Jamaican Christmas During Slavery Era
Island to Island
by Ralston Blair

What was Christmas like for persons in bondage during the time of slavery in Jamaica?

Records show that Christmas was the only holiday where the slaves were allowed to celebrate openly. Christmas was a time of great festivity. They were allowed three days off (Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day). Celebrations usually began on Christmas morning, with a group going up to the Great House to serenade the householders before going to their provision grounds to reap food for the following two or three days.

Although during the year the slaves received salt fish, beef, and pork, which they often ate with cassava, bread, yams, plantain, sweet potatoes, peas, beans, or cornmeal, they also received a dole of rum and sugar with which to make punch. At Christmas, however, oxen and pigs were slaughtered for the feast and rum rations were increased.

In the evening, the slaves would dress themselves up and assemble on the lawns in front of the great house, with drums and musical instruments, dividing themselves into groups to dance. The mode of dress was extravagant and exaggerated. Plates and jewelry were even loaned to them from the occupants of the great house. Some of the men wore long-tailed coats, while some women dressed in muslin (a fine cotton fabric) and cambric (a fine white linen) with colored handkerchiefs disposed around their heads and with earrings, necklaces, and bracelets of all sorts in profusion.

This revelry continued until approximately 10 p.m. During this time they consumed alcoholic punch and port wine and even sang songs against their masters, among other things.

Out of this revelry came what we now know in Jamaica as “Junkonoo,” seemingly a harmless Christmas entertainment which was, in fact, much more than that. The most plausible explanation of the name is related to the language of Eastern Ghana, where the word “dzono” means sorcerer and “knunu” means terrible or deadly. The dance-turned-march would be staged every Christmas and has an early African ancestry.

Although Christmas was a time when the slaves had the chance to rest and to express themselves creatively, it stands in stark contrast to the backbreaking work, brutality, and horror to which they were returned after the end of each Yuletide period.

May we all have a blessed, free, and enjoyable Christmas and a hopeful New Year.

Stay Irie!

Ralston Blair is a Jamaican writer and journalist who has worked on Mackinac Island. He is writing this year from Jamaica. Ideas and comments about his column can be sent to the Town Crier.