Tacky
Tacky was a Coromantee chief of the Akan people from Ghana. He led one of the most significant rebellions in Jamaica and the Caribbean. Tacky’s position as an overseer on the Frontier plantation in the St. Mary’s parish of Jamaica gave him the opportunity to draw plans for a rebellion. According to the Jamaica Gleaner, “on Easter Monday, 1760, Tacky and his warriors went to Port Maria, where they killed the shopkeeper of Fort Haldane and took gunpowder, muskets and cannon balls. They then went to the plantations killing white people, and by morning light hundreds more enslaved people had joined them. In the end, a reported 60 whites, and 300-400 enslaved people were killed.” Tacky’s rebellion helped spur on uprisings on estates in the other parishes including Westmoreland, St. John, St. Thomas in the East, Clarendon and St. Dorothy’s.
