ABSTRACT
The account of ‘three-fingered Jack’ was first published in 1799 in Benjamin Moseley’s A Treatise on Sugar. Credited with superhuman strength and stealth ostensibly acquired by practising obeah, Jack was tracked down and killed by three bounty-hunters who claimed to be immune to his magical powers because they were protected by ‘white Obi’ or Christianity. Despite Moseley’s laconic dismissal of Jack’s powers as a sorcerer, a number of romantic legends had nonetheless developed around him. Jack’s chivalrous revenge meant hostility towards all white men, but not towards women or children. Recognising the story’s rich romance potential, William Earle Jr fictionalised this episode as Obi; or, The History of Three-Fingered Jack in 1800. Written in the form of epistles sent from Jamaica to England, the romance celebrates Jack’s intrepidity and heroism, justifying his actions and decrying the institution of slavery.
