Island on Fire: The Revolt That Ended Slavery in the British Empire

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

Impeccably researched and seductively readable Tom Zoellner tells the story of Sam Sharpe’s revolution manque, and the subsequent abolition of slavery in Jamaica, in a way that’s acutely relevant to the racial unrest of our own time.
-Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls’ Rising

A pounding narrative of events that led to the end of slavery in the British colonies Zoellner’s vigorous, fast-paced account brings to life a varied gallery of participants The revolt failed to improve conditions for the enslaved in Jamaica, but it crucially wounded the institution of slavery itself.
-Fergus M. Bordewich, Wall Street Journal

Zoellner makes deft use of primary sources, and illustrates how the atmosphere of energetic political reform and events like Sharpe’s rebellion converged to end slavery in the British Empire at large.
-New Yorker

The last uprising of enslaved people in Jamaica started as a peaceful labor strike a few days shy of Christmas in 1831. It soon turned into a full-blown revolt, leaving hundreds of plantation houses in smoking ruins. The rebels lost their military gamble, but their principled defiance triggered a decisive turn against slavery.

Island on Fire is a dramatic day-by-day account of these transformative events. A skillful storyteller, Tom Zoellner makes extensive use of primary sources to tell the intimate story of the men and women who rose up and briefly tasted liberty. He brings to life the rebellion’s enigmatic leader, Samuel Sharpe, and shows how news of his fiery resistance turned the tide of opinion in London and hastened the end of slavery in the British empire.