1793-Jul.: Residents of Kingston gathered in July 1793 to witness the symbolic execution of the era’s two most prominent threats to the plantation system: Th…

1793-Jul.: Residents of Kingston gathered in July 1793 to witness the symbolic execution of the era’s two most prominent threats to the plantation system: Thomas Paine and William Wilberforce. The two reformers were hanged and burned in effigy side by side, explicitly equating the call for abolition with the radicalism of the French Revolution. This ritual underscored the white plantocracy’s resolve to defend the slave regime against both metropolitan humanitarians and international revolutionaries. For the enslaved townspeople and free people of color who observed the event, the burning of these “friends” clarified the high stakes of the ongoing struggle for black dignity. The demonstration transformed the urban space into a theater of counter-revolutionary defiance and racialized repression.