Alexander Bedward (born 1848 in Saint Andrew Parish, north of Kingston, Jamaica - died 8 November 1930 [1] ) was the founder of Bedwardism. [2] [3] He was one of the most successful preachers of Jamaican Revivalism. Along with Joseph Robert Love, Bedward was one of the forerunners of Marcus Garvey and his brand of pan-Africanism.
In his twenties, Bedward worked on the construction of the Panama Canal. Jamaican labourers were subjected to harsh working conditions, before being boarded up at night in shoddy, disease-ridden shacks. In addition, white American workers were paid significantly more than their black counterparts. This experience would have a profound effect on Bedward's later life. [4]
Bedward had charisma, an acute sense of theatre, a scorching sense of injustice, and unshakeable faith in the righteousness of his words and deeds. [5]
After spending time in Panama, he returned to Jamaica and was baptized by a local Baptist preacher. He became not merely leader of a Revival branch but of a new movement, the Bedwardites. White and mixed-race Jamaicans worried about the African influences on these Native Baptist interpretations of Christianity. [6]
In the 1880s, he started to gather large groups of followers by conducting services which included reports of mass healings. He identified himself with Paul Bogle, the Baptist leader of the Morant Bay rebellion, and he stressed the need for changes to the inequalities in race relations in Jamaican society. He reportedly said: “Brethren! Hell will be your position if you do not rise up and crush the white man. The time is coming! [7] There is a white wall and a black wall. And the white wall has been closing around the black wall: but now the black wall has become bigger than the white.” [8]
Many Afro-Jamaican Christian churches sprung up in the aftermath of Emancipation. In 1889, Bedward became the leader of one of them, the Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church. He ministered to his flock by Hope River, and his congregation grew large and thrived. He warned that the government of the Colony of Jamaica was passing laws to oppress black people, and was robbing them of their money and their bread. [9]
By 1894, the Native Baptist Free Church was so thriving that it was able to commission a temple on the banks of the river, a confirmation in stone and slate that the Great Revival had produced genuine competition to the traditional centres of community power. [10]
In 1895, Bedward was arrested for sedition, but critics within the government succeeded in having him sectioned in a mental asylum. With the help of a sympathetic lawyer, Bedward secured his freedom. On release he continued his role as a Revival healer and preacher. He urged his followers to be self-sufficient and at its height the movement gathered about 30,000 followers. He told his followers to sell their possessions including owned land and give him all the profits. Some of these followers did just that. [11]
Over the next quarter century, Bedward became an antiestablishment hero, preaching a message of black power. The crowds at Hope River grew larger, and increasing numbers committed to his regime of fasting and temperance. Events such as the First World War fitted into his message that God was punishing the white Western world for hundreds of years of avarice, corruption and brutality. [12]
Later Bedward proclaimed that he was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ and that, like Elijah, he would ascend into heaven in a flaming chariot. He then expected to rain down fire on those that did not follow him, thereby destroying the whole world. He and 800 followers marched in to Kingston “to do battle with his enemies.”
