A CHRONOLOGY OF PROTESTANT BEGINNINGS:
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

by Dr. Clifton L. Holland

(last revised on June 9, 2003)

Historical Overview:

Discovery by Christopher Columbus:                                                                                     1498

Spanish Colony established on Trinidad:                                                                               1592

French colonists begin to arrive on Trinidad:                                                                          1783

British take control of Trinidad:                                                                                             1797

The Island of Tobago was ceded to the British:                                                                       1814

The Emancipation of Slavery:                                                                                               1834

Importation of East Indian indentured laborers (Hindus and Muslims):                                      1846

Trinidad and Tobago merged to form a single colony:                                                              1888

The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago established:                                                                   1976

 

Number of North American agencies in 1979:                                                                            23

Number of North American agencies in 1996:                                                                            20        

Indicates European society*

Significant Protestant Beginnings or other important events:

     1592       -    The Roman Catholic Church becomes established during the Spanish and French colonial periods.              

 

     1797       -    *Anglican chaplains arrive with British occupation; the Church of England later established in Trinidad.

 

     1808       -    *The London Missionary Society (Baptist) sends workers to Demerara (later known as British Guyana) and Tobago, and the following year one of them, Thomas Adam, relocated to Trinidad.

    

     1809       -    *Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society of Great Britain arrives.

    

     1815       -    Shouter Baptists arrived with the relocation of freed African slaves from the USA southern states who were rewarded by being settled as free men in company villages in the Savanna Grande area by the British for helping them as combatants during the War of 1812-14; William Hamilton was a Baptist lay preacher in the Fifth Company Baptist Church who began to evangelize and organize other Baptist churches in rural Trinidad; some of these Shouter Baptist congregations were aided by English missionaries from the London Baptist Missionary Society in the 1840s, whereas other congregations blended Yoruba customs to form the Spiritual Baptist tradition in the West Indies.

    

     1836       -    *Missionary Society of Greyfriars Original Secession Church (Scottish Presbyterians) begin work among British colonists, later affiliated with the Church of Scotland (Church of Scotland in Trinidad).

 

     1843       -    *London Baptist Missionary Society sends the Rev. George Cowen to begin work in Spanish Town in 1843, and in 1854 St. John’s Baptist Church was founded in that city; he gave assistance to some of the independent Baptist congregations established among Afro-Americans in the company villages in the south of the island; he worked alongside “Brother Will” Hamilton who was one of the outstanding preachers in the 5th Company area from 1816 to 1860.

    

     1865       -    Canadian Presbyterian missionary work among the East Indian population; later served by the United Church of Canada; the affiliated churches became entirely independent and self-supporting in 1977 as the Presbyterian Church in Trinidad and Tobago.

    

     1893       -    Seventh-day Adventist, General Conference

 

     1920       -    Pentecostal Assemblies, founded by Canadian missionaries

     1921       -    Fundamental Baptist Mission of Trinidad

     1926       -    Church of the Nazarene

     1953       -    World Team (formerly, West Indies Mission), affiliated with the Evangelical Church in the West Indies.

     1954       -    Church of God of Prophecy

     1954       -    Open Bible Standard Churches

     1956       -    Church of God World Missions (Cleveland, TN)

     1962       -    Southern Baptist Convention, Foreign Mission Board (now, International Mission Board)

     1964       -    TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission)

     1971       -    Virginia Mennonite Board of Missions

     1974       -    Baptist International Missions

     1977       -    Campus Crusade for Christ

     1980       -    United Pentecostal Church International

     1982       -    His Word To The Nations

     1986       -    STEM Ministries

     1990       -    Fundamental Baptist Mission

     1990       -    The Elijah Centre and World Breakthrough Network (WBN)

     1993       -    International Pentecostal Holiness Church

     1996       -    Habitat for Humanity

 

Date of Origin Unknown:

 

                        Anglican Church, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts

                        Baptist Missionary Society

                        Baptist Missions to Forgotten

                        Missions International (a Caribbean mission agency)

                        Moravian Church

                        Pentecostal Church of God

 

 

NOTES:

(1)       Dates listed indicate the earliest recorded ministry or in case of discrepancies, the date most frequently indicated.

 

(2)       North American Agencies include U.S. and Canadian.

SOURCES:

(1) Daryl L. Platt, "Who Represents the Evangelical Churches in Latin America? A Study of the Evangelical Fellowship Organizations." Pasadena, CA: an unpublished Doctor of Missiology Dissertation, School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary, June 1991. Used by permission of the author.

(2) PROLADES (Latin American Socio-religious Studies Program), international headquarters in San José, Costa Rica: www.prolades.com, prolades@racsa.co.cr

            (3) John A. Siewert and Edna G. Valdez, editors: Mission Handbook of U.S. and Canadian Christian Ministries Overseas (MARC 1997).

(4) Jean-Jacques Bauswein and Lukas Vischer, The Reformed Family Worldwide (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999).

(5) Clifton L. Holland, editor, World Christianity:  Central America and the Caribbean (MARC-World Vision International, 1981)