40 Missionaries to Africa
George Lisle — George Lisle, a Negro Baptist preacher, came at times to preach to the Silver Bluff church. He was the slave of a Baptist deacon, Henry Sharpe, who was very kind to him. Sharpe took Lisle with him to church regularly which resulted in his salvation and baptism into a church in Burke county, Georgia. It was noted that Lisle had the gifts necessary for a minister and he was ordained. Henry Sharpe permitted him freedom to travel along the Savannah River to preach to the slaves on the plantations. The Lord blessed his ministry and Sharpe was so impressed that he gave Lisle his freedom so that he could preach without being hampered. After Sharpe’s death his heirs tried to re-enslave Lisle but a British officer saved him from this ordeal. Lisle established a Negro Baptist church about 1779 in Savannah, Georgia and became the first pastor. When the British left Savannah at the end of the Revolutionary War Lisle went to Jamaica lest he be re-enslaved. Here he began to preach and several were saved. He organized these converts into a Baptist church which was the first Baptist church in Jamaica. Freedom was permitted for only the Anglican church so Lisle and several others were arrested and one was hanged. They were charged with “preaching sedition
This action so stirred the Jamaican Assembly that they granted religious freedom and let Lisle and his brethren free. The Baptists grew so that by 1842 they sent forty missionaries to Africa.
Edward H. Overbey, A Brief History of the Baptists
