Coral Garden Massacre

Ask almost any elderly rastaman, especially in the western region of Jamaica about “Coral Gardens” and you would have caused him to evoke dreadful memories of the year 1963 when the government of that time attempted to wipe out the entire Rastafarian community in Jamaica.

 Do you think that history has been unfair? because very little or nothing at all is known about a significant event which beset this particular group of people during the year 1963, even when one digs deep into the history of Jamaica, the details are very sketchy with only minor accounts of people giving their testimonies to writers with a sense of interest. “History has always been unfair to rasta,” Ras Carver told this writer. He thinks there is so much that can be said about the Coral Garden incident.

 It was the year after independence, but this group of people would have their independence taken away from them by a great extent. And it is not that those people had violated any laws on a whole because even today they are a very discipline type of people. But it was the action of one supposed member which triggered an unfortunate chain reaction which would have left their whole generation extinct by an angry government who unleashed its wrath upon even the innocent of their kind.

 What this writer has gleaned from research is that a rasta man named Rudolf Franklyn who used to cultivate lands and also burnt fire coals in the hills of Coral Gardens had stopped by a gas station one day after coming from his fields to ask for some water but instead he was sprayed with gas, and was threatened that he would be lit if he did not leave. Another account said that Franklyn got into unresolved issues with an overseer named fowler, however in any case the police was called, but there was no justice for Franklyn because he ended up getting shot several times by the police. He was brought to the Montego Bay hospital where his life was saved by hardworking doctors. However he was permanently disabled and had to live with an artificial bowel. Franklyn was still not speared from the wrath of the law; after being released from hospital he was charged for resisting arrest and was sentenced to six months in prison.

 After Franklyn left prison, he had it in his mind that he had many wrongs to right. Living with an artificial bowel was not a joyful prospect, and Franklyn felt he didn`t have much to lose. So he gathered some of his brethren, sufferers who were frustrated by daily humiliations as he was, and they began to prepare weapons: straight machetes sharpened on both sides, spears forged from concrete reinforcing rods, missiles made from shells filled with cement, cutlasses stolen from a banana plantation.