Lott Cary

Providence Baptist Church's old sanctuary, site of the signing of the Liberian Declaration of Independence in 1847.

Lott Cary (also in records as Lott Carey and Lott Gary) (1780 – November 10, 1828) was an African-American Baptist minister and lay physician who was an early missionary in and founder of the colony of Liberia in West Africa in the 1820s. He founded Liberia's first Baptist church in 1822, now known as Providence Baptist Church, in Monrovia. He served as the colony's acting colonial agent from August 1828 to his death in November that year.

Life Born into slavery in Charles City County, Virginia, Carey purchased his freedom and that of his children at the age of 33 after saving money from being hired out by his master in Richmond. He became a supervisor in a tobacco warehouse, as the city was a major port for exporting that commodity crop.

He emigrated in 1821 with his family to the new colony of Liberia, founded by the American Colonization Society for the resettlement of free people of color from the United States. Cary was one of the first black American missionaries and the first American Baptist missionary to Africa. He established the colony's first church, founded schools for natives, and helped lead the colony.

Early life and education In 1780, Lott Cary was born into slavery and humble surroundings in Charles City County, Virginia, on the plantation of John Bowry.

In 1804, his master, a planter and Methodist minister hired Cary out in Virginia's capital city of Richmond, about 25 miles away. Bowry had arranged a one-year-long contract for Cary to work at the Shockoe tobacco warehouse.

In 1807, Cary joined the First Baptist Church of Richmond, a congregation that included whites and African Americans. During the second Great Awakening and religious revivals of this period, Baptist and Methodist preachers recruited enslaved people into their congregations. Cary was baptized by its pastor, John Courtney. along with “Letters from Africa to Persons of Color in the United States.” Cary's first biographer describes how the journal and letters, which invited "the free colored people of the United States to come and join them" produced "an immediate determination in Lott Cary and Collin Teague to remove to Africa."

Colony of Liberia

The Rev. Lott Carey (note variation on spelling) heads the list of pastors who served from 1822 to 1971. By 1821, Cary had accumulated a sum to pay for his and his second wife's expenses for transportation to the new colony of Liberia on the African coast. He was giving up his property, purchased in Henrico County, and a good income. Cary became the first black American missionary to Africa.

After arrival, Cary quickly established Providence Baptist Church in Cape Montserado. The settlement was later designated as the capital and renamed Monrovia. In 1822, he helped mount the defense of the new colony against 1,500 natives. Today the much-altered house is used as a private residence. Virginia historical marker, V27-Lott Cary Birthplace, notes the site at the intersection of Virginia State Highways 155 and 602. Little is left of the original 18th-century house, which was likely John Bowry's plantation house. There is a strong oral tradition in the black community that this was Cary's birthplace. The site is marked historically to represent the man and his achievements and the significance of blacks in Virginia history. Lott Carey Baptist Secondary School, Afaha Obio Eno, Ibiono Ibom, Nigeria, is named after him.