Moses Baker: From Barber to Preacher

Little is known about Moses Baker’s early life. What we know is that he was born a free man in New York, where he grew up and earned a living as a barber. A mulatto, Baker was not born into slavery; nor was he ever enslaved. On September 4, 1778, Baker married Susannah Ashton, a dressmaker. The union produced three children – Polly, Charles and John. When the British Loyalists evacuated New York in 1783, the then three-member Baker family – father, mother and Polly – joined the migrants heading to Jamaica. Baker was not willing to risk his family being enslaved or persecuted in the wake of the British withdrawal after the American revolutionary war.

While in New York, Baker had had some connection with the Anglican Church, but he was neither a committed Christian nor an ardent church member. In fact, by his own confession, Baker led a dissolute life marked by excessive drinking.

According to Baker, after arriving in Jamaica in 1783, he spent his first four years living “in utter disregard of religion.” He opened a small barber shop in Kingston and later secured land where he engaged in farming to supplement his income. The land he farmed belonged to a Quaker named Isaac Lascelles Winn. Winn had association with several estates in Jamaica. He owned Stretch and Sell (Adelphi) in St James and he was attorney for Malvern Park Pen in St Ann. He was also connected to Mammee Bay Estate in St Ann and apparently also the Buff Bay plantation in the parish of St George (now Portland).

In earlier years, Winn had been a sea captain who had made frequent calls at American ports. Susannah had met Winn whom her mother had served as a washer woman in New York. Winn expressed deep satisfaction when Susannah Baker filled an order of gowns for him when she lived in Kingston.

Baker’s wife began to read the Bible when she came under the influence of Cupid Wilkin, an elderly black man from Chamba country in Africa – that is, the region covering eastern Nigeria and northeastern Cameroon. It was through Wilkin’s patient and persistent witness that Susannah Baker committed her life to Christ. After a series of developments, ending with Moses Baker’s failing eyesight and serious illness, Wilkin’s impact on Baker resulted in the barber and his wife beginning to associate with George Liele and his Windward Road Chapel in Kingston. This led to Baker’s eventual personal acceptance of God’s claim upon his life. Liele administered Baker’s baptism and Liele found in him a gifted and reliable partner in ministry.

When Winn became aware of Baker’s illness, he paid for Baker’s medical help that resulted in considerable improvement to Baker’s health. However, Winn was unable to donate the plot of land that Baker desired because Winn planned to sell the entire estate and relocate to St James. Meanwhile, Winn acquired some of the enslaved persons who were associated with Liele’s church. These Christians were deeply concerned that, after relocation from Kingston, they would be deprived of the opportunity to enjoy church membership. In response to this, Winn invited the Bakers to join him at his property in St James. There, Winn would hire Mr Baker “to instruct his negroes [on his estate] in the principles of the Christian religion.” He would also provide land for the Baker’s use and Mrs. Baker could work as a seamstress for the enslaved people on his plantation.

Starting in 1788, the Bakers took up residence on the estate in Hampstead that was registered as Stretch and Sell, and was sometimes referred as Stretch and Set. It was near Adelphi in the parish of St. James and there, Baker formed the first Baptist church in western Jamaica at Crooked Spring. At a later stage, the church became known as Salters Hill Baptist Church.

Baker attracted the ire of some of the planters in western Jamaica who believed he should not have been allowed to impart Christianity to the enslaved people. They made life hard for Baker. These slaveholders or their agents hauled him before the courts for using a hymn deemed seditious. They also set fire to homes where Baker conducted prayer meetings. Despite these and other hardships, Baker remained constant in ministry in western and central Jamaica and God blessed his efforts with success. Many enslaved persons turned to God and adhered to congregations Baker started. On one occasion, he baptized more than one hundred persons at a single church service.

In his Lights and Shadows of Jamaica History, Richard Hill, who was a member of Her Majesty’s Privy Council for Jamaica offered a description of Baker. Hill said, “Age came, and with it came the cloud again on the vision of the old missionary. His mind was, nevertheless, still radiant…. Such was Moses Baker after thirty-two years of missionary service. He had come to visit my father and bid him farewell when departing with his family, for England, in 1813. He appeared a plain home-spun man; rugged as a honeycomb rock; his eyes were then failing; his head was bound with a handkerchief, for he had suffered torture in America, which had injured both his ears and eyes. His appearance was that of no common man. His language was direct, and his demeanour was marked with simplicity.”

