Alexander Bedward, the Prophet of August Town

Race, Religion and Colonialism. Laughter is the natural response of most Jamaicans to the name Alexander Bedward, long proclaimed as the lunatic who literally attempted to fly to heaven. In this volume, Dave St Aubyn Gosse debunks this common image of Bedward by drawing on new sources to help cast Bedward in a more positive light. Laughter is the natural response of most Jamaicans to the nameAlexander Bedward, long proclaimed as the lunatic who literally attempted tofly to heaven. In Alexander Bedward, the Prophet ofAugust Town: Race, Religion and Colonialism, Dave St Aubyn Gossedebunks this common image of Bedward by drawing on new sourcesto help cast Bedward in a more positive light. Gosse argues that Bedward oughtto be recognized as one of the significant black nationalists of the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Bedwardism was a highly organized movement, especially among theworking class in the early 1900s. Bedward’s Jamaica Native Baptist Church waslocated in almost every parish of Jamaica and had numerous chapters abroad. Heaffirmed Africa, its culture and traditions, laid the foundation for laterblack nationalist movements such as Garveyism and Rastafari, and brought tonational prominence Revivalism. Bedward challenged the colonial order and thosewho attempted to “save” black Jamaicans from the backwardness of Africantraditions, and in the process, he became a hero to the masses.

Many of Jamaica’s colonial laws – most notably the lunacy andvagrancy acts – were devised to stifle all expressions of African folk cultureand were instituted as a response to Bedwardism. Colonial governments usedthese laws to effectively silence their Afro-Jamaican critics and distort thehistorical record. Gosse’s work offers a necessary corrective to that record.