A book covering the persecution of the spiritual Baptists here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines as well as the wider Caribbean is set to be launched later today, Friday October 18th.
The book, titled Against Toleration: Britain’s Persecution of the Spiritual Baptists, is written by Historian Claudius K Fergus, who, in an interview with WE FM News, said he was compelled to write it as the persecution of the Spiritual Baptists went against the grain of British constitutionalism.
Mr. Fergus said this sparked his curiosity as to why something of this nature was sanctioned by the British Government in the first place.
‘The research covers St. Vincent about half of the content might be on St. Vincent, on Trinidad and Tobago and also on Grenada as the three colonies as they were then known were the three colonies where the Baptists were under persecution.
We can say from 1912 beginning with St. Vincent, then 1917, Trinidad and Tobago, and then from 1927 the Baptists were prohibited in Grenada. And this is a topic that attracted me because it was one that seemed to go against the grain of British constitutionalism, which I was a bit familiar. I’m not an expert, but I was familiar with the British constitution in terms of the rights of conscience. And this prohibition was a gross violation of that constitutional right to conscience. And my interest was in finding out why it managed to get the sanction of the British government, knowing that it was a violation of the British constitution.’
Against Toleration: Britain’s Persecution of the Spiritual Baptists will be launched at 4:30 PM today at the Curator’s Lodge of the Botanical Gardens.
