The 1840 elections

The 1840 elections for colonial council pitted the Administration Party against the Anti-Administration Party, which was centered in the Methodist Church.

In a letter to Samuel Wilkerson of the ACS on April 7, 1841, Governor Thomas Buchanan complained about questionable attempts to sway voters by Rev. John Seys, the white West Indian head of the Methodist Church: “At Millsburg every voter was employed at unusually high wages on the [Methodist] Saw Mill and sugar plantation — and there every vote was polled for his friends.”

Buchanan’s charge of political strong-arming by Seys was corroborated by other neutral parties, including the Rev. Francis Burns, who eventually assumed control of the Methodist mission.

Footnote: Brown, p. 87-88, 95, n. 21; d’Amico, 1977, pp. 121-122; Shick, 1982, p. 54.