The First Baptist Missionaries
An artist’s rendering of George Liele
When Christians recall the great missionary efforts that sprang forth in the 1700s and 1800s, names like Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and John Paton often arise. These men went great distances to difficult places in order to make disciples of Christ. In Baptist circles, William Carey’s voyage to India in 1793 is often touted as the first Baptist missionary effort. Ten years earlier, however, freed slaves and Baptist pastors from Georgia and South Carolina traveled to Jamaica, Canada, and West Africa in order to take the gospel to the nations.
George Liele was born into slavery around 1750 and soon after was separated from his parents, whom he never saw again. In 1764, Henry Sharp, Liele’s master, relocated from Virginia to St. George County, Georgia. Sharp was a deacon at a local Baptist church and an outlier among slave owners. He taught Liele and other slaves how to read and write (which was illegal at the time), allowed family units to remain together, and by all accounts seems to have genuinely desired the conversion of his slaves.
Through his exposure to Sharp’s church, Liele trusted Christ in 1774 and was baptized into membership. He began sensing a call towards gospel ministry soon after. The church, affirming God’s gifting and calling on his life, even gave Liele opportunities to preach to a mixed congregation! The pastor and members of that small Baptist church then ordained Liele as a pastor and sent him to preach the gospel to other slaves wherever and whenever he could.
At the outset of the Revolutionary War, Sharp, a British loyalist, enlisted in the Tory army. Seeing his possible death on the horizon, he set Liele and his family free so that they might pursue gospel ministry. Liele’s preaching in a nearby South Carolina community led to the conversion of a man named David George, who became the first pastor of Silver Bluff Baptist Church, the first formally organized black Baptist church to be led by black people in America. During the war, both George Liele and David George moved to Savannah, where they planted the First Colored Baptist Church together. This church (now called the First African Baptist Church) meets regularly to this day, and it is quite possibly the oldest black Baptist church in the United States.
Freedom was short-lived though. When Henry Sharp was killed in action, his descendants challenged Liele’s status as a free man. Fearing re-enslavement for himself and his family, Liele borrowed $700 dollars for passage to Jamaica and agreed to work off his debt as an indentured servant to a British officer.
Upon his arrival in Kingston in 1783, Liele saw the terrible condition of the enslaved and began preaching the gospel. He was beaten, imprisoned, and placed in stocks for violation of British law, but the word of the Lord was a fire in his bones. By 1791 there were over 500 black Baptists in Jamaica, and that number swelled to twenty thousand over the course of the next thirty years.
Meanwhile, David George fled Savannah to Charleston and then from Charleston to Nova Scotia. There he planted an integrated Baptist church, believed by most to be the first Canadian Baptist Church. In 1788, George traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to Sierra Leone in order to plant the first black Baptist church on the African continent.
George Leile and David George did not have the backing of missionary societies. They worked to provide for their families as they toiled for the gospel to go forth. Their travels were not always well-planned, strategic placements. All too often, they were simply looking for freedom and safety. In this respect, their missionary efforts were like that of the early church who fled Jerusalem due to persecution (Acts 11:19-21). They were strangers and exiles, navigating the fine line between advocating for abolition and protecting the lives of their congregants. They were forced to be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matt. 10:16).
The work of George Liele and David George also mirrors that of missionaries in a closed country. The enslaved were an unreached people group cut off from gospel proclamation by a system that considered their bodies property. They were a nation within a nation. The very act of calling a black person to follow Jesus affirmed their humanity, and slavery could not intellectually stand if those of African descent were just as human as their white masters.
From the Roman Empire to Iran, church history is littered with instances of growth amidst persecution, and the black church is a prime example. We know the names of George Liele and David George, but countless black image bearers chose to believe in the God who dwells high and looks low. Many of these heroes of the faith go unnamed in the history books, but when the roll is called up yonder, what stories will be shared! Sad and terrible stories but also glorious and lovely stories; for no suffering is wasted in the hands of the Good Shepherd.
In the case of Gerorge Liele and David George, their spiritual descendants are found in black churches all over the world today. That church on the corner is a testament to men and women who held on to Jesus when nothing else made sense. So go visit one Sunday and see what God has done.
* The vast majority of information for this post was taken from Georgle Liele’s Life and Legacy: An Unsung Hero. If you are interested in learning more about his life and ministry, you can find the book here.
