets for entry to this prison were grand larceny, murder, rape, arson, sedition, and treason. Francis’s witnesses had been fined forty shillings each, roughly £143 in 2020, and the alternative was the same extreme thirty days at the General Penitentiary. One of the petitioners alleged that their “thirty days imprisonment” was to be served at the St. Catherine District Prison.²² Similar to the General Penitentiary, St. Catherine District Prison housed individuals convicted of major crimes.

The local magistrates were often unwilling to serve poor working-class and peasant Jamaicans, who had little or no economic means to trade for justice. These magistrates, who were not professional judges, saw their appointments as a means through which financial gains and power could be realized. As recently as 2018, a letter to the editor of the Jamaica Observer accused justices of the peace or local magistrates of taking payments “for services rendered and the sale of government documents, such as passport application forms,” deemed as “yet another breach which will only bring the office of justice of the peace into question.”²³ Since the Rastafari movement was also an enemy of the state, local magistrates were even more inclined to rule against Francis, a Rastafari woman of the lowest class in the society, the peasantry. Local magistrates helped the colonial system to control individuals from the peasantry and working class. In addition to highlighting that the ruling against her was biased, Francis stated that the Resident Magistrate Court did not have cause to discharge her case to the local magistrates. Each parish of Jamaica was expected to have at least one Resident Magistrate Court, as stipulated by the Judicature Act of 1928, which should try cases in the parish unless overburdened by the number of cases.²⁴ Francis argued that she was denied a hearing by the resident magistrate because she was accused of being a member of the Rastafari movement and because of her social class.

The petition of McNish expressed solidarity with Francis’s cries for a fair trial. It also indicated that Francis did not request any assistance from her partner, James Findley, in defending herself against Powers and his son-in-law, Cyril Grant. Findley simply told Francis to ignore Powers and walk away and only removed Powers from on top of her after he attacked her. Throughout the ordeal, Francis defended herself with virtually no help from Findley. Powers made several attempts to subdue Francis, but she did not even summon her “paramour” for assistance. As McNish explained, Powers followed the “poor half stunted girl” after she stepped “into the said gold smith shop seeking refuge,” at which point he renewed “the attack.”²⁵ Powers, on the other hand, was assisted by Grant, who held down Francis so that his father-in-law could execute her arrest.

Many people would agree that some Jamaican men would have used the Jamaican Creole language and their masculinity to address Powers’s and Grant’s aggression toward Francis; however, it is apparent that Findley was not this type of man. “Knowing that the law will protect the girl, I keep down my temper,” Findley explained in his petition, “and tried not to be angry, but quietly went and lifted off Powers from the struggling girl while Nathan Cordrington lifted off Cyril Grant from her.” Even after Francis went into the “gold smith shop” for refuge and was attacked again by Powers, Findley kept his composure.²⁶ Francis, on the other hand, maintained that she was innocent and defended herself against Powers’s and Grant’s physical assaults.

Contrary to the perception that Rastafari women were dependent on their male counterparts, Francis was an entrepreneur, as Nathan indicated in her petition. Francis rented rooms in her house to persons who needed a place to live. It seemed she preferred renting to single Rastafari women, and the circumstances under which such rural women were renters varied. Elisa Sobo discovered that these circumstances included the wish to avoid “casual” relationships with men.²⁷ According to Edith Clarke, some rural low-income women who were economically independent also believed that they should only be in relationships with men who could “support” their economic development.²⁸ Benjamin Schlesinger also reported that such relationships were “expected to bring the woman a change of life,” including a formal marriage, which these women saw as helping “to transform” their status “from a common woman to a lady.”²⁹ Francis alluded to her own high regard for marriage when she told Powers that he did not “have a wife,” and so she was “not speaking to him.”³⁰ Like middle-class women, rural low-income women, such as Francis, created “a wide domestic network” as part of maintaining their financial independence. Many such women, therefore, did not require the financial “support” of men.³¹ For some early Rastafari women, maintaining financial independence was part of protecting themselves from physically abusive men. Stewart, a resident of Rastafari’s Pinnacle community in the 1940s, reported that no physical abuse of women “could happen up in Pinnacle.”³² Women relocated there to cultivate their own land. In addition, many women moved into Pinnacle to escape abusive relationships with men.

