by armed slave battalions and 207 rebels were killed. The rebellion exploded on December 27, when slaves set fire to Kensington estate, in the hills above Montego Bay. Colonel William Grignon of the militia was an attorney who ran several estates, including one at Salt Spring, where a series of incidents in December were the sparks for the uprising. Grignon led the militia against the rebels at Belvedere estate, but he was forced to retreat, leaving the rebels in command of the rural areas of the parish of St James. On December 31, the colonial authorities instituted martial law. Sir Willoughby Cotton, who commanded the British forces, then summoned the Jamaican Maroons of Accompong Town to help suppress the rebellion in the second week of January. However, when the Accompong Maroons attacked the rebels at Catadupa, they were forced to withdraw because the rebels were "too strong". The Accompong Maroons soon gained the upper hand however, and they defeated the rebels in one skirmish, killing one of Sharpe's deputies, Campbell, in the assault. When the army regulars were besieged by the rebels at Maroon Town, the Accompong Maroons relieved them, killing more rebels, and capturing scores of them, including another of Sharpe's deputies, Dehany. When the Windward Maroons from Charles Town, Jamaica and Moore Town answered the call of Cotton, the rebel cause was lost. These eastern Maroons killed and captured a number of other rebels, including another leader named Gillespie. One of the last leaders of the rebels, Gardner, surrendered when he heard the Charles Town Maroons had joined the fight against them. Suppression and death toll The rebellion was quickly suppressed by the colonial authorities. The reaction of the colonial government and reprisals of the plantocracy were far more brutal than any actions undertaken by the rebels; approximately 500 slaves were killed, with 207 killed outright during the revolt. After the rebellion, an estimated 310 to 340 slaves were killed through "various forms of judicial executions". At times, slaves were executed for quite minor offenses (one recorded execution was for the theft of a pig; another, a cow). An 1853 account by Henry Bleby described how the courts commonly executed three or four persons simultaneously; bodies were piled up until the black people relegated to the workhouse carted the bodies away at night and buried them in mass graves outside town. After the rebellion, property damage was estimated