Leonard P Howell

TODAY, June 16, marks another anniversary of the birth of Leonard P Howell, the founding thinker of the Rastafari idea and movement. Some writers portray Howell as a violent leader of an outcast cult and a man with 13 wives. One study reported someone interviewed saying Howell was a "con man". On the other hand, later studies have examined Howell's contribution in terms of philosophic proportions. Who was Leonard P Howell? What was the nature of the interaction between Howell and the "wider" Jamaican society? Was there any relationship between Howell's work in St Thomas and the historic January sugar labourer's "rising" at Serge Island? Howell was arrested in 1933 and tried for sedition in Morant Bay, March 1934. His "treatise" on the Rastafari idea presented as his defence of the trial, predicted the fall of "new" Babylon, Great Britain. The "treatise" is a record of call for a new moral order, Rastafari.

He rooted his attack against British colonialism in the history and philosophy of the Bible, as well as his "fragments" of African history and that of the slave and colonial order in Jamaica. There is no doubt that his impact on the "quashee" mentality in St Thomas "dislodged" the labourers from the planter and colonial leaders of that parish, and, indeed, in the rest of the country. Today, the Rastafari movement can be found all over the world. What Howell was arrested for in 1934 has become a new centre of power in the world today.

Howell was born in Northern Clarendon, Red Ground District, Crooked River. That area of Clarendon has produced world-class literary figure, Claude McKay. His brother Theo McKay was a prominent leader during the 1930s and so was Rumble, the leader of one of the organised peasant movements in this country. Howell belonged to another class of political pioneers and leaders -- a group of "returned residents" some in the early 1900s and others during the 1920s and 1930s. Those "returned residents" contributed significantly to the creation of a new order in post-emancipation Jamaica. It must be noted that Howell lived in the USA, more specifically in New York during the 1920s. That period provided Howell with an abundance of lessons that were most critical to his development.

There is a view that it takes more than a background scan of a person in order to understand that person. According to one school of thought, that meaning can be interpreted out of the ways other people act towards that person. Against this background, I will "survey" the nature of how the "wider" Jamaican society acted towards Howell in order to begin to sketch a picture of the man, the time and the moment of enlightenment.

A police report in June 1933 informs of Howell's meeting on the 14 of the same month at the Coke Chapel steps. Another detective report in March 1934 notes Howell meeting, April 1933, in Trinity Ville, St Thomas. The first police record reads, "Howell, in a long speech...about Ras Tafari, urged the people to recognise him as their King." The detective notes with concern the increasing attendance to "this man's meetings". By December 1933 Howell was arrested under the sedition law. Howell returned to Jamaica in late 1932. According to the records, he was placed under the microscope of the police the day he arrived in Kingston. He was arrested, jailed and imprisoned several times between 1933 and 1954.

Howell must have been a person of "worth" for the police to have invested so much time to this one man. Equally to the concerns of the local police, the colonial government in Jamaica and Home Office in England noted with acute unease, the activities of Howell. In a mid-September 1938 letter from Colonel Sir Vernon Kerr to C C Wolley, colonial secretary, the former writes, "Reference to your secret letter... Leonard Howell is now in communication with the International African Service Bureau in London...(He) has apparently started a movement which he calls the African Salvation (Society) of Jamaica. He described it as an international organisation pledged to support morally and financially the continued independence, national integrity and complete sovereignty of Africa." Bustamante sent a letter dated July 1939 to the colonial secretary's office. He speaks, "Serious trouble is brewing in Port Morant...owing to the mischievousness of a man whose name is Howell, Leader of this terrible thing that is called 'Rastafari'...I think he is the greatest danger that exists in this country today, and I believe the police can confirm this." Indeed, a most powerful statement from the future trade union and political leader.

One planter, John Ross in 1933 sent a letter to the police notifying the authorities of the radical activities of Howell in Trinity Ville. Howell's activities in Seaforth St Thomas prompted the member of the Legislative Council and owner of Serge Island Estate, to register, in the Legislative Council, his "fears of a social revolution" in St Thomas. Archival sources recorded the voices of the established churches and their views on Howell. The Wesleyan and the Tennessee branch of the Church of God registered complaints against Howell. A police report in March 1934 records, "Howell also attacked the churches saying that they were doing no good and that the ministers were liars." It continues, "In fact representations were made to the police by a Wesleyan Minister...The Rev gentleman described Howell's activities in words somewhat as follows: "Rank atheism and breaking down the morality of the people -- very direct teachings against ministers and established religion -- extremists exciting to rebellion and bloodshed -- movement speedily growing -- despicable effort to undermine the authority of the church and state." Chief Justice Sir William Lyall-Grant, sentencing Howell in 1934, castigated the latter for "dispensing" an evil doctrine. These interactions help to define Leonard P Howell. He was a most feared person by the colonial society between 1933 to 1954.

Recently, some scholars (Chevannes, Lieb and Shibata) began to look at Howell's contribution to the development of music forms in Jamaica. While Chevannes links Pinnacle, the "Industrial Mission" formed by Howell in the early 1940s, Lieb and Shibata links reggae music to that tradition established by Howell. Shibata in assessing Orlando Patterson's work on Rastafari, notes that Patterson looked at the movement with the existentialist framework. Similarly, in the book, Dread, Father Owens describes the emergence of Rastafari in terms of its existentialist characteristics. Robert Hill's Dread History locates Howell's contribution to this philosophical framework. Most recently, Paget Henry looks at Howell's contribution as part of the African Caribbean philosophy. I am making the point that Howell has contributed much to thought construction in Jamaica and the world. He was treated as a significant figure by acts of the colonial state, the police, the established church, the planters and the emerging trade union/political leader. He was portrayed as a most significant person because, as the saying goes, "He who enlists a man's mind wields a power even greater than the sword or sceptre." Howell set a precedent for a new generation in Jamaica and the world. His "heretical" opinions have been "weaved" into an "intellectual architecture of much of contemporary (Jamaican) life".

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