In the autumn of 1834 Mr. Knibb returned to Jamaica, and in the following year the building of a now chapel at Falmouth, and of a new Lancasterian school for children of all denominations at Trelawney, was commenced under his superintendence. The same strong feeling which had led 31r. Knibb to take so determined a part in promoting the abolition of slavery, induced him now to expose the failure of the apprenticeship system established by the Act of 1833, as a means of preventing the evils anticipated from sudden emancipation. He showed that many of the worst features of slavery were continued under the guise of apprenticeship, and induced some planters to anticipate the course of law by immediate emancipation. After the complete emancipation of the slaves or apprentices, on the let of August 1838, Mr. Knibb purchased, by the aid of English friends, a tract of ground for the purpose of furnishing independent residence and occupation for the liberated negroes ; and he erected a normal school at the village of Kettering in Trelawney, for training native and other schoolmistresses for both Jamaica and Africa. In 1842, in consequence of the prosperous state of the mission churches in Jamaica, it was determined by the missionaries and congregations to separate themselves from the Baptist Missionary Society, so far as any dependence upon the society's funds was concerned ; and in the same year Mr. Knibb visited Eugland to promote the establishment of a
theological seminary in connection with the native mission to Africa, which had been commenced about two years before through his exertions. In the early part of 1845 be again visited England, to obtain pecuniary aid for the negroes connected with the Baptist churches in Jamaica, and to expose a new system of taxation which bore upon the liberated negro labourers with extreme severity. Having succeeded in obtaining both sympathy and pecuniary assistance, he returned to Jamaica in July 1845. In the following November he was seized with yellow fever, and died, after an illness of only four days, on the 15th of that month, at the village of Kettering. Though his funeral took place on the following day, such was the respect enter tained for his memory that not loss than 8000 persons are said to have assembled on the occasion.