George Liele: The First Baptist Missionary America Forgot

Tall ship under full sail on open ocean, symbolizing George Liele's 1782 voyage from Savannah to Jamaica as the first Baptist missionary
07/27/2026|Rodney Coe|, ,

Every Baptist knows William Carey, the father of modern missions. Few know the man who beat him to the field by a full decade. He was born a slave in Virginia, and he bought his passage to the mission field with two years of servitude. The fire he lit in Jamaica is still burning today.

Who Was George Liele?

George Liele was born around 1750 on a Virginia plantation. His owner, Henry Sharp, was a Baptist deacon, and when George came to faith in 1773, Sharp saw the gift on his life. The church ordained him in 1775, making him the first ordained Black Baptist preacher in America. Then Sharp did the unthinkable. He set George free to preach. When the war took Sharp’s life, his heirs tried to force George back into slavery, and he sat in jail until his freedom papers were produced. God still had an ocean for him to cross.

The First Baptist Missionary Sailed in 1782

When the British evacuated Savannah, George borrowed seven hundred dollars for passage to Jamaica and repaid it with two years of indentured labor. Then he began preaching in a Kingston house. Within a few years the congregation had grown to three hundred and fifty, and every three months George baptized new converts in the river. He never took a salary. He farmed and hauled freight to feed his family. The authorities charged him with preaching sedition and tried him for his life. He was acquitted, and he kept right on preaching. William Wilberforce was still years away from his own long fight against the slave trade. William Carey did not sail for India until 1793. By 1814, Jamaica held eight thousand Baptists.

God Remembers What History Forgets

The textbooks passed over George Liele for two centuries. Heaven never did. Scripture promises, “For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name” (Hebrews 6:10, NKJV). Maybe you serve where nobody applauds. Keep serving, the way Lottie Moon served her last Christmas in a Chinese village where almost no one back home was watching. The record that matters is kept by the God who sees. And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.

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