NAPARIMA COLLEGE
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Some Notes on the Canadian Mission to Trinidad, XII
Regional Offshoots of the Canadian Mission to Trinidad
After the first ten years or so of the missionaries' efforts in Trinidad, word of their successes reached other West Indian islands where there were also communities of Indian indentured labourers. The Indian population in Trinidad in 1868 was about 25,000; the communities in other colonies (except British Guiana) were much smaller. Nevertheless, residents of those communities made requests to the Trinidad-based missionaries for similar ministry.
In all of the colonies, the first Presbyterian church to be established was the Church of Scotland; this in the early 1800's, or before, well before the Canadian Mission. The Scottish church, however, essentially accompanied British colonialism in the service of the planters and colonists themselves, and did not conceive or pursue the missionary opportunity of evangelicizing non-europeans. And in the decades immediately pre-dating the advent of Morton and Grant, the Scottish Church (as also the United Presbyterian Mission from the USA to the blacks in Trinidad) had come under economic duress and retracted their presence significantly.
Nevertheless, relations between ministers of the local Scottish churches and the Canadian Missionaries appeared to have been cordial and cooperative in all cases, and certainly facilitated the local congregation requests for assistance, and the quasi-independent satellite operations that grew up, in Grenada, St Lucia, Jamaica, and British Guiana.
Rev. Morton and Rev. Grant seemed to feel that it would over-extend their resources, for them to try to be too directly involved in a personal way outside of Trinidad. Nevertheless, they gave such encouragement and direction wherever they could. This took the form of occasional visits by themselves, and more frequent visits by their Trinidad native lieutenants. Notable success also attended these efforts.
Grenada St Lucia British Guiana Jamaica
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