The raids on the Rastafarian fortress of Pinnacle – Part I

ON NOVEMBER 2, 1930, Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, in Africa. His supporters believe that he was the earthly manifestation of God or Jah. His birth, it is said, was foretold in the Bible and his lineage goes back several centuries before the birth of Christ.

Selassie was born in 1892. Six years later, in 1898, Leonard P. Howell was born in the parish of Clarendon, Jamaica, on June 16. At an early age, he migrated to the United States, where he joined Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).

Soon, Howell became one of Garvey’s top-brass members, but Garvey and the UNIA were constantly under the radar of US authorities, which eventually arrested and charged him for various crimes. Garvey was deported in 1928, and Howell was to follow him in 1932.

But Howell’s activism switched from Garveyism to one that focused on the importance of Selassie I. He saw Selassie as the great Black Messiah, and he established the King of Kings Mission out of respect for Selassie and appointed himself Selassie’s representative in Jamaica. He also wrote the first book about Rastafarianism, The Promised Key.

In 1933, soon after his return to Jamaica, Howell stepped up his preaching on Selassie, which, in addition to his faith-healing practices, earned him a huge following. In his book Overstanding Rastafari - Jamaica’s Gift to the World, Yasus Afari says that at the beginning of the 1930s, “the streets of Jamaica (Kingston and St Catherine in particular) were energised by the inspired preaching and teachings of the Honourable Leonard Howell, one of the earliest Rastafarian pioneers”.

Howell was preaching ‘doctrines’ that were considered by the authorities as anti-Church and anti-government. He was charged and sent to prison for sedition. But imprisonment did not shake the foundation of Howell’s beliefs. Upon his release from prison in 1940, he set up the first Rastafarian village in Jamaica on 400 acres at Sligoville, St Catherine. The settlement was called The Pinnacle because it was established on a high hilltop from which there is a 360 degrees breathtaking view.

In describing The Pinnacle, The Daily Gleaner of July 15, 1941, says: “Pinnacle is a property noted more for rocks and weeds than cultivation. On it are several huts, the majority made of thatch, which are occupied by hundreds of men and women (children turn up in the course of time), all of whom swear allegiance to Howell. Corn is planted in small quantities, but the yields are meagre. Ganja flourishes, the land seems fertile for such a growth … .

“The men of the camp work hard and long from day to day, and in what may be termed as the assembly hall, a large-sized thatch building, a notice was put up warning that all men must work or ... . The fate which is in store for the loafer is not set out, but it is known that the rod is not spared in the determination to maintain a high standard of labour by the male of the species.”

The original Rasta camps were also regularly raided and dislocated by the police “as the governing class and conservative sectors of the Jamaican society became alarmed by the grossly misunderstood Rastafarians”. But the encounters were not always with the authorities.

The people in the surrounding communities of Pinnacle were often at odds with the Rastas, who seemed not to be afraid of them. The clashes could get violent, and the police got wind of the sometime bloody confrontations. In the weeks leading up to July 14, 1941, there were many complaints to the Spanish Town police of Rastas raiding people’s provision grounds and fruit trees in the area.

The Daily Gleaner of Tuesday, July 15, also reported that “in some cases, the aggrieved parties on venturing onto Pinnacle to get some redress were laid out on strips of board and given a thorough flogging. Some of these injured people were taken from the Spanish Town Hospital by the police in the course of their journey to Pinnacle and confronted the captured with the charge that they had been parties to their injuries”.

And in the early morning of July 14, 1941, one hundred and seventy-three armed personnel stormed the camp. They were led by Deputy Commissioner of Police W. F. Sidley, Deputy Inspector D.G. Neish, Inspector L.P.R. Browning, Subinspector Lindop, Sergeant Major Cole, Sergeant Edie, Sergeant Rall, and Detective Sergeant Vassell, and Sergeant Adams, Sergeant R.G. A. Thomas, and a Detective Corporal Samuels.

By the end of the operation, 70 Rastas, mostly men, were thrown into jail. But their leader, Leonard Howell, was nowhere to be found. Where was he? Why was he hiding? And why were so many high-ranking police officials involved?

The saga continues tomorrow in the final part of this Jamaican story.