Baptists have been part of Jamaican life since the 1780s, when George Liele, a formerly enslaved preacher from Georgia, began gathering a congregation in Kingston. Black preachers spread the faith across the island before any British missionary arrived, and from 1814 the Baptist Missionary Society of London built on their work. Baptist chapels became centres of the struggle against slavery: Sam Sharpe, who led the Christmas Rebellion of 1831–32, and Paul Bogle, who led the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865, were both Baptist deacons, and after emancipation Baptist missionaries bought land on which thousands of freed people built free villages. In the 2011 census 180,640 Jamaicans, 6.73% of the population, described themselves as Baptist, making it the largest of the historic churches. The main body, the Jamaica Baptist Union, has about 340 churches and 40,000 members.
Last updated: 12 October 2026. This is a living reference: Jamaica Homes updates it when events warrant and reviews it every October. Part of our guide to Christianity in Jamaica. Figures and statistics are on Jamaica Religion Stats.
| Baptists in Jamaica | |
|---|---|
| Arrived | 1782–83, with George Liele, a Black Loyalist preacher from Savannah, Georgia; preaching in Kingston by 1784 |
| Pioneers | George Liele, Moses Baker, George Gibb, Thomas Swigle (Jamaican and African American preachers); John Rowe, first Baptist Missionary Society missionary (1814) |
| Missionaries | William Knibb, Thomas Burchell, James Mursell Phillippo, John Clark and others |
| Baptists (2011 census) | 180,640, 6.73% of the population (down 4.3% on 2001) |
| Main body | Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU), formed 1849 |
| JBU churches | about 340 (337 on the union’s website; 340 in its 2023 count) |
| JBU members | 40,132 (union count, 2023); about 150,000 adherents (JBU, 2025) |
| JBU ministers | 121 (union website) |
| Headquarters | Washington Boulevard, Kingston 20 |
| Governing body | General Assembly, held each February; officers and an executive between assemblies |
| President (as of 2026) | Rev. Davewin C. Thomas, pastor of the Burchell Circuit, installed February 2026 |
| General Secretary (as of 2026) | Rev. Merlyn Hyde Riley (since 2023) |
| Mission agency | Jamaica Baptist Union Mission Agency (JBUMA); historic Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society (1842) |
| Theological training | Calabar Theological College (1843), part of the United Theological College of the West Indies since 1966 |
| Affiliations | Baptist World Alliance, World Council of Churches (since 1995), Caribbean Conference of Churches, Jamaica Council of Churches |
| National Heroes | Sam Sharpe, Paul Bogle and George William Gordon |
| Website | jbu.church |
Black preachers: Liele, Baker and Gibb, 1782–1814
Baptists began in Jamaica not with a missionary society but with a Black American. George Liele, born in Virginia about 1750 and enslaved in Georgia, was converted in 1773 and licensed to preach in 1775, becoming one of the first Black Baptist ministers in North America. When the British evacuated Savannah at the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1782, Liele left with them rather than risk re-enslavement. He travelled to Kingston with his wife Hannah and their four children, indentured to a British colonel, Moses Kirkland, who had lent him the money for their passage. Sources differ on the dates: the National Library of Jamaica says he arrived in 1782, The Gleaner says January 1783, and the Baptist tradition, followed on our hub page, dates the start of Jamaican Baptist work to 1783.
Once he had paid off his debt, Liele earned his living as a carter with a wagon and preached without pay, at first in private houses and at the Kingston racecourse. By 1784 he had formed a church with four brethren who had come with him from America. Around 1789–91 the congregation bought about three acres in east Kingston, at what is now Elletson Road and Victoria Avenue, and built the Windward Road Chapel, the first Baptist church in Jamaica, completed in the early 1790s. The Baptist Union of Great Britain says that by 1791 Liele had baptised 400 people and had 450 members, almost all of them enslaved. To reassure the authorities he drew up a church covenant in 1792 that taught obedience to the law, and magistrates reviewed it before enslaved people were allowed to join.
