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A HISTORY OF ANGLICANISM IN THE CARIBBEAN AND IN THE BAHM,1AS Rev. Noel Titus Principal Codrington College In attempting to speak on a topic such as of the settlers and those who ministered to th , one recognises that it is impossible them. Like sugarcane or breadfruit, t deal with the topic in the space of a Anglicanism was an import which slowly took single lecture. I have of necessity to be root in the new locale. The developments selective. What I shall try to d~ therefore, during the English Reformation had settled is to paint a picture of the Anglican Church English religious attitudes for the future over more than three hundred years of its as far as Englishmen could see. The life in these parts. I trust that the possibility of English settlers worshipping picture will enable you to understand in any other way than that prescribed by better how our Church has grown and the English law ,(;TaS beyond the realm of performed. possibility.. Strangely enough., Presbyterial: seem to have been excluded. That system did E:cclesia Anglican ,vas the Church of England not appeal to Elizabeth I; James I, her not only in England but also in the successor, put matters beyond doubt in his Caribbean area, ,,,here it gradually took famous dictum: "No Bishop, no King." And root in the seventeenth century. Its it is significant that the words 'loyalty' advent into the region was part of the and ~piety' became watch-words of the process of migration from England duri.ng Royalists in 17th century Barbados. Loyalty that century. European trading nations was to the King, piety expressed itself had already successfully challenged the through the medium of the Book of Common existence of a will by Adam giving to the Prayer. iards a title to the New World. The ri,ght of other nations to lands which ltThen Cromwell had hanned the Prayer Book in their people had settled was, one may say, England, his Commissioners met '(.;rith almost the new doctrine being evolved. The advent total compliance in Barbados. The only of the;::ommercial rivals did not only make minister vlho is on record as opposing the the Caribbean a theatre for military ban was the minister of IAII Saints' Church activity, it also made this region the in the parish of St. Peter. 1 This does not stage on ,.,hich religions intolerance \07as prove that those 1;"ho complied "Jere adherents acted out~ Just as residents of English of the Parliamentary party and disloyal to Islands were expected to be Protestants. the King. It may only indicate a lack of To be more precise, they were expected to conviction both as regards the form of be members of the Church of England. worship, and as regards the right to resist the authority in the Island. The banning The advent of Anglicanism to the region of the Book of COF~on Prayer, however, was coincided with the political and religious only a refl.2ction of the intolerance which unease of England in the early seventeenth was characteristic of the age, It showed century. Presbyterians had found. advocates itself in the general hostility to Quakers in England as well as in Scotland, and. the in the West Indies - especially in Barbados. puritan movement of the previous century There, in addition to the hostility towards was already advancing in the direction of their religious practises, their kindness to Independ~nce - the Congregational system. slaves earned them enemies. So that the This fennent of thought means that one fact that the Church of England started the cannot be sure of the orthodoxy ar the eighteenth century from such a position of ~onsistency of those who implanted the strength may well be due to the elimination, soil~ li:3D Church on our by statutes ,. of groups like the Quakers 0 And the action ,ilas not instigated by the ;d,fhen the LIl...nglican Church TUB.G2 its appecu:-·­ Churcll~ but by legislators intolerant of any aace on the West Indian stage in the 16208. system that they could not themselves control it ,las the Church of England for Englishmell. Ii: came ,vitI, the tide of settlers to these What of the Clergy who came OUL: "lith the parts and it was regulated by the customs settlers? Very few na-mes hErve come dO-~ln to 14 us, but this does not alter the basic actively involved in influencing the thesis that one can advance. For the most selection of Clergy for the West Indies. part, they were free lancers - persons In a memorandum by the then Bishop of whose function in these parts was not under London concerning the Church in Barbados, the auspices of any ecclesiastical the writer asked that the following steps authority. Nicholas Leverton, who first inter alia be taken: served Barbados, promptly transferred to Tobago when the settlers in the An investigation should be former Island appeared to him recalcitrant. carried out to discover There is no indication as to the ecclesias­ whether every minister was tical authority from whom Leverton's a member of the Vestry as successor, Kentlane, received his right had been ordered. to function. This is true for the greater part of the century, qualified A Commissary should be only by the fact that Governors erected appointed under the parishes and appointed Clergy to them from Governor to exercise time to time. ecclesiastical juris­ diction. The disorganized state of things is further evidenced by Cromwell's appointment of An investigation should seven Chaplains to Jamaica. It can be taken be carried out to determine for granted that these were neither Royalists whether every minister nor Episcopalians. Some of them doubtless held orders according to continued to minister after Cromwell's death, the Church of England. so that in 1661 a plea was made for the appointment of orthodox ministers. It was Books of Homilies, Canons, only after this date that any effort was and Arcicles were to be made to ensure that the Clergy were the kept in every Parish Clergy of the Church of England. Church. 3 Having said this, I must perforce corrrrnent on It is only after this that one can see an the London episcopate. For it is staunchly insistence that Clergy corning to work in held that the Bishop of London was. from the the West Indies should have a licence from beginning, the Bishop of the West Indies. the Bishop of London. And later aD. it This is based on the erroneous belief that became customary for aspirants to L:ad was influential in getting an Order ecclesiastical position to travel to London in Council passed giving jurisdiction to to be admitted to Orders. I use the ex­ the Bishop of London for overseas work. pression "'aspirants to ecclesiastical This authority of the Bishops of London position" to emphasise the fact that not all cannot be verified. There seems to have those who went to England for Orders were been an arrangement for that Bishop to be interested in the Priesthood. Some were responsible for Englishmen in vlhat was then unsuccessful sons of planters or profession­ called the Low Countries - that is Holland. als. some were favourites of different But I have detected nothing about the Governors. In fact Bishops of London, had. extension of this authority to the Western on two occasions, rejected candida~es Hemisphere, or vaguely to the Church over­ recommended to them. One of these was not seas. Laud in 1633 was Archbishop of known by the person who recommended him, Canterbury, which fact would disqualify the other has failed in everything he had him for the office of 1st Bishop of the previously tried. 4 West Indies. His History of His 9wn Times, written in his last years, surprisingly omits In spite of the insistence that Clergy be any reference to this among his achievements. licenced by the Bishop of London, some In default of better evidence we must adopt obviously obtained appointments without the position of historians: that the Bishop fulfilling the obligation. One Governor in of London was reputedly Bishop of the Church Barbados once reported that 10 of the 11 in the West Indies. 2 Rectories were filled, and that most of the incumbents were in Orders. In the Bahamas It was not until 1680 that one has clear there was the case of Thomas Curfey who evidence of the Bishop of London being functioned without a licence from the Bishc 15 of London, because there was no proof of his was first settled around 1627, the first having been ordained. Yet Curfey continued parishes were marked out in 1628. The his ministerial office for six years after his process was completed eleven years later. peculiar situation first became known. Sim­ Thereafter, both Clergy and people fitted ilarly, John Mitchell in Jamaica functioned into the system, the insidious character of as a Rector without being ordained. Event­ which was to be seen in later years. As the ually he admitted that his letters of orders 17th centurycame to a close, the Vestry had been forged. S The Church, therefore, system was introduced. The Rector became a could not perform as it should have done member, and the Vestry was not to meet in because it was weak at precisely that l~vel his absence unless he was ill;6 but the at which it needed to be strong - the level summoning of the Vestry was not his to do. of leadership. Uncommitted jobbers, as some The Vestry was controlled by the pro­ of them \.Jere, they gave very little to the prietors of the parish; and their attitudes task which was peculiar to the Church.

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