Book excerpt: Abigail Bakan argues that there has been a recurrent ideological tradition of resistance to oppression among the black labouring classes in Jamaica. She reveals this pattern through analysis of three periods of mass resistance: the 1831 rebellion led by slaves, the revolt of 1865 in which former slaves demanded greater control over and entitlement to agricultural land, and the 1938 rebellion provoked by the Jamaican working class.