Daaga

Daaga (c. 1800 – 16 August 1837), also known as Donald Stewart, was an African man who was executed for his role in the St. Joseph Mutiny in the British colony of Trinidad in 1837.

Daaga was born on the Slave Coast of West Africa and may have been Gbe or Yoruba. According to his own account, he was the adopted son of a local king or chief and became a slave raider. In 1836, he was tricked into boarding a Portuguese slave ship bound for Spanish Cuba. After reaching the Caribbean the ship was seized by the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron. The Africans were then offloaded at the colony of Grenada, where Daaga and 72 others were conscripted into the British Army's 1st West India Regiment.

After being moved to Trinidad, Daaga helped plan a mass escape from the regimental barracks, with the intent of finding freedom and possibly returning to Africa. He killed a fellow soldier during the escape and was captured shortly after by the colonial militia, although several others managed to evade capture for several days. Considered a ringleader of the revolt by British colonial authorities, Daaga was convicted of mutiny and murder at a court martial and executed by firing squad along two others. He became a folk hero among Trinidadians and was later a source of inspiration for the Black Power Revolution of the 1970s.