Early in December 1831 rumours of an impending servile war began to spread abroad and agitate the community. The slaves, it was said, had bound themselves by a solemn oath to each other to be slaves no longer. The conspiracy was discovered on Salt Spring estate, near Montego Bay, from the mysterious and threatening language of an angry negro to his overseer, which aroused suspicion, led to investigation, and thereby brought to light the whole scheme. The time was near for its being carried into effect, yet nothing seemingly could be done beforehand to prevent it.

The original scheme was simply not to turn out to work after Christmas, without payment for their labour. The idea of a slave revolt in any form was alarming; and the report was received and propagated by the old colonial party with the customary exaggerations of terror. The white people, it was said, would be murdered, the properties burned, and Jamaica become another St. Domingo. The free coloured class, indeed, especially about Kingston and other distant parts, made light of the story, as merely one of the old Christmas alarms, got up for some disguised purpose. But there were many, both white and coloured, of a moderate middle class, who thought the scheme of passive resistance not incredible, yet believed that, though the slaves meditated no outrage, violence would inevitably ensue. The masters would use it to enforce labour, and the slaves to resist; in which unavoidable struggle property and life would be lost.