Abstract
Baptist missions in the British Empire must be understood in the context of the Dissenting tradition in England, including Baptist history, theology, epistemology, radical politics, and class considerations. The Baptist missions at Serampore, in British Bengal, from 1794 to 1837, and in Jamaica from C. 1824 to 1850 provide ideal case studies through which to examine missionary identity formation, as well as the impact of missions on the Empire. British Baptist missionaries, already marginalized in England as Dissenters and artisan-class men, faced powerful challenges to their individual identities and loyalties in the mission field. In both India and Jamaica, white missionaries tended to identify more with non-white converts than with their fellow colonials. This shift led the Baptists studied here to ground their identities and loyalties in their mission and in their churches, rather than in the British Empire. Baptist missionaries thus viewed themselves primarily as Christians and Dissenters, not as English and white, and placed allegiance to their churches before English nationalism. The white missionaries who began the missions at Serampore and in Jamaica ultimately entrusted the future of their work to non-white converts. In both cases, the goal of evangelization was an independent church led by indigenous Christians.
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