Obeah and Black Self-Hatred

In 1760 the Tacky Slave Rebellion on the island of Jamaica resulted in the passage of a law targeting all forms of African spirituality. The British along with all the other European nations with colonies in the New World were convinced that Africans who maintained their traditional African religious continuity were harder to enslave and control. The Tacky Slave Rebellion, the Haitian Slave Rebellion, and many other slave revolts in the Caribbean were masterminded by Africans steeped in the religious practices of their own ancestors.

After the Tacky Slave Rebellion, the British passed the first anti-Obeah laws that criminalized the practice of African religion. Other jurisdictions in the Caribbean followed the example of Jamaica and passed their own anti-Obeah laws. These laws made it a criminal offense to practice African religion, to be found with any article associated with the practice of African religion, and to consult with anyone practicing African religion.

The first anti-Obeah laws in the Caribbean carried some very draconian punishments including execution, beheading, dismemberment, banishment, imprisonment with hard labor, and floggings. After emancipation in 1834, punishments were ameliorated but practitioners of African religion could still be imprisoned with or without hard labor albeit for shorter periods of time or fined.

In the post-emancipation period, many practitioners of African spirituality were prosecuted under the various vagrancy laws adopted by the colonial government in the Caribbean. The term Obeah might have disappeared from the legal codes but new clauses criminalizing fraud were used to harass, persecute, and imprison practitioners of African spirituality.

In 1980, almost two decades after Jamaica and Guyana pivoted to Black political rule, Anguilla became the first Caribbean Island to formally decriminalize Obeah. Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and St Lucia followed suit in 1998, 2000, and 2004 respectively. It may come as a shock to the world that to learn that Jamaica, the land of Bob Marley, Marcus Garvey, and the Rastafarian movement, debated and rejected the decriminalization of Obeah. It is also a scandal that it took a Hindu government in Trinidad to lead in the decriminalization of Obeah and other forms of African spirituality in Trinidad.

The continued criminalization of Obeah in the Caribbean notwithstanding the lip service paid to the notions of religious liberty and freedom of conscience is a fair barometer of the level of self-hatred permeating people of African ancestry in the Caribbean. Many Caribbean islanders have adopted the same pejorative attitudes held by Caucasian colonialists vis-à-vis African spirituality.

It is not uncommon to hear Caribbean Islanders of the Christian persuasion parroting some of the same hogwash spewed out of the mouth of racist Caucasian Christian evangelicals. These religious copy-cats are quick to point out that Obeah, Voodoo Orisha-Shango and the Spiritual Baptist are all in league with the Devil and as such ought to be suppressed by supposed Christian governments of the Caribbean.

The mere mention of Obeah and Voodoo is sufficient to send these overzealous Christians scurrying to their closets to arms themselves with crosses, holy water, garlic and all the other Devil repellants they can find. This regrettably has led to many Caribbean people turning and unsympathetic ear and a blind eye towards the tragedy taking place on the Caribbean Island of Haiti so reviled far and wide for its adherence to African spiritual traditions.

Caribbean governments that have refused to follow the lead of Anguilla, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and St Lucia should hang their collective heads in shame. Even the Mormons who until 1978 refused to allow Black men into its priesthood and held that black skin was a sign of a divine curse are free to practice their religion throughout the Caribbean. It says a lot about Black governments in the Caribbean that can see their way to tolerate Mormons, the People’s Temple of Jim Jones and other nefarious religious sects originating in Europe and America but stubbornly maintain the position that Obeah, an African spiritual tradition and science, should be legally proscribed in their islands.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of Oreos, Coconuts and Negropeans: Rediscovering Our African Identity.