Caribbean

Chief Takyi

Jamaica

Tacky’s War, Tacky’s Revolt, or Tacky’s Rebellion, was a widespread slave rebellion in the British Colony of Jamaica in the 1760s. Led by Akan people (then referred to as Coromantee but originally from around Kromantsie in the Central Region of Ghana) — tribes including Ashanti, Fanti, Nzema and Akyem, — it was loosely led by a Fanti royal and warlord called Tacky (Takyi) in eastern Jamaica, and Dahomean war chief or coastal headman Apongo in the western end of the island.

Tacky’s War was the most significant slave uprising in the Caribbean between the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John and the 1791 Haitian Revolution. According to Professor Trevor Burnard: “In terms of its shock to the imperial system, only the American Revolution surpassed Tacky’s War in the eighteenth century.” It was the most dangerous slave rebellion in the British Empire until the Baptist War of Samuel Sharpe in 1831–32, which also occurred in Jamaica.

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