On New Year's Eve, in 1920, now an old man, Bedward told his followers that he had been called by the Lord to fly up to heaven. His ascent, he promised his followers, would hasten the Rapture; before the sun had set, he would be gone and they would be free. [13]
It is reported that thousands of his followers and critics turned up to see if his ascension would take place. He took to his chariot, which was a chair balanced in a tree, and declared that his ascension would take place at ten o'clock that morning. He later revised the time of his ascension to three in the afternoon, and then ten in the evening. But no ascension took place. [14]
Eventually, he climbed down from the tree, and went home. His supporters were disappointed, but his critics reacted with glee, and ridiculed him. [15]
In 1921, Bedward and his followers were arrested and he was sent to mental asylum for the second time where he remained to the end of his life. In 1930, he died in his cell from natural causes. [16]
His contemporary, Robert Love, the inspirational advocate of racial uplift via education and political engagement, always thought Bedward to be nothing more than a skilled showman whom a hysterical establishment had managed to turn into a martyr. [17]
Bedwardism planted a seed from which a culture of racial consciousness grew, and found its most emphatic form in Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). With Garvey’s rise to prominence in the 1910s, Bedward became convinced that God had only ever intended for him to be one of a sequence of prophets rather than a messiah — Aaron to Garvey’s Moses is how he termed it — paving the way for the younger man to deliver his people into the Promised Land. He led his followers into Garveyism by finding the charismatic metaphor: one the high priest, the other prophet, both leading the children of Israel out of exile. [18]
His impact was that many of his followers became Garveyites and Rastafari, bringing with them the experience of resisting the system and demanding changes of the colonial oppression and the white oppression. Rastafari has taken the idea of Garvey as a prophet, while also casting him in the role of John the Baptist, by virtue of his "voice in the wilderness" call taken as heralding their expected Messiah, "Look to Africa where a black king shall be crowned."
Kei Miller wrote a novel about Bedward entitled Augustown, published in Britain in 2016.
One of the followers of Bedwardism was Robert Hinds, the second-in-command to Leonard Howell's nascent Rastafari.
Bedward is mentioned in an early Trinidadian recording of Jamaican mento classic Sly Mongoose by Sam Manning, who recorded it in December 1925 for the Okeh label (the song was recorded by many artists with changing lyrics). He is mentioned in Jamaican reggae artist Etana's "I Am Not Afraid." He is also mentioned in the Jamaican folk classic "Dip Dem," which was recorded by Louise Bennett for her 1954 album Jamaican Folk Songs. The famous refrain from the Jamaican folk went: “Dip dem, Bedward, dip dem / Dip dem in the healing stream / Dip dem deep, but not too deep / dip dem fi cure bad feeling.”
"Bedward the Flying Preacher" by Singers & Players featuring Prince Far I appears on the 1983 album Staggering Heights, and the 1985 compilation Pay It All Back Vol. 1, both on Britain's On-U Sound label. This was also released as a 7" single on the On-U Sound offshoot Sound Boy in 2003, credited to Prince Far I, with a dub version on the B-side. Prince Pompadoe released a 7" 45 called "Dip them Bedward" issued in Jamaica on the Prophet label in 1976 and reissued on the UK's Pressure Sounds record label. The song was produced by Vivian 'Yabby You' Jackson. It was reissued on the CD Deeper Roots, a compilation of Yabby You productions.
Jamaican singer Paul Hamilton also released a 45' entitled "Who Say Bedward Fly?"
Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism by outsiders, is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity exists among practitioners, known as Rastafari or Rastas. The terms Rastafarian and Rastafarianism are often considered controversial among practitioners.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. Garvey was ideologically a black nationalist and Pan-Africanist. His ideas came to be known as Garveyism.
Garveyism is an aspect of black nationalism that refers to the economic, racial and political policies of UNIA-ACL founder Marcus Garvey.
The Bobo Ashanti, also known as the Ethiopian African Black International Congress (E.A.B.I.C.), is a religious group originating in Bull Bay near Kingston, Jamaica.
Leonard Percival Howell, also known as The Gong or G. G. Maragh, was a Jamaican religious figure. According to his biographer Hélène Lee, Howell was born into an Anglican family. He was one of the first preachers of the Rastafari movement, and is known by many as The First Rasta.
The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church is a religious movement that originated in Jamaica during the 1940s and later spread to the United States, being incorporated in Florida in 1975. Its beliefs are based on both the Old and New testaments of the bible, as well as the teachings of Marcus Garvey, self-reliance, Afrocentricity and Ethiopianism. Their ceremonies include bible reading, chanting, and music incorporating elements from Nyahbinghi, Burru, Kumina and other indigenous traditions. The group holds many beliefs in common with the Rastafari, including the use of marijuana as a sacrament, but differ on many points, most significantly the matter of Haile Selassie's divinity.
