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Protestant Missionaries in Cuba: Archival Records, Manuscript Collections, and Research Prospects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Louis A. Pérez Jr.
Louis A. Pérez Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of South Florida, Tampa
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They arrived first in July 1898 in scattered numbers, in the company of an army of conquest, and subsequently in successive waves during the military occupation. By the time U.S. military rule over Cuba came to an end in May 1902, no less than a score of Protestant denominations had inaugurated evangelical activities in Cuba, including Northern and Southern Baptists, Southern Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, the Disciples of Christ, Quakers, Pentecostalists, and Congregationalists. In fact, so many missionaries arrived in Cuba at one time that denominational competition quickly got out of hand. In February 1902, an interdenominational conference convened in Cienfuegos to impose order on the U.S. evangelical enterprise. The resulting comity plan established spheres of influence for the principal Protestant denominations in Cuba: Northern and Southern Baptists divided the island between them, with Northern Baptists in the two eastern provinces and Southern Baptists assigned to the four western ones; Quakers and Methodists divided eastern Cuba between them; Presbyterians and Congregationalists located their missions in the western zones; and Episcopalians concentrated in Matanzas and Santiago de Cuba.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , 1992 , pp. 105 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the University of Texas Press

References

Notes

1. The literature on Protestants in Cuba is voluminous. Most of this material consists of first-person narratives and hagiographical works extolling the evangelical enterprise in Cuba. Among representative titles, see Howard B. Grose, Advance in the Antilles (New York: Eaton and Maines, 1910); Henry L. Moorehouse, Ten Years in Eastern Cuba (New York: American Baptist Home Mission Society, 1910); Albion W. Knight, Lending a Hand in Cuba (Hartford, Conn.: Church Missions Publishing Company, 1916); Robert McLean and Grace Petrie Williams, Old Spain and New America (New York: Association Press, 1916); Charles Detweiler, Twenty Years in Cuba (New York: General Bond of the Northern Baptists Convention, 1923); Una Roberts Lawrence, Cuba for Christ (Atlanta, Ga.: Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1926); Sylvester Jones, Ideas y críticas acerca de la obra evangélica en Cuba (Havana: 1926); A. S. Rodríguez, La obra bautista en Cuba Occidental (Havana: 1930); Agustín López Muñoz, Apóstol bautista en la Perla Antillana (Caibarién: Editorial Federación, 1945); L. D. Newton, The Life of M. N. McCall, Missionary to Cuba (Atlanta, Ga.: Southern Baptist Convention, 1948); Edward Odell, It Came to Pass (New York: Board of National Missions, 1952); Sterling A. Neblett, Methodism's First Fifty Years in Cuba (Wilmore, Ky.: Asbury College, 1976); Hiram H. Hilty, Friends in Cuba (Richmond, Ind.: Friends United Press, 1977); and Marcos Ramos, Panorama del protestantismo en Cuba (Miami, Fla.: Editorial Caribe, 1986). Critical scholarly accounts include Margaret E. Crahan, “Religious Penetration and Nationalism in Cuba: U.S. Methodist Activities, 1892–1958,” Revista/Review Interamericana 8 (Summer 1978):104–224; and Harold Edward Greet, Jr., “History of Southern Baptist Missionary Work in Cuba, 1886–1916,” Ph.D. diss., University of Alabama, 1965.

2. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1902, 10 vols., edited by James D. Richardson (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1896–1902), 10:152.

3. Oliver Otis Howard, Fighting for Humanity (New York: F. Tennyson Neely, 1898), 20.

4. Leonard Wood to William McKinley, 12 Apr. 1900, Leonard Wood Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

5. Gorse, Advance in the Antilles, 130.