Mount Elvin Baptist Church sits quietly on a small knoll off Hindustan Road on the outskirts of New Grant in southern Trinidad. It is an unpretentious church and yet it can be considered the epicenter of the Baptist religion in Trinidad and Tobago. This church was established in 1816 and the significance of that date has to do with the settlement of the “Merikens” in Trinidad in that 12 months.

In 1816 demobilized Africans who experienced 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 Organization Villages. According to A.B. Huggins in his ebook “the Saga of the Businesses” the expression “Merikens” arose because these people could not appropriately pronounce the letter A in American. John McNish Weiss in his paper “The Corps of Colonial Marines” says that these “Merikin” soldiers had been slaves in the United states who had been promised their flexibility if they fought for the British. Recruited by the British 1st in Maryland and Virginia and afterwards in Georgia, they ended up a combating device considerably praised for valor and self-discipline.

When the British Military organizations remaining for residence in England in April 1815, the 6 Black firms became the 3rd 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 men rejected the thought. Their persistent intransigence lastly led the British government to offer you to spot them in Trinidad as unbiased farmers. On accepting the supply they left Bermuda on fifteen July 1816.The very first team of seventy one settled in Dunmore Hill and Mount Elvin whilst the 2nd team of 72 settled in Indian Stroll.

These ended up spiritual people who adopted the Baptist religion practiced in the southern United States. Even though there ended up no clergymen among them there were five gentlemen who ended up described as Anabaptist preachers who held Sunday ceremonies. churches in Raleigh of these guys was recognized as Brother Will Hamilton. In 1808 the London Missionary Culture (Baptist) despatched employees to Guyana and Tobago and in 1809 one of them, Thomas Adam, relocated to Trinidad. He and later on Reverend George Cowen even though operating on the institution of St John’s Baptist Church in Port of Spain Trinidad also gave help to these African-American ex-slaves who ended up practicing a edition of the Baptist religion. In time, the similarities of the faith led to the adoption of the missionaries’ variation of the Baptist faith that came to be called in Trinidad, London Baptist.

Over time nonetheless, in accordance to Ashram Stapleton in his guide “The Birth and Expansion of the Baptist Church in Trinidad and Tobago”, there developed a schism as some persons in the church wished specified African methods integrated and the London Missionary Culture frowned on people techniques. Sooner or later these people remaining the church and ended up first referred to as the “Disobedient Baptists” and finally the Non secular or Shouter Baptist. Other differences in the London Baptists then led to more versions of the Baptist faith with the growth of the Unbiased Baptists and the Fundamental Baptists.