This paper considers scholarship on political culture in Jamaica in 1865, the year of the Morant Bay rebellion. It situates the historiography of political culture in relation to three trends: first, an older historiography that envisaged the rebellion as indicative of nationalist consciousness; second, a more recent focus on the local politics of protest in the period 1838–1900; and third, another recent approach of explaining political culture through the dynamic relationship between metropole and colony. The paper then goes on to suggest that the latter two approaches are congenial to analysing the Underhill Meetings, a set of key political discussions prior to the rebellion which nevertheless have been underutilized in the historiography. The paper concludes by considering the possible linkages between the Underhill Meetings and the reform initiatives of the post-rebellion colonial state. Overall, it argues for the possibility of island-wide political consciousness without the need for ethno-nationalism or “imagined communities”

中文翻译：

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反殖民民族主义之前的牙买加政治文化

本文考虑了1865年莫兰特湾叛乱之年的牙买加政治文化奖学金。它把政治文化的史学与三个趋势联系起来：第一，较早的史学认为叛乱是民族主义意识的象征；第二，最近对1838年至1900年期间的地方抗议政治的关注；第三，另一种通过大都市与殖民地之间动态关系来解释政治文化的方法。然后，论文继续提出，后两种方法有助于分析Underhill会议，这是叛乱之前的一系列重要政治讨论，但在史学中并未得到充分利用。最后，本文考虑了“山下会议”与叛乱后殖民国家的改革倡议之间的可能联系。总体而言，它主张在不需要民族民族主义或“想象中的社区”的情况下实现全岛范围的政治意识的可能性。