St. Patrick’s Anglican Church, Tobago – Nation Builders

The St. Patrick’s Anglican Church in Mt. Pleasant, Tobago, was noted to have been built by the labour of enslaved Africans. It was commissioned in 1843 and is one of the oldest churches on the island. The church was built using fire bricks used as ballast on the merchant ships that transported sugar to the United Kingdom. The bricks were carried on the heads of the enslaved Africans from the Mt. Irvine Bay to the church site at Mt. Pleasant.

The grave of one of the longest surviving enslaved Africans who helped to build the church, Jane Lovell, is located prominently at the front of the church.

An annual Ancestral Walk is commemorated to pay respect to all the enslaved Africans who laboured to build the church.

 

Source:

Springer, P.E. African Heritage Sites in Trinidad and Tobago, Ministry of National Diversity and Social Integration, 2013.

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