Baptist War Ideology . The missionary - educated rebels were attuned to the abolitionist movement in London ; their intention was to call a peaceful general strike . Compared with their Presbyterian , Wesleyan , and Moravian counterparts , the greater propensity of Baptist slaves to mobilization may have reflected a higher level of absenteeism among white Baptist missionaries ; the relative independence of Black deacons facilitated greater slave ownership over religious life , including reinterpretations of Baptist theology away from European orthodoxy ( for example , the emphasis placed on John the Baptist , sometimes at the expense of Jesus Christ ) Thomas Burchell , a missionary in Montego Bay returned from England following Christmas vacation . A wide expectation among the Baptist ministry was that he would return with papers for emancipation from King William . There was furthermore expectation that the King ' s men would enforce the order . Thus , discontent escalated when the Jamaican governor proclaimed that no emancipation had been granted . The strike . Led by ' native ' Baptist preacher , Samuel Sharpe , blacks demanded more freedom and a working wage of " half the going wage rate " , and promised the pastor not to return to work until their demands were met by the plantation owners . Upon refusal of their demands , the strike escalated into a full rebellion . It became the largest slave uprising in the British West Indies , lasting 10 days and mobilized as many as 60 , 000 of Jamaica ' s 300 , 000 slave population . Suppression and death toll . The rebellion was suppressed with relative ease by British forces , under the control of Sir Willoughby Cotton . The reaction of the Jamaican Government and plantocracy was far more brutal . Approximately five hundred slaves were killed in total : 207 during the revolt and somewhere in the range between 310 and 340 slaves were killed through " various forms of judicial executions " after the rebellion was concluded , at times , for quite minor offences ( one recorded execution indicates the crime being the theft of a pig ; another , a cow ) . An 1853 account by Henry Bleby described how three or four simultaneous executions were commonly observed ; bodies would be allowed to pile up until workhouse negroes carted the bodies away at night and bury them in mass graves outside town . Only 14 whites were , however , killed by armed slave battalions during the course of the rebellion , which left property damage estimated in the Jamaican Assembly summary report in March 1832 at £1 , 154 , 589 ( equaling roughly £52 , 000 , 000 in modern terms ) . Many missionaries came under suspicion by the planters . Some , such as William Knibb , were arrested but later released . Groups of white colonials destroyed chapels that housed slave congregations . Aftermath . The brutality of the plantocracy during the revolt is thought to have accelerated the process of emancipation , with initial measures beginning in 1833 , followed by partial emancipation ( outright for children six or under , six years apprenticeship for the rest ) in 1834 , and then unconditional emancipation of chattel slavery in 1838 . In Literature . Andrea Levy ' s 2010 novel The Long Song recounts , through a fictional narrative , the events of the Baptist War .