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 but it can be regarded the epicenter of the Baptist religion in Trinidad and Tobago. This church was established in 1816 and the importance of that day 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 in the course of the War of 1812 in between the British and the People in america have been settled in Trinidad in what came to be acknowledged as the Organization Villages. According to A.B. Huggins in his e-book “the Saga of the Organizations” the term “Merikens” arose because these individuals could not appropriately pronounce the letter A in American. John McNish Weiss in his paper “The Corps of Colonial Marines” claims that these “Merikin” troopers were slaves in the United states who were promised their flexibility if they fought for the British. Recruited by the British initial in Maryland and Virginia and later in Georgia, they have been a battling device a lot praised for valor and self-discipline.
When the British Army firms still left for residence in England in April 1815, the 6 Black companies turned the 3rd Battalion Colonial Marines, garrisoned in Bermuda on Eire Island. They did garrison obligation and labored as artisans and laborers in the constructing of the new Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda. When transfer to the West India Regiments was proposed the men rejected the concept. Their persistent intransigence last but not least led the British govt to offer to location them in Trinidad as impartial farmers. On accepting the offer they remaining Bermuda on 15 July 1816.The 1st group of 71 settled in Dunmore Hill and Mount Elvin while the 2nd group of seventy two settled in Indian Stroll.
These had been religious people who followed the Baptist religion practiced in the southern United States. Even though there had been baptist church in Raleigh between them there were 5 males who ended up explained as Anabaptist preachers who held Sunday ceremonies. One of these males was recognized as Brother Will Hamilton. In 1808 the London Missionary Modern society (Baptist) sent employees to Guyana and Tobago and in 1809 one of them, Thomas Adam, relocated to Trinidad. He and later on Reverend George Cowen although working on the institution of St John’s Baptist Church in Port of Spain Trinidad also gave guidance to these African-American ex-slaves who were practising a version of the Baptist religion. In time, the similarities of the religion led to the adoption of the missionaries’ version of the Baptist faith that arrived to be called in Trinidad, London Baptist.
More than time nonetheless, in accordance to Ashram Stapleton in his guide “The Birth and Progress of the Baptist Church in Trinidad and Tobago”, there created a schism as some people in the church wished particular African procedures provided and the London Missionary Modern society frowned on people techniques. Eventually these folks left the church and were very first called the “Disobedient Baptists” and lastly the Religious or Shouter Baptist. Other variances in the London Baptists then led to more variations of the Baptist religion with the advancement of the Independent Baptists and the Elementary Baptists.