text: This date marked the start of Jamaicans formerly in the apprenticeship system being allowed to choose their employer and profession; though they also gained the right to vote, most Jamaicans could not afford to pay the poll tax required to participate in Jamaica's political system. The poll tax was introduced by the colonial government to disfranchise the majority of emancipated Jamaicans, being fearful of causing an anti-colonial uprising (such as the Haitian Revolution) if they granted too much political power.
  Tensions in the 1860s
  During the election of 1864, fewer than 2,000 black Jamaican men were eligible to vote (no women could vote at the time) out of a total population of more than 436,000, in which blacks outnumbered whites by a ratio of 32:1. Prior to the rebellion, conditions in Jamaica had been worsening for poor blacks. In 1864 there were several floods that ruined many crops, while 1865 marked the end of a decade in which the island had been overwhelmed by plagues of cholera and smallpox. A two-year drought preceding 1865 made economic conditions worse for much of the population of survivors of slavery and their descendants. Several bankruptcies were declared in the sugar industry, causing a loss of jobs and widening the economic void.
  Tensions between white planters and black Jamaicans increased, and rumours began circulating among the freedmen that white planters intended to restore slavery. Gordon criticized Eyre's draconian punishments such as flogging and the treadmill for crimes such as stealing food. He warned that "If we are to be governed by such a Governor much longer, the people will have to fly to arms and become self-governing."