Seeds of Fire: A People’s Chronology
Recalling events that happened on this day in history.
Memories of struggle, resistance and persistence.
Compiled by Ulli Diemer
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October 11, 1865
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The Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica. Although slavery has been abolished in Jamaica, most blacks are desperately poor, landless, and denied the vote. When a black man is arrested and imprisoned for ‘trespassing’ on a long-abandoned plantation, protesters march to the courthouse in Morant Bay. Militia fire on them, killing seven. The protesters retaliate by killing 18 militia and officials and taking control of the town. The Governor of Jamaica, Edward Eyre, then dispatches troops to engage in brutal reprisals. Hundreds of blacks are killed in the following days, many of them people who had had nothing to do with the events, shot down in cold blood as troops maraude through the countryside.
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October 11, 1869
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Louis Riel and other Métis disrupt a survey ordered in the Red River Colony. The survey is widely (and correctly) seen as a precursor to depriving the Métis of their land.
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October 11, 1961
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U.S. President John F. Kennedy orders an Air Force squadron of planes specially equipped for counter-insurgency warfare to South Vietnam, the first step in directly involving the United States Air Force in combat operations.
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October 11, 1962
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Pope John XXIII opens the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). The council initiates a number of modernizing reforms in the Roman Catholic Church.
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