1817: Jamaican authorities accused Thomas Strafford, a resident of Haiti, of circulating “mischievous” printed materials in the streets of the British colony.

1817: Jamaican authorities accused Thomas Strafford, a resident of Haiti, of circulating “mischievous” printed materials in the streets of the British colony. The principal evidence against him was a pamphlet titled “Reflections on Blacks and Whites,” which challenged the prevailing racial hierarchy. Strafford’s activities confirmed that Haitian citizens were actively working to destabilize neighboring regimes of slavery through the power of the printed word. This incident renewed white fears of an “authorized intercourse” between the black republic and the Jamaican unfree. It proved that despite isolation, the intellectual influence of Haiti continued to penetrate the British Caribbean.