CHRISTIANITY: CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARIBBEAN REGION

One of the distinctive characteristics of Caribbean Christianity is the racial and ethnic diversity of its adherents. A high proportion of the people of the region is either black or African American (mixed African and non-African descent). Although a large proportion of the black population was exposed only superficially to Christian teachings during the period of slavery beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing into the nineteenth, and despite extensive disillusionment with the historical churches in the decades immediately after emancipation, Christianity has continued to spread widely in the region. The long and close relationship between religion and sociopolitical doctrine in the societies from which the dominant class in the colonial period came has persisted in many parts of the Caribbean to the present day.

The Early Years

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been called the missionary centuries in the New World. Priests accompanied the explorers, and Catholic and Protestant missionaries were an important part of pioneer settlements. In 1685 the Code Noir prescribed that all slaves in the French islands were to be instructed and baptized in the Roman Catholic religion. The colonists paid little attention to the code, especially the sections dealing with religious obligations that were opposed to their economic interests. Priests varied greatly during the first half of the eighteenth century; some were zealous about their duties, others attended only to the external aspects of religion. In 1764 the Jesuits in Haiti were accused of stirring up the slaves and were expelled from the colony. With the revolt of the slaves in 1791, the Catholic religion in Haiti almost disappeared.

The first Lutheran congregation was established in Saint Thomas, Danish West Indies, in 1666 and for two and one-half centuries the Lutheran church was the state church. In the late 1750s, a Lutheran mission for the slaves was established in the island. In some parts of the West Indies, in Barbados, for example, the early slaves brought from Africa were not permitted to become Christians. In 1700 the Anglicans organized the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to preach to the heathen, that is, slaves and free men in North America and the West Indies.

Moravian (United Brethren) missionaries arrived in Saint Thomas in December 1732. Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, founder of Moravian missions, opposed the emancipation of the slaves and did not favor teaching them to read and write. In addressing the converts at a mass meeting in 1739, he exhorted them to be obedient to their masters, adding that "your conversion will make you free, not from the control of your masters, but simply from your wicked habits and thoughts, and all that makes you dissatisfied with your lot."

The work of Methodist missionaries in the Caribbean began in 1770, but the Methodist Missionary Society was not founded until 1789. Because it was difficult for missionaries to gain permission from the planters to enter many of the estates in the West Indies, both the Methodists and the Baptists used a system of slave leaders to supervise their followers. The black assistants visited the sick, held prayer meetings, and oversaw the conduct of the members in their charge.

One of the first Baptist missionaries to reach the West Indies was a manumitted slave from Virginia, George Liele (Lisle). Liele organized a church in Jamaica in 1783, and by 1791 had enrolled 450 members, all blacks and most of them slaves. In 1813 the Baptist Missionary Society began to send out missionaries from London. Despite the hostility they encountered, regular services were conducted and schools opened at Kingston, Spanish Town, Falmouth, and other places. Three missionaries were sent to Jamaica in 1800 by the Scottish Missionary Society, a nondenominational body. The established Church of Scotland began its work in Kingston in 1819, a program that was carried on later by the United Presbyterian church.

Social Structure and Caribbean Christianity

Differences in world view that developed in the Caribbean as religions there changed have been related, by Raymond T. Smith, to social structural factors. In one such relation the main characteristics are hierarchial structure of offices and the solemn quality of religious proceedings. The model in this trend has been the Church of England, but the nonconformist churches also became establishment-oriented after the controversy over emancipation had passed. A second trend, ethical and sectarian individualism, is represented in European Protestantism but also in sects originating in the United States, including the Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. The third trend involves more demonstrative types of worship and includes such neo-African cults as Shango and such ancestral cults as Kumina; revivalist cults such as the Revival Zionists, the Spiritual Baptists, and the Shakers; and such groups as Pentecostalism, the Salvation Army, and the Nazarenes.

Roman Catholic Church

From the beginning of the Republic of Haiti in 1803 until 1858, a schism existed between the state and the Roman Catholic Church. Because the Constitution of 1805 provided for the complete separation of church and state, the Vatican refused to recognize Haiti as a state and forbade priests to enter the country. In 1860 an agreement between the pope and Haitian officials ended the long break. However, Catholicism had not developed deep roots in Haiti, and, during the schism, folk belief was combined with Christianity. Since that time, vodou has continued to maintain its hold on the Haitian mass. After President François Duvalier came to power in 1957, the state increasingly exercised control over the Catholic Church through intimidation and violence, including the expulsion of the archbishop of Port au Prince and dozens of French and Canadian missionaries, the closing of the major Catholic seminary, the banning of the Catholic daily paper, and the dissolution of the Christian trade union.

The Catholic Church has never been as influential in the national life of Cuba as in other Latin American countries. Its decline during the last years of Spanish rule continued after Cuba became independent in 1902. The shortage of priests, the fact that most of the priests and nuns were foreigners, the meager education of the priests, identification of the church with conservatism, its reputation for corruption and antipopular policies alienated it from a large part of the Cuban population.

The situation of the Catholic church in the former British West Indies has been somewhat different. The first Catholic priest to serve in Jamaica came to the island in 1792, but for many years the number of Catholics in the country remained small. Roman Catholics constitute fewer than 10 percent of the population, but the church is influential in Jamaican life. Catholics comprise 36 percent of the population of Trinidad and Tobago, including spiritist Catholics (Catholics who are involved in such cults as Shango).

