Mount Elvin Baptist Church sits quietly on a small knoll off Hindustan Street on the outskirts of New Grant in southern Trinidad. It is an unpretentious church and yet it can be deemed the epicenter of the Baptist religion in Trinidad and Tobago. This church was recognized in 1816 and the significance of that date has to do with the settlement of the “Merikens” in Trinidad in that yr.

In 1816 demobilized Africans who had served in the British Military for the duration of the War of 1812 amongst the British and the Individuals ended up settled in Trinidad in what came to be known as the Company Villages. According to A.B. Huggins in his guide “the Saga of the Businesses” the term “Merikens” arose due to the fact these people could not correctly pronounce the letter A in American. John McNish Weiss in his paper “The Corps of Colonial Marines” suggests that these “Merikin” soldiers have been slaves in the United states of america who had been promised their flexibility if they fought for the British. Recruited by the British very first in Maryland and Virginia and later on in Ga, they have been a combating device a lot praised for valor and discipline.

When the British Military businesses remaining for house in England in April 1815, the 6 Black businesses turned the third Battalion Colonial Marines, garrisoned in Bermuda on Eire Island. They did garrison responsibility and labored as artisans and laborers in the building of the new Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda. When transfer to the West India Regiments was proposed the gentlemen turned down the thought. Their persistent intransigence ultimately led the British govt to offer you to location them in Trinidad as unbiased farmers. On accepting the provide they left Bermuda on 15 July 1816.The very first group of 71 settled in Dunmore Hill and Mount Elvin while the next group of 72 settled in Indian Walk.

These ended up religious people who followed the Baptist faith practiced in the southern United States. Though there had been no clergymen among them there ended up 5 guys who ended up explained as Anabaptist preachers who held Sunday ceremonies. 1 of these gentlemen was acknowledged as Brother Will Hamilton. In 1808 the London Missionary Society (Baptist) sent personnel to Guyana and Tobago and in 1809 a single of them, Thomas Adam, relocated to Trinidad. He and afterwards Reverend George Cowen while working on the institution of St John’s Baptist Church in Port of Spain Trinidad also gave support to these African-American ex-slaves who were practicing a model of the Baptist religion. In time, the similarities of the faith led to the adoption of the missionaries’ model of the Baptist religion that arrived to be called in Trinidad, London Baptist.

Over time nonetheless, in accordance to Ashram Stapleton in his e-book “The Birth and Growth of the Baptist Church in Trinidad and Tobago”, there created a schism as some people in the church desired particular African procedures provided and the London Missionary Culture frowned on people procedures. Eventually baptist church in Raleigh left the church and have been first named the “Disobedient Baptists” and ultimately the Non secular or Shouter Baptist. Other variances inside the London Baptists then led to more variations of the Baptist faith with the advancement of the Independent Baptists and the Essential Baptists.