Baptists

In most of the colonies the Baptists were persecuted. In Rhode Island they were especially numerous. They had much to do with that agitation for religious liberty which culminated in the pa age of the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In 1762 there were fifty-six Baptist churches in the region now occupied by the United States; in 1792, 1,000; in 1812, 2,433; in 1832, 5,322; in 1852, 9,500; in 1872, 18,397. According to the census of 1900, there were in that year, of all varieties of Baptists, 49,721 church organizations, with 4,443,628 communicants. In 1845 the Baptists split into a northern and a southern body, because of differences arising out of the question of slavery. a Barataria, Pirates of, a band of Louisiana outlaws, who, under their chief Lafitte, rendered General Jackson material a istance in his Louisiana and New Orleans campeign in 1815. They had refused offers from the British. 64