The Spiritual Baptist faith is a religion created by persons of African ancestry in the plantations they came to in the former British West Indies countries predominantly in the islands of a Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tobago and the Virgin Islands. It is syncretic Afro-Caribbean religion that combines elements of the many varied traditional African religions brought by the enslaved populations combined with Christianity. Spiritual Baptists consider themselves to be Christians.
The Baptist faith has a different beginning in the nation of Trinidad, as unlike the spiritual baptist tradition in the other countries where the religion developed in the plantations where the enslaved were sent, the religion in Trinidad was brought into the country by the Merikins, former American slaves who were recruited by the British to fight, as the Corps of Colonial Marines, against the Americans during the War of 1812. After the end of the war, these ex-slaves were settled in Trinidad, to the east of the Mission of Savannah Grande (now known as Princes Town) in six villages, since then called the Company Villages.[1][2]
These American settlers brought with them the Baptist faith of the Second Great Awakening combined with, in the case of those from Georgia, the Gullah culture. With the coming of missionaries of the Baptist Missionary Society from Great Britain, the Baptist faith in the Company Villages was much affected, but despite the ensuing schism between the so-called London Baptists and the rest, the Baptist congregations of the Company Villages, even including those with Gullah origins, retained so little visible African influence in their practice that John Hackshaw was able to give a different view of the Baptists in the north of the country:
"While those that settled in the 'Company Villages' were exposed to the Baptist Missionary Society's influence, those that settled in the North practiced their beliefs as brought from America with the inclusion of African religious practice and beliefs joined by those they met here which blossomed into the group now known as 'Spiritual Baptists'."[2]
The faith expanded to Barbados in 1957 as the Sons of God Apostolic Spiritual Baptists movement.[3] It now ranks as one of two indigenous religions in the country, the other being the Rastafari religion.[4] Archbishop Granville Williams, who was born in Barbados, lived for 16 years in Trinidad and Tobago, where he witnessed the local Spiritual Baptists. Becoming enthusiastic about the Trinidadian movement, he asserted that he had seen a vision and heard the voice of God. Upon returning to Barbados he held the first open-air meeting in Oistins, Christ Church. Due to a well received response in Barbados, he quickly established the Jerusalem Apostolic Spiritual Baptist Church in Ealing Grove. This church was quickly followed by Zion at Richmond Gap. As of 1999 the following in Barbados had reached around 1,900 and the Jerusalem church had been rebuilt to seat 3,000.
^Weiss, John McNish (2002). The Merikens: Free Black American Settlers in Trinidad, 1815–16.
^ abHackshaw, John M. n.d. (c. 1991). The Baptist Denomination: A Concise History Commemorating One Hundred and Seventy-Five Years (1816–1991) of the Establishment of the ‘Company Villages’ and the BAPTIST FAITH in Trinidad and Tobago. Amphy and Bashana Jackson Memorial Society.
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