Slavery by another name

During the period of slavery there were workhouses in most parishes on the island, catering primarily for convicted free coloured people and runaway and convicted slaves. The transformation of the workhouses was largely a response to clause 17 of the 1833 Abolition Act, which forbade Jamaican planters to punish their former slaves. The workhouses were run by a committee consisting of the chief magistrate of the parish and five justices of the peace. Most of the women were sentenced to a combination of hard labour in the “penal gang’ and the treadmill, i.e. a giant wheel with a series of steps propelled by the inmates’ climbing motion. Jamaican workhouses were also under the control of local authorities, segregated the sexes, put inmates on the treadmill, kept records of the inmates, enforced a strict regulation of activity and time, were open to inspection, and tried to achieve an equalization of treatment in terms of diet, labour and punishment.

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