We spend so little time reflecting on our Jamaican legacy and our heroes, those people of courage who have gone before us, I thought I would dedicate my Heritage Week column to telling the story of Baptist deacon James Finlayson, founder of the Brown's Town Baptist Church.

He was born a slave on Penhurst estate. He was baptized in 1829 by the Rev. Samuel Nichols in St. Ann's Bay, and led many local slaves to be baptized. Finlayson induced the Rev. Nichols to form a Baptist church in Brown's Town in 1831, and Finlayson became its first deacon.

Believing the Baptist Church to be fomenting discontent and revolt among the slaves, after the 1831 Sam Sharpe Rebellion members of the Colonial Church Union (founded by the Rev. Bridges, Anglican minister in St. Ann's Bay) used ropes and horses to tear down the Baptist Church in Brown's Town and the Methodist and Baptist chapels in St. Ann's Bay and Ocho Rios; they hung in effigy the Baptist and Methodist missionaries, all of whom were in hiding.

Burned

With all his churches burned, Rev. Nichols left St. Ann, which now had no Baptist minister. Finlayson kept the Brown's Town church alive while still a slave, holding instruction classes; he had learnt to read and write somewhat, and kept a diary, from which I now quote:

"In the time of Mashal Law when pasecution arises, all the Chappel was pulled down to the ground, and I took my Bibel and all my books and put them in a box, and carry it to a cave; and, when I get a little time, I go to the cave and sit myself down, and try to rede my Bibel, the little that I could rede, and it was very little, but it make me happy. When I go into the cave, and set me down, I feel that God is with me there.

"Then in three weeks I was sent for to go to Falmouth [to answer charges that he was a ringleader in Sam Sharpe's Rebellion], and all the way I going I ask for Christian people, but I could find none. Some meet me and ask me if I going to Falmouth, and I say 'Yes!' And they say to me 'If it is We, we would not go.' I say 'I am in the Hand of God,' and I go on. The morning when I start to go to Falmouth, all the children of the Class came to take relieve of me, and I did tink I would see them again, in the world above."

No harm came to him in Falmouth. There would have been no genuine evidence against him. His diary continues: "I return from Falmouth safe. The Lord brouth me back. The class children came that afternoon, and see me, and they did not know what to do with me. I say 'Come, let us fall down and give thanks to God for His Mercy - how He is so good to me and to you' I send to the Christians and call them to me, and I say to them: 'My brethren, hear my word. This tryal is to try our fate. What will we do? Shall we draw back? God forbid! We will see Minister come back again; and, if not, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, he will be our Minister'. We then agree to have the Lord's Supper every three months".

Secret midnight services

For the next two-and-a-half years he shepherded his church. The cave where he had hidden his Bible was their chapel, and he held secret midnight services there. He broke bread and poured wine; he excommunicated, and he performed marriages.

Their secret midnight cave meetings were finally discovered; Finlayson was sent to the 'House of Correction' in St. Ann's Bay where he was flogged unmercifully, under the direction of the doctor who stood by; and at intervals he was asked: 'Will you go to Parson Bridges' church?' "And all I can say is 'O Lord, O Lord!' and he say 'Flog on!' and they flog me most dreadful. Then after two weeks, the doctor come and see me, and say 'Turn that preacher out: he will die on your hands.' And I come out".

His brutal punishment and his trials in the workhouse were recorded by Joseph Sturge and used in England to support Emancipation. We have a heritage of resistance to oppression by the Jamaican state. We need more James Finlaysons today!