Three Acres in Kingston, Bought in 1789: The Land Deal That Started Jamaica’s Baptist Church

• George Liele acquired three acres in east Kingston in 1789
• He opened Jamaica’s first Baptist church led by a Black minister in 1791
• Other preachers, including George Gibb, bought land to plant churches
• Liele faced imprisonment for debt and a sedition charge

Jamaica’s Baptist movement began with a plot of land. In a Sunday Gleaner history published on March 3, 2024, Paul H Williams recounted how George Liele, an African-American Baptist preacher, acquired three acres in Kingston in 1789 and built a church on it.

The land sat at the meeting point of Elletson Road and Windward Road/Victoria Avenue in east Kingston. There, Liele opened in 1791 the first Baptist house of worship in Jamaica led by a Black minister. His approach to growth was deliberate. “His strategy was to begin with the ‘free people of colour’ then go to the slaves,” Williams wrote.

The ministry was not without cost. Liele faced imprisonment for debt and a charge of sedition, but by 1793 his work had spread from Spanish Town through the hills into St Thomas-in-the-Vale, St George and St Ann. “Liele’s church was orthodox in doctrine and practices,” the article noted.

Other preachers followed a similar pattern of buying land to plant congregations. George Gibb, who arrived from the United States in 1784, purchased land and established churches. Divisions also produced new congregations: Thomas Wigle, one of Liele’s deacons, set up a separate fellowship, and East Queen Street Baptist Church later grew out of St John’s Chapel, founded on August 28, 1802. British missionary Joshua Tinson founded Hanover Street Baptist Church in 1826.

The story is a reminder that Jamaican church history is also property history. Buying a plot, even a small one, gave early Black-led congregations a permanent home and a measure of independence at a time when enslaved people could own almost nothing.

For today’s congregations, returnees and diaspora supporters, Liele’s three acres show why secure land matters. A church that owns its ground can plan, build and outlast its founders. One that does not can find its future decided by someone else.

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