Enslaving and saving souls

THE TAINOS who inhabited Jamaica before the Europeans arrived in the late 15th century had their own political hierarchies, economic and social systems, and religious beliefs. It was an idyllic life that they led, living in harmony with the elements of nature, which were said to be controlled by particular gods.

They had their own cosmology, and philosophy of where they came from and the afterlife. But, they had absolutely no idea that the way to the afterlife was by their genocide through the brutality of the Europeans starting with the Spaniards.

The Spanish Catholics were the first to attempt to establish Christianity in Jamaica as was mentioned in Part I on Sunday, October 5. But, their reign in Jamaica started to come to an end in 1655 when Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables invaded Jamaica. And, the Church of England (The Anglican Church) was to replace the Catholic Church as the established Church in Jamaica.

By virtue of being a colony of England, the Anglican Church became the established Church in Jamaica. The island was eventually divided into religious enclaves called parishes, with a parish church established in each. Other Anglican churches were constructed all over the island, but in 1870 the Anglican Church was de-established as the official church of Jamaica.

According to Lloyd A. Cooke, in The Story of the Jamaican Missions, the Moravian Church, or ‘Unity of the Brethren’, organised first as a Church in 1415, began in Germany in 1727. It was heavily persecuted, so believers fled to ‘Herrn Hut’ in the Saxony region, where they found refuge on the estate of nobleman, Count Nicholas Von Zinzendorf.

DREADFUL CONDITIONS

At the coronation in Copenhagen of the King of Denmark in 1731, Zenzindorf met an enslaved African named Anton, who told him about the dreadful conditions of the enslaved in the West Indies. Two of the Greenland mission of Hans Egede, too, gave a grim story of slavery in the West Indies. Zinzendorf was greatly disturbed so he spoke about it to the Moravians upon his return to Herrn Hut.

This resulted in the sending of the first Moravians missionaries to the Caribbean, which was initiated by two absentee land-owning brothers in England, William Foster and Joseph Foster-Barham, who were converted by a preacher named John Connick. The brothers wrote Connick about visiting Jamaica to ameliorate the conditions of the enslaved.

Connick himself could not come, so he wrote to the elders of the church in Britain requesting that Zacharias George Caries be sent. The Church Elders Board in England agreed, and the Missionary Board sent Caries, with Thomas Shallcross and Gotlieb Haberecht. The three of them arrive at Black River on December 9, 1754 seeking souls to converts. But, the Moravians themselves were to become holders of enslaved people.

The Wesleyan Methodists, too, were on a ‘rescue’ mission. Wesleyan Methodism started in Bristol, England on April 2, 1739 by John Wesley, who had been an Anglican all his life. However, he was rejected by the Anglican Church because he was a “renewing and transforming influence in the Anglican Church”.

“Action of Wesley to conserve the fruits of his evangelism and to maintain the faith of his followers sowed the seeds of a new denomination. On his death, his followers were forced to take the final steps, which resulted in Wesleyan Methodism flowering into the Methodist Church.”

Dr Thomas Coke, a former Anglican minister regarded the father of Methodist missions, landed at Port Royal on January 19, 1789, on his third visit to the Caribbean. In August the same year, Williams Hammer became the first Methodist missionary to arrive in Jamaica, at a time when opposition to missionaries and persecution were rife.

MAGNET FOR THE MISSIONARIES

A place of worship was set up at Hannah Town by a few people, but it soon proved to be too small. In late 1790 they bought a planter’s house in Parade to establish a chapel and a residence. “Parade Chapel opened in 1792, and is the location of the present Coke Memorial Chapel, the ‘Mother Church’ of Methodism in Jamaica,” Coke writes. Jamaica was like a magnet for the missionaries, pulling “soul-savers” from all over Britain.

The Presbyterians are the established Church of Scotland (Scots Kirk). As early as 1788 a petition was made to the government to establish a Scots Kirk place of worship in Jamaica because a number of people in Kingston were not happy with the Anglican Church. It was denied.

But, on December 20, 1813, the Kingston Common Council approved it, which triggered a massive fund-raising campaign for the construction of a place of worship, which took five years to complete. It was opened for worship on April 4, 1819.

“But, the Scots Kirk at 56 Duke Street was like the other established Church, a Church for the white settlers and business class of Kingston, and was not intended to reach the slaves population with the gospel. Such an effort by Presbyterians was first made in 1800 with the arrival in the island of three men from the Scottish Missionary Society, Reverend James Bethune, and two catechists, William Clarke and Ebenezer Reid,” Cooke explains.

Other denominations were planted in Jamaica, but the most illustrious story is that of the Baptists, those from America, those born and bred on the island, and those who came from Britain to help. The anti-slavery movement is intertwined with this story, likewise the Sam Sharpe/Baptist Rebellion, and how it led to the abolition of slavery. That will be the focus in Part III.

“Others were to follow who were of the importance to the work, but these were the pioneers. Thus was the first group of English Baptists missionaries brought to Jamaica. In the midst of much opposition, suffering, and death, they laboured manfully … ,” Cooke writes.

“The well-rooted tree was to grow into a mighty giant, which would undermine the institution of chattel slavery. Black former slaves, and white missionaries working together, would bring it crashing down less than two decades later.”