COMMUNAL SUPPORT AND SOCIAL IDENTITIES

A prevailing notion in the African diaspora in the West is that the “‘community is family.’”³³ Early Rastafari women used the help of fellow Rastafari members as well as non-Rastafari people in counteracting colonial oppression. It is therefore not surprising that the owners of the “gold smith shop,” Amelia Gordon, who was “a member of the Union Baptist Church,” and her son, Augustus Gordon, submitted a joint petition that not only argued that Powers’s charges against them were unjustified, but was resolute in defending Francis.³⁴ Amelia’s religious affiliation as a member of Union Baptist Church served to validate their story, but it can also help to explain why she was one of Francis’s strongest supporters. Several women in the Baptist church joined the early Rastafari movement. Could Amelia have been both a Rastafari and a Baptist? In 1936, Pastor V. R. Cameron of the Church of God at Font Hill, near Trinity Ville, St. Thomas, wrote to Edward Denham, the governor of Jamaica, condemning the verbal assaults of “a certain Baptist Minister who was once pastor of theirs (not all),” but who “got against them and told the Leaders of this group that he will use his influence to see that this group movement is brought to nothing.”³⁵ By 1943, approximately 52 percent of Baptists were women and many maintained a “dual affiliation” with the church and the Rastafari movement.³⁶

The sense of the community as family was stronger in the petitions of the women than in those of the men. Price, for example, pleaded to Jelf to overrule Frances’s trial, which he believed was unfair, but spent much more time on requesting the removal of the charges against himself. Price stated that it was “quite a mystery” that he was charged with and found guilty of “beating Constable Powers,” since “on the said night of the said charges” he “was at his home at Old Valley Road shelling his own corn until after midnight.”³⁷ On the other hand, Nathan included in her petition that she “rented a room from Miss Delrosa Francis” and was being punished for being acquainted with her. As Nathan explained, “on the night of the said occurrence,” she “was sick in bed and [k]new nothing about what had happen,” but was interested in learning about what had happened to Francis. “Your petitioner followed her to court just to hear the nature of her trial,” Nathan stated, but “they attached my name as one of the persons that was disordered in the street on the said night of the occurrence.”³⁸

Patterson’s petition can also help us understand how Francis, as well as Patterson herself, used aspects of what Taylor described as “community feminism” to obtain justice for fellow Rastafari members and other poor Black people in their community.³⁹ Taylor used this concept to discuss the African consciousness and political activities of diasporic Black women who were single women, spouses, and mothers, in addition to being politically conscious and active: women who focused on their home lives, such as caring for spouses, children, siblings, and friends, as well as instigating, leading, or partaking in the struggles for racial and communal uplift. Their activism challenged patriarchal notions aimed at undermining the agency of women. Patterson’s claims made it apparent that Powers had been surveilling the Rastafari movement and showed his contempt for its members. In her petition in support of Francis, Patterson asserted that Powers went into a Chinese liquor store where he sought the help of some young men by telling them he wanted “to play hell in Seaforth tonight with the Rasta-people,” and then ordered them “to make songs upon the people who attached to the Rasta-Farie religion.”⁴⁰ The men, Patterson further stated, consumed the drinks before leaving the store and stood in front of it playing musical instruments while singing derogatory songs about Rastafari members living in Seaforth. Among the persons named by Powers and the group of young men was Albertha Lalloo, who had testified at the sedition trial of the founders, along with Patterson herself. A Mrs. Murray was also named, but her husband, Gabriel, was the only one the police eventually arrested. Gabriel was arrested in 1941, with sixty-nine other male Rastafari members, which the police believed would disband the movement.⁴¹ Powers, Patterson also stated, declared he was “the master of Belleview-property and the King of Seaforth.”⁴² Bellevue was a mental hospital in Kingston, where Powers believed Rastafari members should be confined.

