James Phillippo

James Phillippo (1798,Norfolk, England – 11 May 1879, Spanish Town, Jamaica) was an English Baptist missionary in Jamaica who campaigned for the abolition of slavery. He served in Jamaica from 1823 to his death, with some periods lobbying in England for funds to support his work on the island. He led the founding of several Free Villages, having gained funds to grant freedmen and their families plots of land for farming in villages independent of planter control. He also wrote and published three books about Jamaica.

Phillippo was among a small group of Baptist missionaries assigned by the Baptist Missionary Society to Jamaica in the 1820s. They were directed to stay away from commenting on the institution of slavery, which planters depended on for their lucrative sugar cane production. The island population was overwhelmingly ethnic African, with some free people of color and the minority whites.

Philippo sailed from England for Jamaica in 1823 and arrived at a time of great transition: Britain had banned the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, and in 1823 propositions to abolish slavery itself were brought in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. They were initially rejected with little hope of success. Despite Parliament's failure to pass the legislation, British mission workers in Jamaica, especially Baptists, were criticized by planters and 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 missionaries preaching 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, believing that this made the slaves discontented with their station. Some opponents reacted by burning down missionary churches and schools for slaves.

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