Background
According to his biographer Hélène Lee, Howell was born in an Anglican family.
According to his biographer Hélène Lee, Howell was born in an Anglican family.
Born in May Crawle River, Jamaica, Howell left the country as a youth, traveling amongst other places to New York, and returned in 1932. He began preaching in 1933 about what he considered the symbolic portent for the African diaspora—the crowning of Ras Tafari Makonnen as Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. His preaching asserted that Haile Selassie was the "Messiah returned to earth," and he published a book called The Promise Key.
Over the following years, Howell came into conflict with all the establishment authorities in Jamaica: the planters, the trade unions, established churches, police and colonial authorities, and he was allegedly arrested more than 50 times.
Unlike many Rastas, Howell never wore dreadlocks. Leonard Howell died February 1981 in Kingston, Jamaica.
Though imprisoned for it, Howell published his doctrine with the title The Promise Key under the pen name G.G. Maragh.