Levites in Charge of the Ark of Culture: The Morant Bay Rebellion and Racial Justice among Eminent Victorians

Jude V. Nixon

doi:10.12957/matraga.2026.97818

Autores

Jude V. Nixon Salem State University https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8916-0706

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12957/matraga.2026.97818

Palavras-chave:

Justiça racial, Carlyle, Gordon, Eyre, Morant Bay

Resumo

LEVITAS ENCARREGADOS DA ARCA DA CULTURA: A REBELIÃO DE MORANT BAY E A JUSTIÇA RACIAL ENTRE VITORIANOS EMINENTES

Em 11 de outubro de 1865, trabalhadores negros na Jamaica se rebelaram e atacaram o tribunal, símbolo da opressão branca. O líder inspirador foi George William Gordon, um pastor batista, mestiço, ex-magistrado e membro da Assembleia Legislativa, que tinha um histórico de trocas acaloradas com o governador colonial Edward John Eyre. Seus desentendimentos envolviam salários, tributação, pobreza, insegurança alimentar e violações de direitos civis. Gordon foi acusado de instigar a rebelião, julgado por uma corte marcial e depois enforcado. Os vitorianos rapidamente tomaram partido na controvérsia: alguns, principalmente da comunidade literária, apoiaram Eyre, enquanto outros, em grande parte da comunidade científica, queriam que Eyre fosse processado. Eyre acabou sendo destituído do cargo, mas não processado. Este ensaio argumenta que a justiça racial emergiu como elemento central da controvérsia, um caso específico que colocou em questão o papel das humanidades na cultura — o que um observador, defendendo seu valor, chamou de “levitas encarregados da arca da cultura”. Aqueles fora do campo das humanidades fizeram campanha vigorosa pela justiça racial.

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Biografia do Autor

Jude V. Nixon, Salem State University

Professor of English na Salem State University. Seus interesses de pesquisa incluem Literatura Vitoriana e Literatura Caribenha de língua inglesa. Publicou amplamente sobre os vitorianos, com destaque para Hopkins, Newman, Carlyle, Dickens e Eliot. Suas publicações recentes in-cluem The Sermons and Spiritual Writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Vol. 5. The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins. 8 vols. (Oxford, 2018), Becoming Home: Diaspora and the Anglopho-ne Transnational (2021), e “‘[T]he perfect love which cherishes me’: Lewes, Casaubon, and the Making of Middlemarch”, em George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies (2023). Atua em diversos editorial boards, incluindo Victorian Poetry, The Hopkins Quarterly e Dickens Studies Annual.

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