These posts explore the histories of some of the most interesting or significant cases that we have found. Primary sources relating to hundreds more can be explored at Caribbean Religious Trials. The histories are presented here in the order in which we post them, but you can also explore them in date order through the timeline, or geographically via the map. We periodically add new cases. Subscribe to the site to make sure you get updates.

popo-country-1

The ‘Woman of the Popo Country’, Jamaica, 1770s

Jamaica 0 Comments

One of the most frequently repeated stories about the practice of obeah—at least in printed sources–first appeared in material presented to the British parliament in the late eighteenth century. The story, which we refer to as that of the ‘Woman of the Popo Country’ was much re-used and re-told in later generations. The story was […]

pierre-1

Pierre, Grenada 1833-34

Grenada 0 Comments

Most people prosecuted for obeah during slavery were enslaved. Their trials took place in special ‘slave courts’, which only tried slaves. Few records remain of these trials. However, from the 1820s, Caribbean colonies sought to transport people convicted of serious crimes to the penal colonies in Australia. In order to implement such sentences, the colonial governments […]

Charles Dolly

Charles Dolly, Leeward Islands c 1904

Antigua, Grenada, Montserrat 0 Comments

Charles Dolly  was convicted on at least five occasions for practising obeah between 1898 and 1908.  Known as ‘Dr Tishum’ or ‘Tickem’, he was probably born in Grenada, but spent the later part of his life in Montserrat, where all his convictions took place. By 1908 he was described as being ‘over seventy’, suggesting that […]

Graman Quacy

Graman Quacy, Suriname, late eighteenth century

Suriname 0 Comments

Graman Quacy (or Kwasi) was a healer in the eighteenth century Dutch colony Suriname. He was probably born in the late seventeenth century, in the part of Africa that is now Ghana. The main way historians know about him is through the writings of John Gabriel Stedman, a British soldier and writer. Stedman wrote about […]

Winter

Winter, Jamaica, April 1776

Jamaica 0 Comments

Winter was one of several enslaved people convicted of obeah in Jamaican slave courts in the decades after the 1760 legislation which first made obeah a criminal offence. He was tried in the slave court of the parish of St. Thomas in the East (today’s St. Thomas) and sentenced to transportation. This probably meant that […]

Isaac White, Trinidad, 1907

Isaac White, Trinidad, 1907

Trinidad 0 Comments

Isaac White’s prosecution reveals many common strategies of both prosecutors and defense lawyers in obeah cases in early twentieth century Trinidad, and is also interesting because the court heard considerable details about White’s ritual practices. It is one of many cases where the ritual specialist was asked to influence the outcome of a court case. […]

Rosabelle Rennalls and others, near Spanish Town, Jamaica, June 1899

Jamaica 0 Comments

Many people arrested under the obeah laws were members of religious communities who were prosecuted for group worship and/or healing activities. This was the case with the prosecution of Rosabelle Rennalls, Joseph Stephens, Julius Walters, Joseph Thomas, George Morgan, Miriam Henry and Leonora Thomas for participating in a religious healing meeting at Beggar’s Bush Pen […]

Polibius, Bermuda, 1755

Bermuda 0 Comments

Polibius was an enslaved man indicted in the Bermudian Court of Assizes for poisoning in 1755, when there was no law against obeah. If the law had been different he might well have been prosecuted for obeah instead. Polibius was accused of having three years earlier hidden ‘certain Poisonous Matter or Mixture of sundry ingredients […]

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