The complete abolition of slavery throughout the British empire in 1838 carried with it profound implications for the maintenance of order, stability and economic viability in those colonies where social and economic structures had been largely supported by slave labour. The coercive laws, the repressive police actions, and the barbaric punitive measures that had been instituted to demoralise and control the slave population could not, after 1838, legally be used to hold together the fabric of a free society.
But the rulers of the free society still needed measures to control and direct the behaviour of the mass of the people. Freedom from slavery in Jamaica did not mean independence for the people as in neighbouring Haiti. Freedom did not change the basic social class structures nor shift the locus of political control. The ex-slaves may have moved up from the abject deprivation and indignity of a servile status into a situation where they had more control over their personal lives — travelling without a permit, owning property, worshipping as they pleased, and even choosing not to work. But political control remained out of their hands, and with that control went also the power to shape the basic economic structures.