Report on Obeah in Grenada and St. Christopher, 1788

This testimony comes from a report to Parliament by the Board of Trade. The report contains much useful information about the condition of enslaved people living in the British Caribbean colonies. In this particular section on Grenada and St. Christopher, Charles Spooner reported on the presence of Obeah in those colonies. It offers many useful insights into how colonists perceived the practice of Obeah. Furthermore, Obeah is described as witchcraft rather than as a formal religion.

Obeah among the Negroes must be considered in the same Light as Witchcraft, Secondsight, and other pretended supernatural Gifts an Communications among White Men, with this Difference only, that in proportion as the Understandings of the Negroes are less cultivated and informed, and consequently weaker than those of White Men, the Impressions made on their Minds by Obeah are much stronger, ore lasting, and attended with more extraordinary Effects.

Whoever is conversant in the Accounts given of Guinea by different Writers, and the Manners and Religion of the native Negroes in Africa, must know that they are superstitious to a very great Degree. They suppose there is one God for White, and another for Black Men; that the first is a Being of a more beneficent Nature than the last, who delights in doing Mischief, and is the Author of most of the Calamities they experience in Life.

The Obeah-men, if they did not originally themselves give rise to these Notions, certainly avail themselves of them to delude these weak People into a Belief that this malevolent Being communicates his Intention to them, instructs them what is to be done to avert any Injury that may be inflicted on the Persons or Property of their Countrymen, and which if they neglect to perform, or treat with Contempt, they are told will draw on them his Vengeance. In consequence of which, their Lands and Crops, their Health, and even their Lives, will fall a sacrifice to his Resentment. The Impressions made by these Doctrines on the Credulity of theses People is so great, that they obey the Mandates of the Obeah-men implicitly, perform every superstitious Rite and Ceremony they enjoin, consult them on all Occasions, are governed by their Directions in the most indifferent Actions of their Lives; and in return for the Benefits they impart, they take care not to go unrewarded. It does indeed sometimes happen, either from a Spirit of Vengeance, Ambition, Opposition, or private Pique among themselves, that some of these Obeah-men are accused of having done some extraordinary Piece of Mischief, or occasioned, as it is supposed, the Death of some great or popular Man or Woman, and in consequence of which they are punished by being sold for Slaves.

When they arrive in the West Indies, they take care to make it known that they are Obeah-men, and in proportion to their Craft an Skill their Fame increases, and with it the Credulity of the other Negroes, over whom their Influence is so great, that it is said they have been the Authors and Instigators of most of the Rebellions in Jamaica.

There are many in St. Christopher’s, and I presume in Grenada, and in every other Island into which Negroes are imported from Africa; for Obeah has its Origin in Africa, and is practised entirely by Natives from thence; the Creole Negroes seldom, if ever, laying any Pretension to it. I never saw or heard any Mischief occasioned by it in our Islands, though the imported Negroes have great Faith in it, and practise its Charms for the Protection of their Persons and Provision Grounds, Hogs, Poultry, &c. and often imagine they are obeahed or bewitched; and if they die under that Persuasion (of which I have never known any Instances), I should rather impute their Deaths to the Effects of Poison, in which the Obeah-men are very intelligent, I mean such as are prepared from Plants and Juices, which they prepare with so much Skill as to give sudden or lingering Death, as their Pleasure. From their Skill in Simples, and the Virtues of Plants, they sometimes operate extraordinary Cures in Diseases which have baffled the Skill of regular Practitioners, and more especially in foul Sores and Ulcers. I have myself made use of their Skill for the last with great Success. There are no Laws in St. Christopher’s or Grenada, nor do I believe in any of the Leeward or Ceded Islands, which take cognizance of Obeah, or its Professors.