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OBI; OR, THE HISTORY OF
THREE-FINGERED JACK
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series editor:L.W.Conolly
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Frontispiece to Obi;or,the History of three-fingered Jack(),
courtesy of The University of Virginia.
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OBI; OR, THE HISTORY OF
THREE-FINGERED JACK
William Earle
edited by Srinivas Aravamudan
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© by Srinivas Aravamudan
All rights reserved.The use of any part of this publication reproduced,transmitted in any form or
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Earle,William
Obi,or,The history of Three-fingered Jack / William Earle ;edited by Srinivas Aravamudan.
(Broadview editions)
Includes bibliographical references.
---
I
.Mansong,Jack,d.—Fiction.I.Aravamudan,Srinivas.II.Title.III.Title:History of Three-
fingered Jack. IV.Series.
ps1567.i155o2 2005 813'.2 c2005-902173-x
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Contents
Acknowledgements •
Introduction •
Timeline of Historical and Literary Events Surrounding New
World Slavery,Abolitionism,and Obeah,– •
A Note on the Text •
Obi;or,the History of Three-fingered Jack •
Appendix A:Historical Sources on Obeah •
. From Benjamin Moseley,A Treatise on Sugar
() •
. From House of Commons Sessional Papers () •
. From Matthew Gregory Lewis,Journal of a West India
Proprietor,Kept During a Residence in the Island of Jamaica
() •
Appendix B:Accounts of Tacky’s Rebellion () •
. From Edward Long,The History of Jamaica () •
. From Bryan Edwards,Observations on the Disposition,
Character,Manners,and Habits of Life,of the Maroons
() •
Appendix C:Literary Treatments of Obeah •
. From James Grainger,The Sugar Cane:A Poem.
In Four Books () •
. John Fawcett,Obi;or,Three-Finger’d Jack:
A Serio-Pantomime,in Two Acts () •
. From Maria Edgeworth,“The Grateful Negro,”Popular
Tales () •
Select Bibliography •
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Acknowledgements
I am sincerely grateful to librarians at the British Library,the
Institute for Commonwealth Studies, and the University of
Virginia for making a number of texts available for consultation,
and for helping with the construction of this edition.A partial
bibliographical list of sixteen different versions of Obi;or Three-
fingered Jack with comprehensive descriptions can be found in
Frank Cundall,“Three-Fingered Jack:The Terror of Jamaica,”
The West India Committee CircularVol.XLV No. ( February
) –.Cundall’s initial foray into documenting the multi-
ple editions of Three-fingered Jack is invaluable.
I would like to thank colleagues at the University of
California at Riverside, the University of New Mexico, the
University of Miami,Florida State University,the American
Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS), and the
Southeastern Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
(SEASECS) for inviting me to give talks that helped me realize
and further the implications of the project.Special thanks go to
Vincent Carretta, Joan Dayan, David Barry Gaspar, George
Haggerty, Jonathan Hess, Shaun Hughes, Deborah Jensen,
Thomas Krise,Tom Lockwood,Dennis Moore,Philip Morgan,
Felicity Nussbaum,Frank Palmeri,and Charlotte Sussman for
answering questions,suggesting resources,and inviting me to
lecture on the topic.For research assistance with scanning and
computing work early in this project,I would like to thank
Amardeep Singh.I would like to thank Hollianna Bryan for
expert assistance with proofs.My greatest thanks,however,goes
to the diligent cheerfulness and brilliant efficiency of my research
and editorial assistant Alice Sarti,whose bibliographical,edito-
rial,and computing skills over the last two years resulted in the
speedy realization of this edition. Any faults that remain—
whether they are errors of commission or omission, text or
context,fact or interpretation—are my own.
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Introduction
The full title of this novel promises the treatment of a number
of inter-related topics to those who are interested in the history
and aftermath of slavery and abolition, the literature of the
Caribbean,and the development of New World religions.As a
novel based on a true historical incident that was rendered to the
public in a number of different versions,the success of Obi;or,
The History of Three-fingered Jack depended first on the literary
taste of the early Romantic period and then on popular taste
during its reception history thereafter.Obimet with great success
through the genre of performed pantomime with an initial
unbroken nine-year run,and also by way of multiple editions in
chapbook and pamphlet form.Additionally,the oral dissemina-
tion of folklore in Jamaica has made the novel’s historical protag-
onist,sometimes referred to as Jack Mansong,into a recognizable
legend even today.An early twentieth-century scholar claims that
“few persons connected with Jamaica—probably none except
Columbus—have been the subject of so many publications as
Three-Fingered Jack,the Terror of Jamaica.” This assessment
will sound hyperbolic to those who may never have heard of this
colorful character before; all the same, this novel’s rousing
account of a heroic individual’s attempt to combat slavery while
defending family honor suggests aspects of epic tale and revenge
tragedy alongside the history,memory,and syncretic legacy of
the New World African diaspora.Jack Mansong,according to
several historians of Jamaica,remains one of the country’s long-
standing folk heroes,and his story continues to be commemo-
rated through multiple retellings and song.
Furthermore,the story of Three-fingered Jack is a key source
for information about the Afro-Caribbean religion of obeah (or
Frank Cundall,“Three-Fingered Jack:The Terror of Jamaica,”West India Committee
CircularVol.XLV No.(January ) ;continued in Nos.,(January
and February ).Cundall also lists sixteen different publications since that
re-tell the story for popular audiences.
Clinton V.Black,The Story of Jamaica:From Prehistory to the Present(London:Collins,
) ;Clinton V.Black,History of Jamaica(London:Collins,) .
