George Lisle: From Slavery To First African American Foreign Missionary

George Lisle was born into slavery in Virginia about 1750. He became the first African American missionary, and was, very likely, the first Baptist foreign missionary, to carry the gospel message to any foreign country. Lisle (sometimes spelled Liele) antedated pioneer Baptist missionary William Carey by over a decade, and preceded such other pioneer missionaries of the modern era as Adoniram Judson, Robert Morrison, and David Livingstone.

Lisle moved, as a young man, before the Revolutionary War, with Henry Sharp, his master, to Burke County Georgia. He turned to Christ in 1773, was baptized, and joined the church which was under the ministry of Rev. Matthew Moore. Moore and Sharp recognized Lisle's gifts and ordained him. Lisle became, in 1775, the first black Baptist, and likely the first black man, ordained in America. 

He married in early life and from this union had three sons and a daughter. Mr. Sharp, a Baptist deacon, recognizing his gift of preaching and evangelizing, freed him from slavery, so Lisle could better devote his time to preaching the gospel up and down the Savannah River to plantation slaves. He was involved in helping establish the first black Baptist church in America in Silver Bluff, Aiken County, South Carolina between 1773 and 1775. Lisle also preached  in the white church ministered by Rev. Moore, in which he was active.

During the British occupation of Savannah and environs, during the Revolutionary War, evacuees from the Baptist Church in Silver Bluff, and evacuees from other areas, joined with Lisle, in starting the First African Baptist Church of Savannah. Lisle ministered the church for four years (1779-1782), during the British occupation of Savannah, and the church grew to 50 members. By 1800, under the leadership of Lisle's successor Andrew Bryan, the church had grown to 700 members. 

Members of the Silver Bluff Baptist Church in South Carolina, it should be noted, were involved in the first black Baptist church plants in the Bahamas and Nova Scotia Canada, the latter of which sent pioneer missionaries to Sierra Leone, Africa.

After Henry Sharp was killed in the Revolutionary War, and the British were about to leave Savannah, the Sharp children attempted to re-enslave Lisle. Lisle was seized and imprisoned in Savannah. Colonel Kirkland, the British officer in charge of Savannah, intervened, ruling in favor of Lisle and against the Sharp family. Lisle was released from prison, and employed as Kirkland's personal servant. When the British actually left Savannah, Lisle was in danger of being re-imprisoned and re-enslaved again by the Sharps, so he indentured himself  to Kirkland in exchange for passage for his family with Kirkland to Jamaica. He departed for Jamaica with his family in July 1782.

Lisle was able to pay off his indenture within two years of his arrival in Jamaica. Lisle with the assistance of Colonel Kirkland, was employed by General Campbell, the governor of Jamaica. He worked hard and built up savings, and was manumitted in 1784.

George Lisle, together with Moses Baker, a convert, then began preaching and evangelizing around the island. Lisle was a powerful preacher. The first Baptist church on the island, black or white, was soon established in Kingston. With the help of a member of the Assembly of Jamaica, Stephen Cook, who obtained donations from England, Lisle erected a permanent church edifice by 1790, built on three acres of land on the east end of Kingston. After eight years of preaching ministry, Lisle had baptized 500 people who formed a strong Baptist church.

Because of his powerful preaching, his meetings had often been interrupted by the Anglican establishment on the island, and he was once imprisoned. He and some of his associates were charged with preaching sedition, a capital offense on the island. One of the preachers was hanged, while Lisle barely escaped the death penalty himself. Having gone through suffering and persecution, Lisle was able to resume the gospel work to which he was called.

His protege Moses Baker established the second Baptist church in Jamaica at Crooked Springs. George Lisle was an effective church planter, having been used by the grace of God to help plant Baptist churches in America and Jamaica. 

Lisle also sent urgent appeals to British Baptists to send missionaries to Jamaica. The Baptist Missionary Society (London) eventually did send missionaries to Jamaica in 1814. Much spiritual growth, through many hardships, developed among the black Baptist population of the island. Baptists also grew numerically to become the largest group on the island, surpassing both the Anglicans and Roman Catholics.

Looking further on to the time of the two insurrections in Jamaica, in 1831 and 1865, when blacks fought to obtain freedoms, Baptist missionaries were charged by the colonial authorities with collaborating with the rebels and imprisoned. Converts were flogged, and their homes and chapels were burned by the planters who were against the missionary work. The persecution was the seed of further Baptist growth spiritually and numerically. 

Lisle also corresponded with Baptists in the Bahamas. A work had been pioneered in the Bahamas about 1791 by another freed slave, Prince Williams of South Carolina, who had gone to the Bahamas by open boat from St. Augustine, and had established the first Baptist church in the Bahamas.

One of the early missionaries of the Baptist Missionary Society in Jamaica was William Knibb, who had been sent to Jamaica at age 21 by the Baptist church in Kettering, England. Knibb later went back to England to lobby for and obtain emancipation, the abolition of all slavery in Jamaica and all British dominions. The date of emancipation was July 31, 1833. 

Lisle was, apparently, the first black in the New World to send missionaries back to Africa, the land of his origin. By 1842 over 50 missionaries had been sent to Africa from Jamaica. Missionaries were also sent to Africa from the Baptist work in Nova Scotia, started by David George, who had migrated to Canada from the Silver Bluff Baptist Church in South Carolina. 

George Lisle's achievements were remarkable for a primarily self-educated minister. Doctrinally, Lisle was thoroughly evangelical, believing in the doctrines of God's sovereign grace, God's election, and the security of the believer in Christ. Lisle's belief in the sovereignty of God was strong impetus for his foresighted involvement in evangelism and world missions. Lisle rested in the assurance that as he planted the seed, God would bring in an abundant harvest of souls, a harvest promised in His Word.  

Although born into slavery, and largely self-taught, George Lisle was used mightily of God in accomplishing some remarkable achievements during his lifetime. Ultimately the fruit of his labor extended from America to Jamaica and the Caribbean, and on to the Africa of his ancestors.

Acknowledgement:  I am much indebted to my brother, Ken L. Davis, Church Planting Director, Baptist Bible Seminary, Clarks Summit, PA, for providing me a copy of his unpublished manuscript, "African Americans in Missions", 52 pages, references, 1996, updated 2002.

Bibliography (of published books):

Baptist Advance: The Achievements of the Baptists of North America for a Century and a Half, Plainfield, New Jersey: Recorder Press, 1964 (also Broadman Press, 1964)

Cole, Edward B., The Baptist Heritage, Elgin, IL: David C. Cook, 1976. Appendix has "Chronolgical Review of Important Dates for Baptists," which includes Lisle.

Hoad, Jack, The Baptist: An historical and theological study of the Baptist identity, London: Grace Publications, 1986

Jacobs, Sylvia M., editor, Black Americans and the Missionary Movement in Africa, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982 

Jordan, Lewis G., Negro Baptist History, U.S.A., 1750-1930, Nashville, 1930

McBeth, Leon, The Baptist Heritage, Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1987

Pelt, Owen D. and Smith Ralph L., The Story of the National Baptists, New York: Vantage Press, 1960

Sibley, Inez Knibb, The Baptists of Jamaica: 1793-1965, Kingston, Jamaica: Baptist Union, 1965

Torbet, A History of the Baptists, Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1978

Underwood, A.C., A History of English Baptists, London: Kingsgate, 1947

Wood, James E. Wood, Jr., Editor, Baptists and the American Experience, Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1976

Woodson, Carter G., The History of the Negro Church, Washington, D. C., The Associated Publishers, 1945