churches in Raleigh sits quietly on a minor knoll off Hindustan Road on the outskirts of New Grant in southern Trinidad. It is an unpretentious church and but it can be regarded the epicenter of the Baptist religion in Trinidad and Tobago. This church was set up in 1816 and the significance of that date has to do with the settlement of the “Merikens” in Trinidad in that year.
In 1816 demobilized Africans who experienced served in the British Army for the duration of the War of 1812 among the British and the Us citizens have been settled in Trinidad in what came to be acknowledged as the Business Villages. According to A.B. Huggins in his book “the Saga of the Organizations” the phrase “Merikens” arose since these folks could not properly pronounce the letter A in American. John McNish Weiss in his paper “The Corps of Colonial Marines” states that these “Merikin” soldiers had been slaves in the United states who were promised their independence if they fought for the British. Recruited by the British first in Maryland and Virginia and later on in Ga, they were a fighting unit significantly praised for valor and self-discipline.
When the British Army organizations still left for house in England in April 1815, the six Black organizations grew to become the third Battalion Colonial Marines, garrisoned in Bermuda on Ireland Island. They did garrison duty and worked as artisans and laborers in the developing of the new Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda. When transfer to the West India Regiments was proposed the gentlemen turned down the notion. Their persistent intransigence ultimately led the British authorities to provide to location them in Trinidad as impartial farmers. On accepting the supply they left Bermuda on fifteen July 1816.The very first team of 71 settled in Dunmore Hill and Mount Elvin whilst the second group of 72 settled in Indian Walk.
These have been spiritual individuals who followed the Baptist religion practiced in the southern United States. Even though there were no clergymen among them there had been 5 men who ended up explained as Anabaptist preachers who held Sunday ceremonies. A single of these males was acknowledged as Brother Will Hamilton. In 1808 the London Missionary Society (Baptist) despatched personnel to Guyana and Tobago and in 1809 1 of them, Thomas Adam, relocated to Trinidad. He and afterwards Reverend George Cowen while doing work on the institution of St John’s Baptist Church in Port of Spain Trinidad also gave assistance to these African-American ex-slaves who have been working towards a model of the Baptist religion. In time, the similarities of the faith led to the adoption of the missionaries’ model of the Baptist faith that arrived to be known as in Trinidad, London Baptist.
Above time even so, according to Ashram Stapleton in his book “The Beginning and Development of the Baptist Church in Trinidad and Tobago”, there designed a schism as some persons in the church desired specified African methods included and the London Missionary Society frowned on people procedures. Ultimately these folks still left the church and ended up initial called the “Disobedient Baptists” and lastly the Religious or Shouter Baptist. Other variances inside the London Baptists then led to even more variations of the Baptist faith with the development of the Impartial Baptists and the Essential Baptists.