Hamel, The Obeah Man, published anonymously in London in March 1827 but now attributed to Cynric R. Williams, is arguably the most important nineteenth-century English novel of the Caribbean. The novel is set against the backdrop of early-nineteenth-centu

Hamel, The Obeah Man, published anonymously in London in March 1827 but now attributed to Cynric R. Williams, is arguably the most important nineteenth-century English novel of the Caribbean. The novel is set against the backdrop of early-nineteenth-century Jamaica, and tells the story of a slave rebellion planned i n the ruins of a plantation. Though the novel is sympathetic to white slaveholders and hostile to anti-slavery missionaries, it presents a complex picture of the culture and resistance of the island's black majority. Hamel, the spiritual leader of the rebels, becomes more and more central to the story, and is a surprising and ultimately ambiguous figure. Appendices include contemporary reviews, other authors' and travellers' descriptions of Jamaica, and historical documents related to slave insurrections and the debate over slavery.