The 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion figures prominently in scholarship on modern Britain, colonial Jamaica, and the British Empire, as a milestone of post-emancipation protest, a turning point in British race-thinking, and a focal point for debates on martial law and British justice. This article presents a new interpretation of the rebellion’s legal and political significance. Focused on processes of formal inquiry, I argue that legal analysis reshaped the political “moral” of the event. For the rebellion’s participants and some British observers, Morant Bay challenged the practice of colonial rule. But beginning with the royal commission of inquiry called to investigate the suppression, formal inquiry displaced the systemic critique that had largely motivated the uprising. Focused increasingly on the nature of martial law and culminating in the criminal prosecution of Jamaica’s colonial governor, legal debate and analysis transformed the scandal’s moral center and turned Morant Bay into a new justification for further and more centralized imperial control. In developing these arguments, the article examines law’s capacity to read, write, and exclude competing narratives of empire. In so doing, it contributes to scholarship on scandal and legitimation, and offers a new interpretation of a seminal nineteenth-century debate on the use of martial law.

1865 年的莫兰特湾叛乱在现代英国、殖民地牙买加和大英帝国的学术研究中占有重要地位，它是解放后抗议活动的里程碑，是英国种族思想的转折点，也是戒严令和英国辩论的焦点正义。本文对叛乱的法律和政治意义提出了新的解释。我专注于正式调查的过程，认为法律分析重塑了事件的政治“道德”。对于叛乱的参与者和一些英国观察家来说，莫兰特湾挑战了殖民统治的做法。但从要求调查镇压的皇家调查委员会开始，正式调查取代了在很大程度上激发起义的系统性批评。越来越多的人关注戒严令的本质，并最终对牙买加殖民总督提起刑事诉讼，法律辩论和分析改变了丑闻的道德中心，并将莫兰特湾变成了进一步和更集中的帝国控制的新理由。在发展这些论点的过程中，本文检验了法律阅读、书写和排除竞争性帝国叙事的能力。通过这样做，它有助于丑闻和合法化的学术研究，并为 19 世纪关于使用戒严令的开创性辩论提供了新的解释。这篇文章考察了法律阅读、书写和排除对帝国的竞争性叙述的能力。通过这样做，它有助于丑闻和合法化的学术研究，并为 19 世纪关于使用戒严令的开创性辩论提供了新的解释。这篇文章考察了法律阅读、书写和排除对帝国的竞争性叙述的能力。通过这样做，它有助于丑闻和合法化的学术研究，并为 19 世纪关于使用戒严令的开创性辩论提供了新的解释。