THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
a ESTES
conditions rapidly became worse. Still, some efforts were made to improve the condition of the natives, and in 1556 the Jesuits established a
3. The mission at Havana, which was contin- Spanish ued for six years, though with indiffer- Period. ent success; and at last they, too, were
driven out by the determined opposition of the planters. During these and ensuing years the history of the West Indies is a dark record of slavery, piracy, and cruelty. The Church and the State were one, and the former had to bear the blame for both. No faith but Roman Catholicism was allowed, and the inquisition was introduced to extirpate heresy. The native population rapidly disappeared, and Africans, Chinese, and Hindus were either captured or lured into slavery to take their place. Nor was the pall lifted with the coming of the other Christian nations. England made penal colonies of her islands, and in the early days of her occupation “‘ Barbadoed ” became a significant term in London, for men and women, as well as boys and girls, were kidnaped and shipped to the islands; and all, Spanish, French, Dutch, and English, vied with each other in lust of land, slaves, and gold.
The English conquest of 1661 was followed by the entrance of the Church of England in 1662, but in its early history in the West Indies it did no missionary work, the clergymen devoting themselves wholly to the English residents in the islands. In 1703 the
Society for the Propagation of the
4. Non- Gospel began to render aid with books Roman and money, but the first organized Missions. Protestant missionary effort in the
islands was that of the Unity of the Brethren, or Moravians, in 1732. The Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society of England followed in 1786; the Baptist Missionary Society of England and the Church Missionary Society in 1814; the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1818; the Scottish Missionary Society in 1824; the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the London Missionary Society in 1835; the American Missionary Association in 1847; the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1865; and the Southern Baptist Convention in 1886; while during all these years the Roman Catholic orders, including the Dominicans and Jesuits, have been more or less actively working.
The first Moravian missionaries to the West Indies were two artizans, Leonard Dober, a potter, and David Nitschmann (q.v.), a carpenter, who, while with Zinzendorf at Herrnhut, had met a negro slave, named Anthony, from St. Thomas, and had been profoundly impressed with the great need of the natives in that island for the Gospel. Amid great difficulties they made their way to the West Indies in 1732, ready themselves to become slaves, if need be, in their enthusiasm to help the oppressed. They were followed the next year by twenty-nine others,
many of whom succumbed to the cli-
5. Mora- mate, while the planters opposed them
vians. on every hand. Nevertheless, a few slaves were baptized, and through one
of them a great awakening spread over the entire island of St. Thomas. The planters became more <p
bitter in their opposition, punishing slaves who attended service and increasingly persecuting the missionaries, till, when Zinzendorf visited the island in 1739, he found several of them in prison, under a charge of being dangerous agitators. He secured their release, but laws were passed forbidding work among the slaves, and the banishment of the missionaries was attempted. Yet some few of the planters became friendly, and by their changed attitude greatly helped the work. In 1733 St. Croix was occupied, and subsequently became the principal station of the Moravians in the Danish Islands; the work was pushed as rapidly as possible to other islands, and St. John was occupied in 1741, Jamaica in 1754, Antigua in 1756, Barbadoes in 1767, St. Kitts in 1777, and Tobago in 1787. In the centenary jubilee of 1832, a total of 37,000 persons who had received baptism was reported. The West Indies Mission of the Moravians, with its 40,000 Christians, is becoming an independent Church province. It receives little outside financial support, schools have native teachers, and many of the churches possess native pastors, but the supervision of the work is still in the hands of the European missionaries.
There were in 1911 59 churches, with 16,363 communicants; 51 stations; 39 substations; 50 missionaries; and 854 native helpers.
After the Moravians, the English Wesleyans were the next to enter the field. A Mr. Gilbert, Speaker of the House of Assembly at Antigua, while on a visit in England, heard Wesley preach and was converted. He returned to Antigua in 1760, and at once began work among his slaves, some 200 of whom were converted. After his death the work was continued by two slave women until the arrival of John Baxter, a Christian shipwright, who continued the work alone for eight years, laboring in the dockyards for his support. About 2,000 slaves had become Christians, when, in 1786, Thomas Coke (q.v.), on his way to Nova Scotia with three
missionaries, was driven by storm to
6. English Antigua, where he remained about
Wesleyans. six weeks, visiting several islands and
locating missionaries in the new sta-
tions. The planters opposed the Wesleyans as bitterly as they did the Moravians, and in 1792 a law was passed prohibiting all but rectors of parishes to preach without a license, which no one who had not resided for twelve months on the island could receive; for the first infrmgement of this law, the punishment was fine or imprisonment; for the second, corporal punishment and banishment; if banished, the penalty for return was death. This law was in force but a short time when it was abrogated by the king, as contrary to the British Constitution, and in 1794 the missionaries again resumed work, the negroes responding joyously. By 1813 over 11,000 Christians were found in the Wesleyan missions alone. In 1820 the entire West Indies field was divided into four districts: Antigua, St. Vincent, Jamaica, and the Bahamas, and the work everywhere progressed rapidly, though not without opposition. The influx of immigrants had an unfavorable effect, those from Africa especially tending to demoralize the people by their heathen proclivities,