St. Phillip's Anglican Church

St. Phillip's Anglican Church, also known as the African Church, in the Kingstown area of Tortola in British Virgin Islands, was built in 1840 by a community of Africans who had been liberated from illegal slave ships.By the early 21st century, the building had fallen into disrepair, as it had not been regularly used for decades. Efforts to stabilize the remains are underway; it is a unique historic site in the islands. Local historians claim it is the oldest free black church building to survive in the Americas. Although churches of free blacks were established at the turn of the 19th century in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States, their first church buildings have been replaced.HistoryGreat Britain prohibited the African slave trade under the Slave Trade Act 1807. The United States followed with its own prohibition, to go into effect in 1808. The Royal Navy patrolled the Caribbean to intercept foreign ships illegally carrying slaves to the Americas. Other parts of the fleet operated off Africa. In January 1808, HMS Cerberus seized the American schooner, the Nancy, with a cargo of enslaved Senegalese in the Territory's waters. It liberated the slaves and settled the Africans in the Bahamas.Between August 1814 and February 1815, the Royal Navy seized slave cargos from the Venus, the Manuella, the Atrevido, and the Candelaria. It deposited 1,318 liberated Africans on Tortola, which the government designated for free black settlement. In 1819, a Portuguese slave ship, the Donna Paula, was wrecked upon the reef at Anegada. The ship's crew and 235 slaves were saved from the wreckage, and taken to the islands. Other shipwrecks off Anegada were reported in 1817 and 1824. Liberated Africans sometimes died due to having suffered harsh conditions in the Middle Passage.