Liele’s success worried the planters, especially after the revolution in Saint-Domingue (Haiti). In 1794 he was charged with uttering “dangerous and seditious words”. He was acquitted, but he later spent about three years in prison for debts incurred in building the chapel. While he was in jail his co-workers kept the work going. Moses Baker, a barber of mixed race who came from America around 1783 and was baptised by Liele, moved in February 1788 to land in St James given by the landowner Joseph Winn, and built a church at Crooked Spring, near Adelphi, in 1791; at one point it had more than 500 members. George Gibb and Thomas Swigle planted further congregations. By 1814, according to the National Library of Jamaica, there were Baptist churches in Kingston, St Catherine, St Thomas, St Mary and St James, with perhaps 8,000 members. Liele died in Jamaica in the 1820s (sources give 1826 or 1828) and lies in an unmarked grave in Kingston. East Queen Street Baptist Church grew from his congregation and named its education building, opened in 1966, after him.
The missionaries arrive, 1814–1831
Laws passed between 1802 and 1807 put new obstacles in the preachers’ way, and Baker, Liele and Swigle wrote to Baptists in England asking them to send help. The Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) of London answered. Its first missionary, John Rowe, and his wife were met at Montego Bay on 23 February 1814, the date British and Jamaican Baptists use for the start of their partnership; Rowe opened a school for enslaved children at Falmouth, Trelawny. Others followed: James Mursell Phillippo sailed in 1823 and, after being refused a preaching licence more than once, was allowed to preach in 1825; he founded the church in Spanish Town that is now Phillippo Baptist Church in 1827. Thomas Burchell arrived in 1824 and gathered a church of 12 members in Montego Bay, now Burchell Memorial Church. William Knibb sailed in November 1824 to take the place of his late brother Thomas, taught at the Baptist school in Kingston, moved to Savanna-la-Mar in 1828 and became minister at Falmouth in 1830, where he stayed until his death.
The missionaries relied heavily on Black deacons and leaders, and many of their members were enslaved people who had first heard the gospel from Liele’s and Baker’s followers. Planters distrusted both. Burchell was arrested for treason in 1827 over a published letter and the case was dropped when he refused to apologise. Salter’s Hill Baptist Church in St James, built in 1825 by enslaved people, is one of the chapels of this period that survive.
Sam Sharpe and the Christmas Rebellion, 1831–1832
Samuel Sharpe, born about 1801 near Montego Bay, was an enslaved man who had been allowed to learn to read. He became a deacon of Burchell’s church in Montego Bay and a class leader. By 1830 he was planning a peaceful work stoppage: after the Christmas holidays of 1831, enslaved workers would refuse to return to the fields until they were paid wages, in the belief that freedom had already been granted in Britain and was being withheld. On 27 December 1831 the trash house at Kensington estate in the hills above Montego Bay was set on fire, and the strike became the Christmas Rebellion, or Baptist War. Up to 60,000 of Jamaica’s roughly 300,000 enslaved people took part; more than 100 properties were burned; and 14 white people were killed. Martial law was declared on 31 December and the uprising was crushed by early January 1832. About 200 rebels were killed in the fighting and more than 300 were executed afterwards. Sharpe was hanged in the Montego Bay market place on 23 May 1832, saying, according to the Methodist missionary Henry Bleby, that he would rather die on the gallows than live in slavery.
The planters blamed the missionaries. On 26 January 1832 the Rev. George Bridges, the Anglican rector of St Ann, founded the Colonial Church Union, whose members burned or badly damaged 14 Baptist churches and six Methodist chapels. Knibb was arrested and tried but acquitted. Burchell, returning from England during the revolt, was held aboard ship, then jailed on the evidence of a witness who later admitted he had been paid; he was released on 14 March 1832 and left the island the next day under threat from a mob. Knibb, Phillippo and Burchell went to Britain that year; Knibb and Phillippo spoke at the BMS anniversary in June 1832 and toured public meetings, and Knibb and Burchell gave evidence to the House of Commons. Their testimony helped turn opinion against slavery. Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833; slavery ended on 1 August 1834, followed by an apprenticeship system that was ended early, with full freedom on 1 August 1838, now marked as Emancipation Day. Sharpe was named a National Hero of Jamaica in 1975, and the square where he was hanged was renamed Sam Sharpe Square in 1976.