The Ethiopian movement is a religious movement that began in southern Africa towards the end of the 19th and early 20th century, when two groups broke away from the Anglican and Methodist churches. One of the main reasons for breaking away was the growing idea that Africa had little to no history before the European colonisation of the continent, leaving many Africans upset at the prospect of their heritage and culture being erased through colonialism.
Michael George Henry OD, better known as Ras Michael, is a Jamaican reggae singer and Nyabinghi specialist. He also performs under the name of Dadawah.
The Rastafari movement in the United States echoes the Rastafari religious movement, which began in Jamaica and Ethiopia during the 1930s. Marcus Garvey, born in Jamaica, was influenced by the Ethiopian king Haile Selassie. Jamaican Rastafaris began emigrating to the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and established communities throughout the country.
Bedwardism, more properly the Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church, was a religious movement of Jamaica.
Protestantism is the dominant religion in Jamaica. Protestants make up about 65% percent of the population. The five largest denominations in Jamaica are: The New Testament Church of God which is a part Church of God, Seventh-day Adventist, Baptist, Pentecostal and Anglican. The full list is below. Most of the Caribbean is Catholic; Jamaica's Protestantism is a legacy of missionaries that came to the island in the 18th and 19th centuries. Missionaries attempted to convert slaves to varying Protestant denominations of Moravians, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians to name a few. As missionaries worked to convert slaves, African traditions mixed with the religion brought over by Europeans. Protestantism was associated with black nationalism in Jamaica, aiming to improve the lives of blacks who were governed by a white minority during colonial times. Today, Protestantism plays an important role in society by providing services to people in need.
Robert Athlyi Rogers, born in Anguilla, was the author of the Holy Piby, and founder of the "Afro-Athlican Constructive Church".
Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which seeks representation for black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for democratic representation in culturally plural societies or to establish self-governing independent nation-states for black people. Modern black nationalism often aims for the social, political, and economic empowerment of black communities within white majority societies, either as an alternative to assimilation or as a way to ensure greater representation and equality within predominantly Eurocentric or white cultures.
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.
Marley is a 2012 documentary-biographical film directed by Kevin Macdonald documenting the life of Bob Marley.
Joseph Robert Love, known as Dr. Robert Love, was a 19th-century Bahamian-born medical doctor, clergyman, teacher, journalist, politician and pan-Africanist. He lived, studied, and worked successively in the Bahamas, the United States of America, Haiti, and Jamaica. Love spent the last decades of his life in Jamaica, where he held political office, published a newspaper, and advocated for the island's black majority.
Augustown is a 2016 novel by Jamaican writer Kei Miller. Augustown was published in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2016 and by Pantheon Books in the US. It is Miller's third novel; he is also a poet.
Myal is an Afro-Jamaican spirituality. It developed via the creolization of African religions during the slave era in Jamaica. It incorporates ritualistic magic, spiritual possession and dancing. Unlike Obeah, its practices focus more on the connection of spirits with humans. Over time, Myal began to meld with Christian practices and created the religious tradition known as Revivalism.
The Rastafari movement developed out of the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, in which over ten million Africans were enslaved and transported to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries. Once there, they were sold to European planters and forced to work on the plantations. Around a third of these transported Africans were relocated in the Caribbean, with under 700,000 being settled in Jamaica. In 1834, slavery in Jamaica was abolished after the British government passed the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Racial prejudice nevertheless remained prevalent across Jamaican society. The overwhelming majority of Jamaica's legislative council was white throughout the 19th century, and those of African descent were treated as second-class citizens.
Free black people in Jamaica fell into two categories. Some secured their freedom officially, and lived within the slave communities of the Colony of Jamaica. Others ran away from slavery, and formed independent communities in the forested mountains of the interior. This latter group included the Jamaican Maroons, and subsequent fugitives from the sugar and coffee plantations of coastal Jamaica.