Baptists in America: A History

by Thomas S. Kidd

A group of Baptists from South Carolina similarly journeyed to Mississippi in the 1780s in search of fertile farmland. They suffered an attack by Cherokee Indians as they traversed the Tennessee River near the present-day site of Chattanooga, but they eventually made it to a settlement near the Mississippi River north of Natchez and began worshiping in private homes. They formally organized a church in 1791, with seven charter members who committed to the doctrines of baptism “according to the apostolic mode” and “particular redemption.” Following the American Revolution, the British had ceded West Florida, including lower Mississippi, to the Spanish, who made Catholicism the official religion of the territory. As the Baptists began to spread in the 1790s, Spanish authorities ordered Baptist minister Richard Curtis and his followers to “desist from their heretical psalm-singing, praying and preaching,” or they would send them to the silver mines of Mexico. They did not desist, and Curtis was arrested and hauled before the Spanish territorial governor. He was released when he promised to obey the laws of the province, but the threat of a second detention caused him to flee back to South Carolina. When the United States assumed control of the Mississippi Territory in 1798, Curtis returned and established the Salem Church.