As mentioned earlier, Powers had no witnesses at the trial, but Patterson pointed out that he had sought to obtain her support to lend credence to his accusations against Francis and her witnesses. His effort, however, proved futile, as she refused to offer the testimony and told him that “if I should go with you, I will have to speak the truth, and that will be against you.” In response, Powers decided to prosecute all the witnesses who went to the trial with Francis to give evidence to support her case, and hoped that “by so doing there evidences will not be taken by the judge.”⁴³ Before Powers started to declare his intention to charge the witnesses, Patterson had also secretly asked Esta McFarlane to take note of his expressions. It is not known whether McFarlane was a Rastafari member. She also did not submit a petition, as she did not witness the altercation between Francis and Powers. But McFarlane’s camaraderie and willingness to help Francis was implicit in Patterson’s petition.

THE OFFICIAL RESPONSE

Francis’s case highlighted Rastafari women’s contributions to the movement’s denouncements of the colonial government. On September 6, 1934, within five days of receiving the petitions, Easter, the acting colonial secretary, notified the petitioners that their complaints would be dealt with by the government. Jelf, the acting governor, had ordered Easter to dispose of the matter quickly. The impending arrival of Denham, the permanent governor, who arrived on October 24, 1934, also made Jelf eager to dispose of the matter. Jelf wanted to demit office as an effective interim governor who had assured his permanent replacement, Denham, that the Rastafari was merely a deluded cult of escapists his government had taken swift action to put under control. Therefore, there was no need for Denham to be alarmed about the movement. Denham’s initial thoughts on the Rastafari reflected Jelf’s assurances that the movement was unimportant and only made up of a few religious fanatics and escapists who were poor, deluded, unkempt, and merely spent their time praying for repatriation to Africa and smoking cannabis. Writing on November 6, 1934, Denham stated, “Ras Tafari or Rasta people—a sect in St. Thomas—round Morant Bay. Wears beards and believe the Lord will return for them in Abyssinia,” and specified their belief that ships would be sent for them to return to Africa and “ganja smoking amongst the sect.”⁴⁴ It downplayed the political and cultural importance of the movement as an anticolonial force and was regrettably Denham’s only diary entry on the Rastafari movement, given that he died unexpectedly from a heart attack in 1938.

However, prior to Denham’s arrival, headlines in the local press showed the continued influence of the Rastafari movement on the masses of the people, which included fears of its resuscitation of a peasant uprising in St. Thomas through the movement’s continued encouragement of denouncement of the colonial government.⁴⁵ An editorial in the Gleaner, published on August 6, 1934, under the alarmist headline, “Fooling the Masses,” showed that the press was fearful of the Rastafari spreading political dissention in the society and advised further action by the police to suppress the movement. The editorial specified, “We hope the police of St. Thomas will render it impossible for these specious characters, some of whom wax fat upon the ignorance of their less intelligent fellowmen, to continue their tricks in that parish.” It also stated that “The best advice that can be given the masses is to live by the sweat of their brow, and leave Ras Tafari and other cults alone.”⁴⁶

Easter officially addressed the petitioners’ claims in Francis’s case in two identical letters dated September 14, 1934.⁴⁷ These were dispatched eleven days after his initial response to the petitions that had simply stated that the government would investigate the matter. Although the petitions presented serious accusations against the police and judges, Easter did not recommend an official inquiry into the matter. His unwillingness to consider an inquiry had serious repercussions for the government. It was therefore important that the government did not infuriate the petitioners in its responses. As Barry Chevannes has observed, the peasantry could act in unison, though some of them owned land and were economically better off than their peers, which “should not be taken to mean that those owning any but the smallest tracts of land were guaranteed even a measure of prosperity.”⁴⁸ The peasantry, as Ken Post also noted, included members of the working class who took up residence in depressed communities near the city center of Kingston.⁴⁹ The prospect of peasant solidarity and unrest that could include St. Thomas as well as Kingston, the island’s capital, helped to ensure that Francis and her supporters were taken seriously by the government. The final letters Easter sent in response to the petitions simply stated, “I am directed to inform you that the Officer Administering the Government has no power to interfere in matters which have been submitted to and adjudicated upon in a Court of Law and is unable to take any action in regard to your representations.”⁵⁰

The letters alluded to the possibility of a court appeal, but Easter knew that the petitioners would have realized that filing such an appeal was a lengthy process, one that could also be compromised by the same elements of corruption in the judicial system that inspired the complaints of the petitioners. As the petitioners indicated, low-income people in Jamaica were highly susceptible to the miscarriage of justice. A Rastafari identity increased such susceptibility. Therefore, a strong possibility existed that Francis and her supporters would see the pursuit of an appeal in the courts as a futile exercise.