Free villages
Freedom left most former slaves without land, and many planters refused to sell to them. Baptist missionaries, with money raised in Britain, bought estates and divided them into small lots for their members, laying out villages around a chapel and a school. On 10 July 1835 Phillippo bought 25 acres in the hills of St Catherine for £100 and sold them in quarter-acre lots for £3 each; the settlement, renamed Sligoville in 1840 after the governor Lord Sligo, is often called Jamaica’s first free village. Our Free Villages guide tells the wider story.
| Free village | Parish | Baptist link |
|---|---|---|
| Sligoville | St Catherine | James Phillippo, 1835; often called the first free village |
| Clarksonville | St Ann | Named in 1835 by Rev. John Clark of Brown’s Town after the abolitionist Thomas Clarkson |
| Sturge Town | St Ann | Founded 1839 by John Clark; named after the Quaker Joseph Sturge |
| Granville | Trelawny | Land bought by William Knibb; named after the abolitionist Granville Sharp |
| Kettering | Trelawny | Named after Knibb’s birthplace in Northamptonshire; Kettering Baptist Church founded 1844 |
Sources: Jamaica Information Service; Jamaica Homes glossary; Wikipedia biographies of Knibb, Burchell and Phillippo.
The villages gave thousands of families their first title to land and fixed the pattern of hillside freeholds, district chapels and church schools that still marks much of rural Jamaica. Knibb died of yellow fever at Falmouth on 15 November 1845, aged 42, and about 8,000 people attended his funeral; Burchell died in London on 16 May 1846; Phillippo lived on in Spanish Town until 11 May 1879.
Calabar College and the Jamaica Baptist Union, 1842–1849
In 1842 the Jamaican churches declared their financial independence from the Baptist Missionary Society, an early step for a mission church. They needed their own ministers, and in 1843 the missionaries opened Calabar Theological College in Trelawny to train Jamaicans for the ministry at home and overseas (the BMS gives 1842). It was named after Calabar, the old Kalabari kingdom in present-day Nigeria. In 1849 the churches formed the Jamaica Baptist Union. By then, according to BMS World Mission, there were 25 BMS missionaries on the island and the union had 44 organised churches with 18,000 registered members, and Baptist congregations existed in almost every parish.
Calabar College moved to Studley Park in Kingston in 1904. Its principal and tutor, the Revs Ernest Price and David Davies, founded Calabar High School beside it in September 1912, under the joint sponsorship of the BMS and the JBU, originally for the sons of Baptist ministers; the school moved to Red Hills Road in 1952. In 1966 the college became part of the new United Theological College of the West Indies at Mona, which trains ministers for several Protestant churches, among them the United Church.
The mission to Africa
Many Jamaican Baptists saw evangelising Africa as a duty owed to the land of their ancestors. In 1842, with the help of the BMS, they formed the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society to send Jamaicans to West Africa. In 1843 a party recruited in Jamaica by the BMS missionaries John Clarke and G. K. Prince reached Fernando Po (now Bioko, in Equatorial Guinea). Among them was Joseph Merrick, a Jamaican minister born in 1808, who obtained permission from King William of the Isubu to work on the Cameroon mainland, founded the Jubilee Mission and a school at Bimbia in 1844, translated parts of the New Testament into Isubu and set up a printing press before dying at sea in 1849. Another Jamaican, Joseph Jackson Fuller, carried on the work. The JBU dates its Cameroon mission to 1846. Joseph Merrick Baptist College in Ndu, Cameroon, is named after him. The union still sends missionaries to the Caribbean and Africa through the Jamaica Baptist Union Mission Agency, and in 2016 it counted three congregations in Haiti among its members.
Native Baptists, Revival and Morant Bay, 1840s–1865
Alongside the mission churches there had always been congregations led by Black preachers outside missionary control, known as Native Baptists. Historians long treated them as a mixture of Christianity and Myal, but the Jamaican Baptist scholar Rev. Devon Dick, in The Cross and the Machete, argues that they had a firm biblical basis, took pride in their African ancestry and saw political action for justice as a natural part of their faith. They organised a Jamaica Native Baptist Missionary Society with its own buildings, schools and leaders. The Great Revival of 1860–61, which began among the Moravians of St Elizabeth, swelled the Baptist churches, which baptised or restored more than 6,000 people, and also produced the independent Revival tradition of Zion and Pukumina.
