History of the SDA Church in Trinidad and Tobago

    In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries several North American Protestant churches made their appearance oin the Caribbean. Among these were the Seventh-Day Adventists.

    The S.D.A. Church had its origins in the United States of America following the great second advent awakening of the 1840's. In 1863 the General Conference, the highest administrative unit of the denomination, was organised. In 1874 a missionary was sent to Europe, and so began the overseas missionary thrust of the church. One method of evangelism was shipping parcels of literature from the United States and England to several regions of the world.

    In November 1883 the International Tract and Missionary Society reported at its annual meeting that literature was sent to many places including Trinidad, Tobago and British Guiana (now Guyana), and that there was a demand for additional publications in the West Indies.

    The initial development of the S.D.A. Church in Trinidad and Tobago occured largely through the initiative of the West Indians. By 1891 there were four men in Trinidad who observed the Seventh-Day Sabbath as a result of reading S.D.A. literature. They were St. Clare M. Phipps a druggist of Couva, Louis J. Briggs, a businessman of Princes Town, James Braser, a joiner of California, and George Maitland, a proprietor of Carapichaima. They wrote to the Foreign Mission Board appealing for a minister.

    Although an American colporteur William Arnold canvassed in Trinidad in 1892, it was a West Indian layman, Charles D. Adamson, who was sent in 1893 as a self-supporting colporteur-evangelist. He made contact with Sabbath-keepers and raised up congregations in Couva and Port-of-Spain before any S.D.A. minister came to the island. In February 1894 a minister, Andrews Flowers, and his wife Rachel, arrived from the U.S.A. The Heart and Hand Lodge in Couva was rented for evangelistic meetings which commenced in April. The following month two American canvassers, F.B. Grant and his wife, began working in Trinidad.

    Flowers contracted yellow fever and died in July 1894, but his wife Rachel, and the Grants left Trinidad for the U.S.A. in September. The availability of ministers to serve in the Caribbean was reflected by the fact that there was no minister in Trinidad until E.W. Webster arrived fourteen months later. However, during that time Adamson was untiring in his efforts to provide leadership for the groups at Port-of-Spain and Couva.

    The pioneers of the S.D.A. church in Trinidad were determined to present the wholistic view of ministry as advocated by Adventist leaders in North America. In the 1890's they embarked on programmes of health-care and education. In 1896 Stella Colvin, an American nurse, opened treatment rooms in Couva. Two years later J.O. Johnston, another missionary, strengthened the medical work initiated by Colvin, and appealed for a farmer in order for the church to embark upon agricultural training. In 1899 Sullivan Wareham arrived from Montana in response to Johnston's call. Wareham purchased forty acres of land in Indian Walk, but illness compelled him to return to the U.S.A. The proposed industrial farming school never developed. However, by the time Webster left Trinidad in 1900 a church school had been started in Couva, taught by an Antiguan, Rachael Peters.

    By the end of 1900 S.D.A. congregations were meeting in Couva, Port-of-Spain, Indian Walk, San Fernando and Tunapuna. Meanwhile during that year two Jamaican canvassers were engaged in selling their publications in Tobago. In 1901 two American ministers, Luther Crowther and Warren Kneeland attempted to establish an Adventist presence there. However they returned to Trinidad prematurely because of illness. In 1903 Kneeland returned to Tobago with a Barbadian minister, James Matthews, and in September, four persons were baptised. The other ministers to work in Tobago by 1911 were Barbadian T.L.M. Spencer and Antiguan J.J. Smith.

    By the end of 1913 there were 632 Adventists in Trinidad and Tobago meeting in churches at Arima, Arouca, Couva, Glamorgan, Guaico, Indian Walk, La Brea, Mt. Grace, Port-of-Spain, San Fernando, Toco and Tunapuna.

    Trinidad and Tobago served as the admistrative and educational centre for the denomination in the Caribbean from the Virgin Islands to Guyanaa. In addition to being the headquarters of the South Caribbean Conference, Trinidad and Tobago also served as the headquarters of the Caribbean Union Conference. In 1927 Caribbean Union College (C.U.C.) was established in Maracas, St. Joseph.

    The S.D.A. church also operated a primary and secondary school system. Although the school at Couva was closed in 1902, others were opened in Port-of-Spain in 1913 and Glamorgan in 1916. There was a new thrust in S.D.A. education in the 1950's. In 1952 secondary schools at San Juan, Sangre Grande and Cumana were granted government assistance in 1952. Then two years later, C.U.C. obtained recognition from teh government as a teacher-training institution. As a result of these developments in the 1950's, the S.D.A. organisation was recognised for its contribution to national development in the field of education.

    C.U.C. awared its first degrees in 1972. In the 1985-86 academic year the institution was affiliated to Andrews University in Michigan. In 1990 athe S.D.A. church operated sixteen primary schools, and a four-year college offering bachelor's degrees in eight academic disciplines.

    Medical work was an important feature of the S.D.A. Church. In 1948 an out-patient clinic was opened by Dr. R.F. Dunlop of Scotland, at the corneer of New and Charlotte Streets in Port-of-Spain. Two years later the clinic was transferred to Mucarapo Road, Port-of-Spain. It attracted thousands of people. In 1953 a nursing home was opened at Queen's Park West. When Dr. Dunlop returned to Trinidad to organise the Port-of-Spain Community Hospital in 1961 he was described in one newspaper as a medical doctor who had treated "one in every five Trinidadians." The new hospital was opened in Cocorite in September 1962. In 1974 the name of this hospital was changed to the Port-of-Spain Adventist Hospital.

    The S.D.A. Church in Trinidad and Tobago experienced significant growth in membership. By the end of 1990 the membership stood at 39,806, and there were 146 S.D.A. congregations in the Republic.