The Annals of Jamaica

- circa 1828 -

Excerpted from:  Bridges, Rev. George Wilson Bridges, The Annals of Jamaica, John Murray, London, 1828

------------------------------------

Account of Mass Murder in Jamaica - 'Hutchinson' - (1773):

One of the first active services of that commander, (Sir George Rodney) who was soon to shine upon a nobler field, was noticed in the public thanks of the Assembly for his successful exertions to apprehend a notorious assassin, who had spread terror throughout the island. The recurrence of African barbarities, with which these pages have been stained, will naturally suggest the idea that the miscreant was a slave; on the contrary, the lovers of a tragic legend will be pleased to hear that he was a man of wealth and ability, and a Scotchman.

In the close and wood-bound vale of Pedro, situated in the parish of Saint Ann, and nearly in the centre of the island, stood a small and lonely turret, dignified by its nothern architect with the name of Edinburgh Castle (click to see map). It commanded the only pass leading, directly from the south side of the island in the north: the defile is scarcely an hundred yards accross; and the mountains which inclose the solitary vale, arise on either side to an, almost Alpine height. On this spot, which might have been selected for a new Thermopylae, there dwelt a wretch whose birth disgraced the "land of the mountain and the flood:"-his name was Hutchinson -he possessed a few negroes, acquired a small property, and first stocked it with the strayed or stolen cattle of his neighbours. His slaves were the participators of his crimes ; they were recently from Africa - their native habits were familiarized with the sight of blood; and the mistaken sense of duty if not their characteristic cruelty, taught them silence and submission, though the dark and midnight crime, of assassination stains not the nature of the unprovoked African. Yet no traveller who attempted that defile, however poor or wretched be might be, ever escaped the confines of their owner's narrow territory. The needy wanderer would sometimes call for refreshement at the only habitation which for many miles had cheered his weary eye, but it was the last be was destined ever to behold. The wealthy passenger was alike the mark and victim of his unerring aim, from a loop-hole under which he was compelled to pass. A thick-set hedge of logwood had also been so prepared by the road-side, at a short distance from the house, that while he could detain in conversation any one who, might pass during the time that he was engaged in his cattle-fold hard by, his slaves from behind the fence could leisurely take aim at the devoted victim. It was not, however, money which the murderer thus sought. A savage disposition, wrought perhaps by some injury inflicted on him in early. life, an unnatural detestation of the human race, could be gratified only by the sight of blood, and the contemplation of human agony; for if his destined victim were infirm, or sick, he carefully revived his strength; or if he could behold him first in fancied security, in a convivial assembly, or perhaps, happy in the bosom of his family, it gave him greater satisfaction to inflict the blow which cut him off, and increased his appetite to relish the expiring struggle. To enjoy the gory spectacle, he first dissevered the ghastly head from the palpitating body: his most pleasing occupation was to whet his streaming knife; the gloomy temper of his soul was sated only by a copious flow of blood; and when be could no longer gaze upon the decaying countenance, he placed it high in the air, in the hollow trunk of a cotton tree, where vultures might complete the horrid deed. -The mangled carcass was thrown down one of those deep and hollow drains which are peculiar to mountainous countries of volcanic origin, and whose mouths, descending perpendicularly, conduct the torrents which periodically fall to the level of the ocean. Nor were his crimes for many years suspected, though his society was shunned ; so artfully did he contrive to conceal a character which other-wise might have been charitably pronounced insane.

Justice, however, was at length gratified by the punishment of the guilty monster. Callendar, the manager of a property in the same vale, had suffered much from the depredations of the cattle which strayed from the castle, and having driven some back to their owner, requested that they might not be allowed to trespass so again. Whether Hutchinson was not prepared for the visit, or whether he only waited for a more gratifying display of cruelty, does not appear; but Callendar was hospitably entertained and dismissed with assurances which satisfied him. The murderer returned his visit; and with apparent cordiality passed the day with him. But his victim was watched and as he shortly afterwards rode past the fatal hedge, a rifle-bullet stretched him on the earth. An unsuspicious victim confined to his bed in the turret above, beheld the transaction, and effected his timely escape. The assassin was unmasked, and fled: the whole country was alarmed and in pursuit; when no less than forty-seven watches were found in his chests, and the number of persons who, within a few years, had strangely disappeared, raised an immediate suspicion of their fate. The unfathomable charnel house which Hutchinson had imagined would not give up its' dead was searched upon the information of one of the guilty slaves; and, suspended on the point of a projecting rock, at the depth of many feet, was discovered, by the help of a bundle of lighted straw, the mangled body of the unfortunate Callendar. The abyss which yawned below had more effectually received his other victims. Hutchinson, in the mean time, escaped to sea in an open boat, from the port of Old Harbour he succeeded in reaching a vessel under sail, and when the vigilance of Sir George Rodney intercepted his flight, he threw himself into the waves, from whence be was rescued for a still more ignominious end., The enormity of his crimes might be exceeded by his hardened insolence before his j judges ; - but his reckless gaze upon the instrument which was to convey him before the tribunal of his Maker, finds no parallel in the history of crime or punishment: nor can the annals of human depravity equal the fact that, at the foot of the scaffold, be left an hundred pounds in gold to erect a monument, and to inscribe the marble with a record of his death *.

Additional note:

* The autograph I have seen.- "Lewis Hutchinson-hanged in Spanish Town, Jamaica, on the sixteenth morning of March, in the year of his Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three. Aged forty years.

Their sentence, pride, and malice, I defy;

Despise their power, and, like a Roman, die."

From a negro, still alive, in the service of a lady residing near the spot described, which slave witnessed several of his murders, I gathered these circumstances, - a short record of which will also be found in the Annual Register.