George William Gordon, a mixed-race landowner and member of the House of Assembly, founded a Native Baptist church and helped Paul Bogle become a deacon of the chapel at Stony Gut, St Thomas, in 1864. Amid drought, poverty and grievances over land and justice, Bogle led a march on the Morant Bay court house on 11 October 1865. Militia fired on the crowd, the court house was burned and about 25 people died that day. Governor Edward Eyre’s reprisals killed more than 400 people in the parish; troops destroyed Bogle’s chapel. Gordon was hanged on 23 October and Bogle on 24 October 1865. Both were named National Heroes in 1969. Dick calls the rising the “Native Baptist War”. See our glossary entry on Paul Bogle.
The Native Baptist name lived on. From 1889 Alexander Bedward led the Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church at August Town, St Andrew, holding healing services at the Hope River and attracting perhaps 30,000 followers before his arrest in 1921; many of them later became Garveyites and early Rastafari.
Since 1900
In the twentieth century the Baptist Union settled into the role of a major historic church, running schools, training ministers at Calabar and taking part in ecumenical bodies such as the Jamaica Council of Churches, founded in 1941, and later the World Council of Churches, which it joined in 1995. Its share of the population has fallen as Pentecostal, Church of God and Adventist churches have grown. Relations with British Baptists were renewed when the Baptist Union of Great Britain made a formal apology relating to slavery in 2007, delivered in person by a delegation in 2008, and in 2014 the JBU, the Baptist Union of Great Britain and BMS World Mission marked 200 years since John Rowe’s arrival. A joint Sam Sharpe Project studies Sharpe’s legacy.
Women have moved into leadership: Rev. Karen Kirlew of the St Ann’s Bay Circuit became the union’s first female president in February 2018, and Rev. Merlyn Hyde Riley, ordained in 2001, became General Secretary in 2023. The union began celebrating its 175th anniversary at its 2024 assembly. In July 2025 Rev. Karl Johnson, General Secretary of the JBU for 20 years until 2021 and now pastor of Phillippo Baptist Church, was elected president of the Baptist World Alliance at its congress in Brisbane, the first Caribbean person to hold the office.
Beliefs and worship
Baptists are Protestant Christians. Their name comes from their central practice: they baptise believers who profess faith for themselves, by full immersion, rather than infants. Baptists believe that each local congregation is self-governing under Christ, that Scripture is the final authority for faith and practice, that all believers share in ministry, and that church and state should be separate. Most Baptist churches observe two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which they generally regard as acts of obedience and remembrance rather than as sacraments in the Catholic or Anglican sense.
Jamaican Baptist life has some distinctive features. Most JBU ministers serve a circuit of two or more churches rather than a single congregation, so lay deacons and leaders carry much of the weekly work. The union ordains women. Its history gives it a strong tradition of social witness: the union describes its mission as proclaiming the gospel and engaging in social action, and its leaders speak regularly on poverty, crime, justice and family life. Emancipation and the memory of Sharpe and Bogle are part of Baptist worship; the 2025 General Assembly in Montego Bay held a peace march to Sam Sharpe Square.
Organisation and institutions
The Jamaica Baptist Union is a union of autonomous congregations governed by a constitution and articles of association. Its General Assembly meets each February; the 176th was held in February 2026, with its business meeting at Boulevard Baptist Church in St Andrew. Officers include a president, who normally serves a two-year term after a period as president-elect, two vice-presidents, a General Secretary, who is the chief executive, and a General Treasurer, with an executive of about 30 members. Churches are grouped into circuits, each under a pastor; the Burchell Circuit in St James, for example, includes Burchell, Tower Hill and Spot Valley Baptist churches.
| Office (as of 2026) | Holder |
|---|---|
| President | Rev. Davewin C. Thomas (Burchell Circuit, St James) |
| Vice-presidents | Rev. Karl Henlin (Gregory Park Circuit; president 2006–08) and Mrs Georgia Crossman-Small (Hanover Street Baptist) |
| General Secretary | Rev. Merlyn Hyde Riley |
| General Treasurer | Mr Ewan Millen |
| JBUMA Secretary | Rev. Robert Campbell |
| Immediate past president | Rev. Dwight Fraser |
Source: Jamaica Baptist Union, officers page; The Gleaner, 25 February 2026.