Anglican Church

Unquestionably the Church of England in Jamaica in the eighteenth century was not a missionary church for the slaves; it was the religion of the white settlers and officials. The twenty Anglican churches in Jamaica in 1800 were small, and probably fewer than three hundred persons attended religious services each Sunday. The Church of England, disestablished in most of the colonies between 1868 and 1870, continues to be an important force in the life of the former British colonies.

Protestant Churches

The United Brethren (Moravian) church in Saint Thomas grew rapidly after 1740, and mission stations established in Saint Johns, Antigua, and in Basseterre, Saint Kitts, became quite successful. Those in Jamaica, Barbados, and Tobago were much less successful. In February 1755 King Frederick V of Denmark ordered that instruction in Christianity be given to the slaves in Saint Thomas, and by 1785 the Lutheran mission in the Virgin Islands was small only by comparison to the Moravian program. Separate services were conducted for the Danish and the black congregations.

In the forty years prior to emancipation, Methodist and Baptist missionaries in the West Indies were harassed for allegedly provoking insubordination among the blacks. Despite this persecution, by the time the Emancipation Act was passed in London in 1833 the Methodist membership in the West Indies had grown to 32,000, two-thirds of whom were slaves. Confusion and suspicion arose in the British West Indies by the time the apprenticeship system came to an end in 1838. Methodism entered a period of decline in membership and enthusiasm when many former slaves became disillusioned by the continuing gulf between whites and blacks. The Methodist church in the West Indies revived somewhat after the excesses of the Great Revival of 1861–1862 had passed. Never among the largest Protestant denominations in the Caribbean, the Methodist church is, nevertheless, an important religion in the region.

The Baptists quickly acquired a following among the slaves, and following emancipation their congregations grew even more rapidly. The Presbyterian church has remained one of the smaller religions in the Caribbean. In the past forty years, Pentecostalism, a part of the fundamentalist movement in American Protestantism, has been the fastest growing religion in the Caribbean. Offering hope of deliverance from unjust social orders, this faith is almost ideally adapted to the needs of the disadvantaged. The Pentecostal style of worship has spread to small supplementary prayer groups within both the Roman Catholic Church and a number of the historical Protestant churches.

Demographics

The proportions of adherents to various forms of Christianity differ in each of the Caribbean countries. For example, in Cuba the population of professing Catholics dropped from almost nine-tenths at the beginning of the twentieth century to less than three-fourths by the time Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. Two decades later, only one-third of Cubans were professing Catholics; one-fourth of that number were also involved in Santería and other Afro-Cuban cults. Protestants constitute about 1 percent of the Cuban population, the nonreligious and atheists more than half, practicing Christians who keep their religion private approximately one-tenth, and those who are adherents only of Afro-Cuban syncretistic cults less than one-thirtieth.

In Haiti, more than four-fifths of the population is Roman Catholic (nine-tenths of whom are also involved in vodou). Approximately one-seventh are Protestants, and less than one-thirtieth belong to indigenous black sects and other religions.

In Jamaica, seven-tenths of the population is Protestant, while Roman Catholics, black indigenous church members, revivalists and other cultists each constitute approximately one-tenth. Finally, in Trinidad and Tobago, Roman Catholics constitute somewhat more than one-third of the population, Protestants three-tenths, and black indigenous sectarians, Shangoists, and other religionists about one-thirtieth.

See Also

Caribbean Religions, article on Afro-Caribbean Religions; Santería; Vodou.

Bibliography

Barrett, David B., ed. World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Study of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, a.d. 1900–2000. Oxford, 1982. An excellent reference volume that provides data on religions throughout the world.

Calley, Malcolm J. C. God's People: West Indian Pentecostal Sects in England. New York, 1965. A study of West Indian immigrants to England with valuable commentary on Pentecostalism.

Curtin, Philip D. Two Jamaicas: The Role of Ideas in a Tropical Colony, 1830–1865 (1955). Reprint, New York, 1968. A leading historian's analysis of the roles of Christianity and of Afro-Christian religions in Jamaica in the period before and after emancipation.

Gonzales, Justo L. The Development of Christianity in the Latin Caribbean. Grand Rapids, Mich., 1969. A critique of the programs of Christian churches in the French-speaking and Spanish-speaking countries of the Caribbean.

Hollenweger, Walter J. The Pentecostals: The Charismatic Movement in the Churches. London, 1972. A lucid account of the Pentecostal movement by a prominent theologian.

Simpson, George Eaton. Black Religions in the New World. New York, 1978. A study of religions that have been important to blacks in the New World.

Simpson, George Eaton. Religious Cults of the Caribbean: Trinidad, Jamaica and Haiti. 3d ed. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, 1980.

Smith, Raymond T. "Religion in the Formation of West Indian Society." In The African Diaspora: Interpretive Essays, edited by Martin L. Kilson and Robert I. Rotberg, pp. 312–341. Cambridge, Mass., 1976. This volume includes chapters on slavery and on the religions of blacks in the Caribbean.

George Eaton Simpson (1987)