Jamaican Plantation Sovereignty and the Suppression of Rastafari: Coral Gardens in 1963

This paper discusses how the newly independent Jamaican state used the 1963 Coral Gardens Massacre to establish founding national myths by engaging the colonial plantation tradition of suppressing Africana religions. In response to a small Rastafari group’s resistance to police violence, state officials organized Jamaica’s first joint police-military operation, also enlisting civilians in a coordinated attack on Rasta communities near Montego Bay. Taking place in the first year of Jamaican independence, I argue that the new Jamaican state used the violent management of Africana religion at Coral Gardens as its foundational performance of sovereignty. By violently suppressing Afrocentric Rastafari, the state maintained the colonial plantation practice of denigrating Africana religion. In doing so, Jamaican state officials established narrative and mythic continuity between colonial and postcolonial modes of legitimate state management of Africana religions, exhibiting a colonially legible capacity to govern in the postcolonial context.