| Institution or department | Notes |
|---|---|
| Calabar Theological College | Founded 1843 in Trelawny; moved to Kingston 1904; part of the United Theological College of the West Indies, Mona, since 1966 |
| Calabar High School | Boys’ school founded 1912 under BMS and JBU sponsorship; Red Hills Road, Kingston, since 1952 |
| Jamaica Baptist Union Mission Agency (JBUMA) | Successor to the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society (1842); missions in the Caribbean and Africa |
| Jamaica Baptist Women’s Federation | Women’s organisation of the union |
| JBU Brotherhood and Youth Department | Men’s and youth ministries |
| Christian Education Department and Media Commission | Training and communications |
| Nutshell Conference Centre and Camp Site | Union retreat and camp centre |
| Local schools and services | Congregations run basic, primary and high schools, clinics, skills-training centres, homework programmes and soup kitchens |
Sources: Jamaica Baptist Union; World Council of Churches; The Gleaner, 2 November 2025. William Knibb Memorial High School in Trelawny, opened in 1961, is named after the missionary.
Other Baptist bodies
Not every Baptist in the census belongs to the JBU, which counts about 40,000 members against 180,640 census Baptists; the gap reflects both adherents who are not formal members and other Baptist groups. The Independent Baptist movement began in 1931–32, when Rev. G. W. Smith and two congregations, Nightingale Grove and Hewitt’s View, left the JBU over concerns about liberal theology. The American agency Baptist Mid-Missions began working with them in rural St Elizabeth in 1939; the Association of Independent Baptist Churches was formed in 1963 and Fairview Baptist Bible College was handed to Jamaican leadership in 1997. There are also independent and American-linked Baptist congregations, and the Native Baptist and Bedwardite traditions described above. Since Hurricane Melissa, Southern Baptist relief agencies from the United States have worked closely with JBU churches.
Notable churches
| Church | Place | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| East Queen Street Baptist Church | Kingston | Grew from George Liele’s congregation; dedicated 22 January 1822; once among the largest Baptist congregations in the world, with 2,937 members |
| Phillippo Baptist Church | Spanish Town, St Catherine | Founded 1827 by James Phillippo; pastored today by Rev. Karl Johnson |
| Burchell Memorial (Burchell Baptist) Church | Montego Bay, St James | Founded 1824 by Thomas Burchell; Sam Sharpe was a deacon; rebuilt in 1834 after the rebellion |
| Salter’s Hill Baptist Church | St James | Built 1825 by enslaved people; lost part of its roof in Hurricane Melissa |
| Kettering Baptist Church | Duncans, Trelawny | Founded 1844 in the free village named after Knibb’s birthplace |
| William Knibb Memorial Baptist Church | Falmouth, Trelawny | Knibb’s church from 1830 and his burial place; present building 1947 |
| Jericho Baptist Church | St Catherine | Founded 1835; cut stone and brick |
| Mount Nebo Baptist Church | St Catherine | Founded 1837; known for the steepest church roof in Jamaica, damaged by Hurricane Melissa |
| Savanna-la-Mar Baptist Church | Westmoreland | Founded 1835; burned on 23 November 1839 and rebuilt in 1840 |
| Calvary Baptist Church | Montego Bay, St James | Host of the 2025 General Assembly; sanctuary roof holed by Melissa |
| Boulevard Baptist Church | St Andrew | Large Kingston congregation, about 1,000 members (2016); assembly venue |
More historic church sites are in our guide to churches and cemetery sites.
Notable Jamaican Baptists
- George Liele (about 1750–1820s): founder of the first Baptist church in Jamaica.
- Moses Baker (died about 1820): pioneer of Baptist work in St James.
- Samuel Sharpe (about 1801–1832): deacon and leader of the 1831–32 rebellion; National Hero (1975).
- Paul Bogle (about 1822–1865): Native Baptist deacon at Stony Gut; leader of the Morant Bay Rebellion; National Hero (1969).
- George William Gordon (died 1865): politician and founder of a Native Baptist church; executed after Morant Bay; National Hero (1969).
- William Knibb (1803–1845): missionary at Falmouth and campaigner against slavery; awarded the Order of Merit posthumously in 1988, the first white person to receive it.
- Thomas Burchell (about 1800–1846) and James Mursell Phillippo (1798–1879): missionaries and founders of free villages.
- Joseph Merrick (1808–1849): Jamaican missionary to Cameroon.
