People often ask me who the unsung missionary heroes are. Meet Prince Williams.

The first black Baptist missionary to the Bahama Islands was Prince Williams, a freed black of South Carolina. Following the revolutionary war in 1777, he sailed in an open boat for these islands from Saint Augustine, Florida. Rev. Prince Williams preached in Nassau, baptized several natives, and organized a Baptist church about 1790. In 1801, he secured some land and built a small house of worship. Rev. Prince Williams called his new organization the Bethel Baptist Mission. An English missionary, Rev. Joseph Burton, was sent to Nassau in 1833; and by his advice Rev. Prince William, in reaction to the treachery of supposed friends, gave up his work in the Bethel Baptist Church. Subsequently, he organized the Saint John Baptist Church of Nassau where he remained until his death.

 Leroy Fitts, A History of Black Baptists (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1985), 110.