Barbados
POPULATION 276,607
ANGLICAN 33 percent
PENTECOSTAL 12.7 percent
METHODIST 5.9 percent
SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST 4.5 percent
ROMAN CATHOLIC 4.4 percent
OTHER 16.7 percent
NOT STATED 22.8 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
When the British first arrived on the small Caribbean island of Barbados in 1625, they found the land uninhabited. They quickly developed a plantation system dominated by a small white plantocracy that required the importation of a large number of slaves during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Since slaves were considered property, very little was done to minister to their religious needs until Sunday schools were established in 1808 to give religious instruction to slave children. It was not until 1825, however, that the Anglican Church (Church of England), which had developed close ties with the state from as early as 1685, began a full outreach program to educate and evangelize the slaves.
On the other hand, Quakers, Moravians, and Methodists preached a doctrine of equality from the very beginning of their ministries in Barbados, which eventually led to the ejection of the Quakers and the persecution of the Methodists. Despite the efforts of the Methodist and Moravian churches, the majority of the Barbadian population remained loyal to the Anglican Church. During the 1930s, however, the Anglican Church began to lose ground, a process that accelerated after the country's independence in 1966.
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