- Rev. Dr Neville Callam: former JBU president and General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, 2007–2017; his death was announced in August 2026.
- Rev. Karl Johnson: JBU General Secretary for 20 years to 2021; president of the Baptist World Alliance from 2025.
- Rev. Dr Devon Dick: JBU president 2016–18, pastor of Boulevard Baptist, columnist and historian of the Native Baptists.
- Rev. Karen Kirlew: first female president of the JBU (2018–20).
Membership and growth
Census figures count everyone who calls themselves Baptist. Between 2001 and 2011 that number fell by 8,130, while the population grew, so the Baptist share dropped from 7.27% to 6.73%. The 2022 census religion tables have not yet been published.
| Census | Baptists | Share of population | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 188,770 | 7.27% | – |
| 2011 | 180,640 | 6.73% | ▼ 4.3% |
Source: STATIN, Population and Housing Census 2011. Shares are of persons answering the religion question. More on Jamaica Religion Stats.
The church’s own figures measure communicant members, who are fewer than census adherents:
| Year | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1849 | 44 organised churches, 18,000 registered members | BMS World Mission |
| 2016 | 337 congregations, including three in Haiti | The Gleaner |
| 2018 | about 40,000 members | Baptist Union of Great Britain |
| 2023 | 340 churches, 40,132 members | JBU count, via Wikipedia |
| 2025 | 340 churches, about 40,000 active members, 150,000 adherents | JBU, via The Gleaner |
| current | 337 churches, 121 ministers, about 40,000 communicant members | JBU website |
Hurricane Melissa and current issues
Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm, struck south-western Jamaica on 28 October 2025. Days later Rev. Merlyn Hyde Riley, General Secretary of the JBU, told The Gleaner that at least one in ten of the union’s church roofs had gone and that many buildings were unusable, with damage running to millions of dollars. Churches and manses in Westmoreland, Hanover and St James were the worst hit, and church-run schools, clinics, homework programmes and soup kitchens were halted. “We’ve never seen damage like this, not even during Hurricane Gilbert,” she said. The union mapped its churches as intact, damaged or badly hit, and adopted the slogan “from ruin to renewal”.
- Destroyed or badly damaged: St Leonard’s Baptist, Westmoreland (wrecked); Providence Baptist, Salter’s Hill Circuit (whole roof lost); Sharon Baptist, Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth (roof partly torn away; several members lost homes and one member drowned).
- Damaged: Cacoon Baptist, Hanover; Mount Nebo Baptist, St Catherine (roof); Calvary Baptist, Montego Bay (hole in the sanctuary roof); Salter’s Hill (part of its roof); Elderslie Baptist, built 1872 (church damaged and preschool roof destroyed).
- Relief: the JBU set up donation accounts and collection points at its Kingston headquarters and three churches. Working through the JBU, Florida Baptist Disaster Relief sent more than 150 volunteers over 15 weeks to March 2026 and rebuilt or restored 24 properties, including 11 churches and four schools; Missouri Baptist teams re-roofed Elderslie and Townhead Baptist churches, and Virginia, Texas and North Carolina Baptist volunteers worked on homes around Montego Bay into 2026.
- Government help: in December 2025 the government allocated J$75 million to help damaged churches with debris removal and clean-up, not reconstruction, administered by the Social Development Commission. One MP objected to public money going to churches.
- Schools: William Knibb Memorial High School in Trelawny, named after the missionary, had eight classrooms unroofed and a preliminary repair estimate of $400 million, and reopened in phases in January 2026, partly in tents.
The 176th General Assembly in February 2026 met in the storm’s shadow; the World Council of Churches sent a message of solidarity, noting that reconstruction after Hurricane Beryl in 2024 was still under way when Melissa struck. The assembly installed Rev. Davewin Thomas, whose own St James circuit lies in the damaged west, as president. Beyond rebuilding, the union faces the long decline in its share of Jamaican worshippers and the loss of an elder statesman, Rev. Dr Neville Callam, whose death was announced in August 2026.
Timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1782–83 | George Liele arrives in Kingston from Savannah |
| 1784 | Liele forms a church in Kingston |
| 1788 | Moses Baker moves to St James |
| 1791–93 | Windward Road Chapel built in east Kingston; Baker’s Crooked Spring church built |
| 1792 | Liele’s church covenant |
| 1794 | Liele charged with sedition; acquitted |
| 1814 | John Rowe of the Baptist Missionary Society lands at Montego Bay (23 February) |
| 1822 | East Queen Street Baptist Church dedicated |
| 1823–25 | Phillippo, Burchell and Knibb arrive |
| 1831–32 | Sam Sharpe’s Christmas Rebellion; Colonial Church Union burns 14 Baptist chapels; Sharpe hanged 23 May 1832 |
| 1833–38 | Abolition Act; slavery ends 1834; full freedom 1 August 1838 |
| 1835 | Phillippo buys the land for Sligoville |
| 1839 | Sturge Town founded |
| 1842 | Churches declare independence from the BMS; Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society formed |
| 1843 | Calabar Theological College opens; Jamaican missionaries reach Fernando Po |
| 1844 | Merrick founds a mission at Bimbia, Cameroon |
| 1845 | William Knibb dies at Falmouth |
| 1849 | Jamaica Baptist Union formed |
| 1860–61 | Great Revival; more than 6,000 baptised or restored |
| 1865 | Morant Bay Rebellion; Bogle and Gordon hanged |
| 1889 | Alexander Bedward leads the Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church |
| 1904 | Calabar College moves to Kingston |
| 1912 | Calabar High School founded |
| 1931–32 | Independent Baptist movement begins |
| 1966 | Calabar joins the United Theological College of the West Indies |
| 1969 | Bogle and Gordon named National Heroes |
| 1975 | Sharpe named a National Hero |
| 1988 | Knibb awarded the Order of Merit |
| 1995 | JBU joins the World Council of Churches |
| 2007–08 | Baptist Union of Great Britain apology for slavery |
| 2014 | Bicentenary of the JBU–British Baptist partnership |
| 2018 | Karen Kirlew becomes first female JBU president |
| 2025 | Karl Johnson elected Baptist World Alliance president; Hurricane Melissa unroofs about one in ten JBU churches |
| 2026 | 176th General Assembly; Davewin Thomas installed as president |
Updates to this page
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| 12 October 2026 | Page created. |
Sources: Statistical Institute of Jamaica, Population and Housing Census 2011; Jamaica Baptist Union, About us, Officers and General Assembly pages (2025–2026); The Gleaner: “Faith shaken, not broken” (2 November 2025), “Jamaica Baptist Union elects Thomas new president” (25 February 2026), “Rev Thomas lauded for 20 years of service” (29 September 2025), “Holness: $75m for churches is for clean-up, not reconstruction” (6 January 2026), William Knibb High School reopening (2 January 2026), Paul H. Williams on Black Americans and the Baptist church (19 October 2025), the Moses Baker story (17 March 2024), the detention of Thomas Burchell (27 August 2023), churches and missionaries under attack (6 August 2023) and the Colonial Church Union (20 October 2024), Anthony Gambrill on George Liele (1 May 2016), Devon Dick installed as president (6 March 2016), review of Devon Dick’s The Cross and the Machete (2 May 2010), William Knibb High at 55 (16 January 2016); Jamaica Observer, Karl Johnson elected Baptist World Alliance president (10 July 2025); Christianity Today, Jamaican Baptists after Hurricane Melissa (6 November 2025); Baptist Press and Florida Baptist Convention on hurricane relief (March 2026); The Baptist Paper (2 March 2026); World Council of Churches, Jamaica Baptist Union profile and message to the 176th Assembly (13 February 2026); Baptist World Alliance, Neville Callam obituary (15 August 2026); BMS World Mission, Jamaica history; Baptist Union of Great Britain, Jamaica Baptist Union, bicentenary and first female president pages; National Library of Jamaica, George Lisle and William Knibb; Jamaica Information Service, Sligoville (6 August 2018); African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica, Sam Sharpe; Baptist Mid-Missions, Jamaica; Association of Independent Baptist Churches of Jamaica, origins; Falmouth Project (University of Virginia), William Knibb Baptist Church; Wikipedia, Jamaica Baptist Union, George Liele, Baptist War, Samuel Sharpe, Paul Bogle, George William Gordon, William Knibb, Thomas Burchell, James Phillippo, Joseph Merrick, Calabar High School and Alexander Bedward; Jamaica Homes glossary and Christianity in Jamaica.