SPIRITUAL BAPTISTS
THE BANNING OF THE
SHOUTERS
Liberation Day
Express
March 30, 2000
Page 31
The
emergence of the Spiritual Baptists dates back to 1618, when
African slaves came to Trinidad to ease the labour shortage on the cocoa
estates. This shortage was a result of
the decimation of the Amerindians through Spanish enslavement. A Cedula of Population, proposed by Roumme
de St Laurent (a French planter from Grenada), saw an influx of planters from
the French islands (Martinique, Guadeloupe and St Lucia).
The
terms of this Cedula were geared toward providing African slave labour to
sustain the growth of the Roman Catholic Church.
By
1789, the Governor of Trinidad, Don Jose Maria Chacon, found it necessary to
introduce the "Code Noir".
This Cedula had provisions for instructing the slaves in the principles
of the Roman Catholic religion. It was
also designed to protect the Church from mutiny and, at the same time, to halt
the practice of African customs. The
masters had separated the slaves who spoke the same language or came from the
same region in Africa. But this
bringing together of various religious groups and the mixture of different
languages served a purpose for the masers.
It also resulted in a new religious interpretation among the Africans.
In
the early 19th century, labour continued to be the main problem for
most West Indian colonies, and Trinidad was no exception. Immigration, which was formerly limited to
Europeans and Catholics from other West Indian islands, was extended to include
the Chinese and Negroes from South Africa and the United States. The Negro immigrants from the United States
came around 1815 and were known as "merikins". They were ex-soldiers who had settled with
their families in "company villages".
They
participated in religious activities centred around those practised by members
of the "black Baptists" congregation in the Southern United States of
America. Included in their worship was
"tenting" (baptism by total immersion in running water), spirit
possession and the interpretation of dreams.
Later, the Shouter Baptists emerged, but they were outlawed by the
Government.
In
attempting to practise their faith, they struggled with the Government who
regarded the religious exercise of bell ringing, shouting, chanting and their
loud manner of singing and praying as disturbing the peace. The practice of their faith was therefore
restricted to the byways and secluded areas.
This restriction satisfied the aims of more established Christian
religion.
The
faith was looked upon with suspicion by the governing classes in the west
Indies, and the rulers were in search of evidence to ban the Baptists who had
already established themselves throughout the West Indies, more so in Jamaica,
St Vincent and Trinidad.
In
St Vincent, they were called "Shakers" because of the method they
used in practicing their faith. In
Jamaica, they were more important then Trinidad. One of the most powerful missionary fighters against slavery was
a Baptist Minister named Rev. William Knibb.
At
a meeting of the Baptist Missionary Society in London on June 21, 1832, he was
talking to a group to which he described himself as "the feeble and
unworthy advocate of 20,000 baptists…Among this deeply injured race I have
spent the happiest part of my life. I
plead on behalf of my own church where I had 980 members and 2,500 candidates
for baptism, surrounded by a population of 27,000."
After
the emancipation of the slaves on August 1, 1838, nothing was done by the
church in the economic field to deal with the consequences of emancipation
except, perhaps, by the Baptists who, in Jamaica, went into Baptist village
small farming, buying up abandoned estates (which many planters refused to sell
- they preferred to leave them idle), to such an extent that the Baptists were
blamed by the Governor of the day for the Jamaican rebellion of 1865.
In
St Vincent the faith was made illegal by the Shakerism Prohibition Ordinance
which was passed in 1813, when the Governor, Gideon Murray, was riding his
horse through the city while the Shakers were holding an open air meeting. The vibration from the shaking frightened
the horse and the Governor fell to the ground.
This
law made it illegal for the Shakers to worship anywhere at anytime. The ordinance was later repealed in 1939,
when George McIntosh introduced a motion seeing the repeal of the Ordinance.
The
Government of St Vincent banned the Shakers from worshipping in 1913, and this
ban was the basis of the law introduced in Trinidad on November 28, 1917.
SOTERIA an
inspiration to all believers
Lodged
in the foundation of this monument is a copy of the infamous Act of 1917 with a
note repudiating the passing of such legislation, and a prayer that this will
never happen again in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
The
name of the monument is SOTERIA, which is the Greek word for salvation.
The
length of the horizontal arm of the outer cross is 40 inches, which represents
40 years of liberation (1951-1991) and the vertical length of the inner cross
is 34 inches, which represents the 34 years in which the community lived under
a state of religious emergency. The
lower portion of the cross is an artistic impression of the trumpet of Joshua,
which was used for the decimation of obstacles that stood in his way.
The
material used to construct the monument is concrete, which symbolizes the concretization
of religious tolerance in our society. The
preponderance of white symbolizes the purity of water, which was used by John
the Baptiser. The black inner cross symbolizes
the emergence of the Spiritual Baptist whose roots are founded in Africa.
SOTERIA
should be an inspiration to the followers of the Baptist faith and a shrine for
their religious activities.
The
monument is located at the entrance of the National Insurance Offices, on the Harris
Promenade, San Fernando and was placed there on March 17 1991.