Reading the letters from Easter, it might be difficult to see that he alluded to an appeal to protect the government and disarm Francis and her supporters. However, a “Confidential Minute Paper” from Easter’s office will remove this difficulty. The advice from Camacho, the attorney general, stated that Easter should “Reply in each case that M.S. [the Majesty’s Service] has no power to intervene in matters which have been submitted to and adjudicated upon in a court of law and is not prepared to take any action in respect to their representations.”⁵¹ In addition, the Minute Paper comprised a handwritten memo noting that “the representations & requests in all the letters is the same stating that the witnesses are innocent of the charge on which they were convicted & a claim is made verdict by the RM [Resident Magistrate] is misguided.”⁵² The Minute Paper further indicated the precarious position that the government would be in if it were to explicitly inform Francis and her supporters of an appeal: “If these people are dissatisfied with the J.P’s [Justices of the Peace] findings and deliveries in these cases they have the right to appeal. They know this perfectly well and their only reason for not appealing is that they know or have been advised that they have not got a hope in the appeal court.”⁵³

Francis and her supporters might have approached the resident magistrate or one or more of the local magistrates in the parish, who held the Rastafari movement in contempt and therefore suggested to them that it would be futile to take their claims to the appeal court. In addition, Francis was a woman, which further diminished the prospects for success in the appeal court. As a woman, she had to contend with patriarchy, and the Rastafari movement was denounced by the government. It was also unlikely that other officials in St. Thomas would support an appeal by Francis and her supporters. Appeals were financed by the government and required the support of legislators of the parishes. However, some of these legislators, including R. Ehrenstein, the representative for St. Thomas in the Legislative Council of Jamaica, opposed the allocation of public funds for appeals. In May 1934, Ehrenstein along with other members of the Council voted against the Appeal Court Bill on the basis that it required “£700 to provide a half year’s salary for the Judge,” and another “£50 for Legal Assistance for Appellants.”⁵⁴ Later, in April 1935, Ehrenstein alone argued that three judges of the Supreme Court should continue to try appeal cases.⁵⁵ Prior to this recommendation, Lyall-Grant, the chief justice of Jamaica, writing in January 1935, had also proposed granting a Supreme Court judge the power to summarily dismiss appeal cases without a hearing or should the “Judge see no reason to interfere with the conviction or sentence.” This judge, he further stated, could “dismiss the appeal without calling on the appellant.”⁵⁶ Lyall-Grant also proposed granting the judge the power to increase the sentences in both civil and criminal cases and was confident that this would greatly diminish the number of appeals.

Unfortunately, the records do not show the decision that was made by Francis or the other petitioners after they received the letters from Easter. Even if they did not pursue an appeal, Francis had defended herself and she had also defended the Rastafari movement. She defended herself against Powers and challenged the decisions of the judges of St. Thomas. Such actions indicated her independence and sense of empowerment. Although Francis was a Rastafari member, she recognized the value of solidarity with other poor people in the parish, both Rastafari and non-Rastafari members who felt strongly about being disadvantaged by the colonial justice system, in fighting oppression. Francis’s struggle against the authorities revealed the injustices that the Jamaican poor encountered because of the actions of government agencies. Both the petitions and Minute Paper of the government highlighted an effort to keep Francis and her supporters from pursuing and obtaining justice, but Francis’s ordeal showed her refusal to be subservient, even to high-ranking officials. The petitions in her case bear testimony to the active involvement of Rastafari women in the struggles against colonial injustice and discrimination.