James Phillippo

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Rev. James Phillippo

James Phillippo (1798, Norfolk, England – 11 May 1879, Spanish Town, Jamaica) was a Baptist missionary who campaigned for the abolition of slavery.

Early years as a missionary

Phillippo sailed for Jamaica in 1823 and arrived at a time of great transition: the slave trade had been banned in 1807, and in 1823 propositions to abolish slavery itself were brought in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom but rejected with little hope of success. Despite the legislation being unsuccessful, mission workers in Jamaica, especially Baptists, were criticized by the white population, the press, and the colonial government for being in league with the anti-slavery camp, with the "intention of effecting our ruin". The plantation owners were strongly against the preaching of the gospel to the slaves. They were upset that the nonconformist missionaries (chiefly Baptist, Wesleyan and Methodist) were educating slaves and teaching them the Bible, and reacted by burning down churches and schools.

At the time of the abolition of slave trade in 1807, there were 350,000 slaves in Jamaica. By 1823, there were still over 300,000 slaves remaining on the island, all of whom were prohibited by law from practicing any form of religion. When Phillippo arrived in Jamaica in 1823, he immediately set out to build places of worship and to preach religion to the slaves.

He was denied permission to preach to slaves several times, but this did not stop him, and in spite of the fact that he regularly received threats of imprisonment from authorities and he was the target of numerous death threats from planters, he continued to set up new chapels, schools, Sunday schools and Bible classes, and preached in towns where his preaching ban was not common knowledge. There was great enthusiasm from the slaves to hear the word of God and crowds of people came to church. In 1825, Phillippo was finally granted permission to preach. He founded a church in Spanish Town in 1827, which still stands today, and is known as the Phillippo Baptist Church.

In 1831 Phillippo was unwell and needed to return to England. In February 1832 news arrived of a slave insurrection in Jamaica. Houses had been burnt, the militia called out, and several missionaries had been arrested, including the Baptist missionaries William Knibb, Whitehorn and Abbott. The enraged planters had destroyed ten Baptist chapels and mission houses. The uprising was quickly overthrown, and many hundreds of slaves were killed.

Advocate against slavery

Phillippo’s first role in England as an advocate for the slaves came in June 1832 at the BMS World Mission 40th-anniversary meeting. He and William Knibb described the nature of slavery, the insurrection, the great response to the gospel both from the slaves and free that the missionaries had already facilitated, and how the missionaries themselves had suffered.

Phillippo returned to Jamaica in 1834 and joined with missionaries William Knibb and Thomas Burchell, and together they worked to further the establishment of a free Negro peasantry at the end of the Apprenticeship period, when it appeared certain that the planters had not mended their ways and intended to use coercion as the basic means of control.

Free Villages and emancipation

A unique and highly successful innovation of James Phillippo was the system of Free Villages. He acquired land (usually via agents as the owners would not have sold to him) for settlements where emancipated slaves could live and build houses free from the threat of eviction from their former Estate hovels. He personally stood surety for all monies borrowed but conveyed the land to the mission. He founded new chapels at each and both Sunday (for religious study) and day schools to educate the young, organising the training and appointment of teachers. Sligoville, a hilly St. Catherine farming community about 10 miles from Spanish Town. was the location of the first free village which was established there by Phillipo in 1835, in anticipation of the emancipation of slaves three years later. After the success of Sligoville, several other Free Villages were started by Phillippo including Oracabessa and Sandy Bay.

While slavery was officially ended on 1 August 1834, with the Slavery Abolition Act, it was not until the end of apprenticeship in 1838 that all slaves were finally free. The celebration of Emancipation on 1 August 1838 was a joyous time in Spanish Town with a large turnout of freed slaves. Phillipo was asked by Governor Sir Lionel Smith to lead the procession of the Baptist Church and Congregation of Spanish Town, along with about 2,000 school children and their teachers to Government House, where the Proclamation of Freedom was read to a crowd of over 8,000 people.

In June 1842, Phillippo his wife Hannah and their younger son Edwin set sail for England. Ostensibly, the trip to England was for their health, but also it was an opportunity to lobby the Missionary Society for permission and funding for a new college and school, known as Calabar College, which he had built with Knibb and Burchell. Calabar College changed its name to Calabar High School in 1912 and still operates today. While in England, Phillippo travelled extensively, lectured and completed the manuscript for his first book. The trip was successful and fully recovered, the Phillippos returned to Jamaica in December 1843.

Final years

The trip in 1843 was his last major voyage abroad and, other than a few trips to the U.S., Phillippo remained in Jamaica for the next 35 years. He never stopped preaching and constantly travelled all over Jamaica to bring the "Word of God" to those who needed it. When his beloved wife, Hannah, died in 1874 he moved to a small cottage outside Kingston. He continued his missionary work until he retired on Sunday, 7 July 1878. He lasted less than a year after his retirement, worn out by a long, difficult life in an unfriendly climate. He died on 11 May 1879 in Spanish Town at the age of 81.

James Phillippo was buried, along with his wife and daughter across the street from his beloved Church in Spanish Town, which he had built over 50 years prior to his death. He was so well respected by the Jamaican people at all social levels that the funeral was unlike anything that had ever been witnessed before, with thousands of former slaves attending the service as well as politicians, clergy, and businessmen.

Legacy

In addition to his many accomplishments as a minister and champion of human rights, James Phillippo was also the author of three books about Jamaica, the most notable being Jamaica: Its Past and Present State published while recuperating in England in 1842. Phillippo and his wife had nine children, five of whom died in childhood. One of his sons, Sir George Phillippo, had a long and distinguished career as a lawyer, politician, and statesman. Many of James Phillippo’s offspring live in Jamaica, including his great-great grandson, noted author Colin Simpson who owns the historic Golden Clouds villa in Oracabessa.