The exclusive privileges that slavery bestowed on white men in Jamaica were particularly apparent. For most of the period before emancipation, public office was the exclusive domain of white male colonists, and a large proportion of the white population of the island was involved in various aspects of public life. With so few whites on the island, it was necessary for the plantocracy to share power by allowing other colonists to occupy positions of responsibility. Involvement in institutions like parish vestries, the militia, law courts and the local legislature also bolstered ordinary whites’ sense of independence and equality and fostered white solidarity, as they brought white male colonists together to exercise mastery over other groups in society. The owners of sugar plantations controlled these institutions, but the active engagement of many other white men as jurors, militiamen, or voters were features of the relative inclusivity of white political culture. There were certainly hierarchies and tensions within local institutions, which showed that some white men were more privileged than others, but in general, public life brought white men together and emphasized their ascendancy over other groups.

To a large degree, white Jamaican colonists ruled themselves. The Assembly passed laws for the colony, the courts enforced the law, parish vestries were the instruments of local government, and the militia was intended to protect colonists and their property from slave uprisings and foreign invasion. For most of the era of abolition, male colonists ran these local institutions with few outside limitations imposed upon them. This tendency towards self-rule was accompanied by an ethos of colonial autonomy from metropolitan interference that was common across British America and had its roots in the period before the American Revolution, when colonial assemblies had won a large degree of leeway from the imperial government, aided by the laissez-faire attitudes of governors and British ministers. Self-confident colonists defended their claims to political power and autonomy from metropolitan authorities and resented imperial attempts to interfere with local legislative and legal processes, arguing that such attempts infringed their rights and that only they were suitably placed to regulate local affairs.