; , -
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“Obi”in the title),a set of practices and beliefs produced by the
cultural synthesis of enslaved populations drawn from a number
of African locations.For this reason,we might trace obeah as a
religious theme treated through several genres during the time—
examples of which can be found in the appendices—but we can
also consider whether the complex phenomenon of obeah stim-
ulated writers into experimenting with a number of generic
innovations when representing it.Earle’s fiction also attempts to
match the novelty of its content with several innovations of form
by combining romance elements,sentimental poetry,mock-epis-
tolary structure,anthropological footnote,and colonial reportage.
The mock-epistolary structure,which separates the narrative out
into individual letters written by the Jamaican George Stanford
to his English friend Charles,mimics the many correspondences
maintained between overseers of plantations and their absentee
landlords,such as the extensive correspondence between Joseph
Stewart,a plantation overseer,and Roger Hope Elletson,the Lt.
Governor of Jamaica from –. The novel’s letters,
however,are much more informal than a business correspon-
dence would have been.Obi is written with a view to eliciting
the feeling tear or the melancholic sigh of the sentimentalist
reader and the abolitionist activist.
Obiis of scholarly significance to students of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century literature,and to historians of empire,colo-
nialism,and slavery,but it is also a highly readable novel with a
compelling plot and a breezy pace. While the author had no
pretensions to high aesthetics,his use of anthropological and
ethnographic footnotes,his resort to poetry,and his handling of
suspense alongside a romantic subplot altogether reveal consid-
erable skill,and undoubtedly helped capture multiple audiences
for the various versions of the story.
For the Stewart-Elletson correspondence,see Huntington Library,Stowe Brydges
Collection,–.As Mavis Campbell suggests in another context,there is a struc-
tural relationship between two lines of flight from Jamaica,absentee landlordism and
marronage.Mavis C.Campbell,The Maroons of Jamaica:A History of Resistance,
Collaboration and Betrayal(Granby,MA:Bergin and Garvey,) .
For a fuller account of slavery-related Anglophone fiction between and ,
see Srinivas Aravamudan,ed.,Slavery,Abolition and Emancipation Volume VI:Fiction
(London:Pickering and Chatto,).
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Not much is known about William Earle Junior,although his
writings clearly reveal a predilection for sentimentalist excess and
rhetorical flourishes.What is known is that Earle was also the
subject of a couple of literary controversies.He was accused of
plagiarizing Marie Thérèse De Camp’s First Faults with his
published play Natural Faults () (both of which imitated
Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling),but he defended himself
credibly as having circulated his version of the manuscript before
De Camp’s was performed.He also wrote “The Villagers,”a petite
pièce;The Welshman(),a novel;and probably compiled Welsh
Legends ().Another known setback to Earle’s life was in
February ,when he was “sentenced to six months’impris-
onment in Newgate [an infamous London prison] and a fine of
pounds for a most scurrilous and malignant libel on a
respectable tradesman.”
Whatever notoriety he gained during his lifetime,Earle is
now best remembered for this novel,in which the tale of Three-
fingered Jack’s exploits is coupled with a discussion of obeah
(sometimes spelled in the period as obi,obia,obeiah,or orbiah).In
the West Indies,as Earle suggests in the novel,several aspects of
obeah functioned as political resistance by enslaved persons to
the economic and racial oppression they endured under the
system of plantation slavery.The danger posed by obeah resulted
in various attempts to control it through criminal and civil legis-
lation.Observers characterized the practice as a form of black
magic,and its opponents took preemptive actions against what
was seen as obeah’s political agenda against the plantocracy—the
white plantation-owners—in the colonial period and thereafter.
The anthropology of obeah is still speculative when compared
to knowledge about the more famous Afro-Caribbean religious
syncretic religion of voudou (or voodoo),with which obeah is
often confused but from which it differs considerably.This novel
puts at stake the meaning,scope,and function of obeah as reli-
gious practice and also as literary representation,medical cure,
See John Genest,Some Account of the English Stage Vol.(London,) –;
Biographica Dramatica Vol.(London,) –;and S.Austin Allibone,A Critical
Dictionary of English Literature(London:Trübner and Sons,–).
; , -
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and political resistance.In retrospect,it is very likely that obeah’s
political power arose from its integration with traditional medical
practices.A full understanding of the multiple meanings of obeah
can come about only by surveying the different literary genres
and media used to represent it.To this end,appendices from
related texts have been made available at the end of this volume
to serve as background materials.Readers are also invited to
consult the comprehensive timeline that features significant
historical and literary events of the pre-emancipation British
Caribbean. The collection of documents presented in this
edition situates the novel in its literary contexts,and also helps
readers to evaluate the beginnings of a literary culture created
around obeah.Ultimately,a close reading of this text enables a
fuller understanding not just of obeah,but also of the broader
field of the Anglophone literature of slavery and abolition and
the cultural history of the Caribbean.
The Historical Origins of Three-fingered Jack
The first reference to the historical personage of Three-fingered
Jack can be found in the Jamaican newspapers of .In August
of that year,the first journalistic item acknowledging his exis-
tence emphasized the threat posed by the group he headed:
A gang of run-away Negroes of above men,and about
women,have formed a settlement in the recesses of Four Mile
Wood in St.David’s;are become very formidable to that neigh-
bourhood,and have rendered travelling,especially to Mulattoes
and Negroes,very dangerous;one of the former they have lately
killed,belonging to Mr.Duncan Munro of Montrose,and taken
a large quantity of Linen of his from his slaves on the road:they
also have robbed many other persons servants,and stolen some
cattle,and great numbers of sheep,goats,hogs,poultry &c.
particularly a large herd of hogs from Mr.Rial of Tamarind
Tree Penn.They are chiefly Congos,and declare they will kill
every Mulatto and Creole Negro they can catch.BRISTOL,
alias Three-finger’d Jack,is their Captain,and CAESAR,who
belongs to Rozel estate,is their next officer.
