'The full history of Atlantic slavery is scarcely taught in the US or the UK, and so it’s not surprising that few people in either country know much about Tacky’s revolt. Until recently, however, I didn’t realise that Jamaicans don’t know this history much better. I had assumed that in a country with a Black majority population, which had emerged from one of the most brutal slave societies in human history, basic education would have offered a much better understanding of slavery and its legacies than the one I had received in the US. I was wrong.
'While no one in Jamaica denies the importance of slavery’s history, little is known about antislavery uprisings. I asked my friend Sutopa, a high school teacher in Massachusetts who grew up in Jamaica, what she had learned about slavery and slave revolt in primary school. She paused and pursed her lips, then shook her head and smiled ruefully: “Almost nothing.”'