Samuel Oughton

The Rev. Samuel Oughton (1803 – December 1881), Baptist missionary to Jamaica 1836-1866, and colleague of William Knibb, was an ardent slavery abolitionist who became an outspoken advocate of black labour rights in Jamaica during the gradual abolition of slavery in the late 1830s and thereafter. He was briefly imprisoned in Jamaica during 1840. Originally associated with James Sherman's Independent Congregational Surrey Chapel, and from time to time invited back by Sherman, he was closely associated with the Baptists in Jamaica, who were largely organised along Congregational lines and among the predominantly African-Caribbean population, following their founding by George Lisle, a former slave from America.

Samuel Oughton's work for the Baptist Missionary Society in Jamaica, soon became well known. Arriving in 1836 from the Surrey Chapel in London, his posting was initially to help Thomas Burchell, a relative by marriage. However, by 1839 he was invited by the largely African congregation in Kingston to be their pastor at the prominent East Queen Street chapel.

This was a key time in the emancipation of Jamaican slaves. After "legal abolition" began in Jamaica with the home government's Emancipation Act of 1833, conditions were little better for many Africans in Jamaica for some decades; particularly under the dreaded "indentured apprenticeship" system of forced labour, which was taken to extremes by the Planters, some masters and their overseers compelling the use of treadmills.

The abuses of indentured apprenticeship were finally abolished on 1 August 1838, following a campaign led by Joseph Sturge, with support from the Baptists, the Anti-Slavery Society, and longstanding abolitionists such as William Allen. Even so, emancipation was no paradise; the planters frequently harassed tenants (see Free Villages, and sought to drive down wages when they could. Oughton once famously remarked to his flock in the parish of Hanover:

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