In 1802, the Jamaican Legislative Council had enacted legal provisions that expanded the scope of the Consolidated Slave Act that prevented Black or enslaved persons from preaching the Gospel and worshipping together freely. Worship services in some churches were deemed unlawful assemblies.

According to Baker: “From Christmas Day 1806, I have been prevented from preaching or saying a word to any part of my congregation.” When Winn died in 1808, Baker got attached to Samuel Vaughan, doing for the enslaved on Vaughan’s estate the same kind of service he offered on Winn’s estate. Vaughan had plantations at Flamstead, Hamstead and Vaughansfield.

When the Consolidated Slave Laws prevented Baptist preachers from continuing to freely fulfill their ministry, Moses Baker decided to write to John Ryland, principal of Bristol Baptist Academy, later Bristol Baptist College, in England, but also Secretary of BMS, to ask the British Baptists to send workers to assist in the work of Baptists in Jamaica. 

Why did Baker choose to write to Ryland? He did this because, in 1806, Ryland who believed that BMS should send a trained missionary to work in Jamaica, had written to Baker to ask whether, it would be a welcome move for the British Baptists to send a trained missionary to work in Jamaica (Cox, 1842: 18-19; Catherall 1994: 295). Whatever Baker’s response had been to that question, now it was time for him to let Ryland know that, not only would Jamaica Baptists welcome a BMS missionary to Jamaica, but such support was a vital necessity in the context of the adverse effects legislative action by the Jamaican Assembly was having on Baptist witness in the country.

After consulting with George Liele, with whom he had remained in contact, Baker wrote to the English Baptists to ask them to send missionaries to Jamaica in order to overcome the hindrance to the spread of the Gospel among the enslaved people caused by the Consolidated Slave Laws of 1802-1810. In response, the Baptist Missionary Society sent John and Sarah Rowe as their first missionaries to Jamaica. They arrived in the country in 1814, 30 years after African Americans had introduced Baptist witness to Jamaica. John Rowe was commissioned to serve as Baker’s assistant at Flamstead.

As soon as he arrived in Jamaica, Rowe paid a visit to Baker and the two developed friendly and cooperative relations. Unable to secure a license to preach, Rowe went to Falmouth where he established a school. Later, he returned to St James where his outstanding legacy is the Baptist Church in Montego Bay, which now bears his name – Burchell Baptist Church. This church was the church home of one of Jamaica’s national heroes, Baptist deacon Samuel Sharpe. Rowe built up churches that Baker had started and Baker’s son came under Rowe’s influence. When Rowe died in 1816, it was Baker who sent to England an account of his co-worker’s last days.

In 1821, James Coultart, BMS missionary who arrived in Jamaica in 1817, visited Baker, who by then had lost much of his sight. Coultart reports that he found a crowded chapel, and that he examined the negro children who were able to repeat some of Watts’ hymns and other verses. According to Coultart, “Baker was neither superstitious nor enthusiastic …. He possessed good, plain common-sense; he spoke like a spiritual-minded person, and with much feeling. He was decisive and firm in religious discipline; always consistent and influential.”

An additional description of Baker was given by an unnamed Moravian minister who was one of Baker’s contemporaries. “The Baptists have a mission here. Moses Baker, a brown preacher of that community, and my neighbour, living about four miles from hence is a man of the right stamp – a blessed and active servant of our common Lord and Master – notwithstanding old age has almost blinded his eyes and made his legs to move slowly. During his thirty years’ labour in these parts, he has had to endure much.

Baker passed away in 1824, after 36 years of faithful Christian witness in Jamaica.  His mortal remains were interred in the church yard at Crooked Spring in St James.

We treasure the contribution that Moses Baker, his wife and their children made to the emergence and development of Baptist witness in Jamaica – especially in western Jamaica. Long may we remember and celebrate their witness.