Editing Southern Baptist Convention (section)

===Colonial era===
[[File:First Baptist Church, South of Broad, Charleston, SC (49550230557).jpg|thumb|[[First Baptist Church (Charleston, South Carolina)|First Baptist Church]] in [[Charleston, South Carolina]]]]
Most early Baptists in the British colonies came from England in the 17th century, after conflict with the [[Church of England]] for their dissenting religious views.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Origins of the Particular Baptists|url=https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/origins-of-the-particular-baptists/|access-date=2020-07-21|website=The Gospel Coalition|language=en-US|author-last1=Belyea|author-first1=Gordon L.}}</ref> In 1638, [[Roger Williams]] founded the first Baptist church in [[British America]] at the [[Providence Plantations]], the first permanent European American settlement also founded by Williams in Rhode Island. The oldest Baptist church in the South, [[First Baptist Church (Charleston, South Carolina)|First Baptist Church]] of [[Charleston, South Carolina]], was organized in 1682 under the leadership of [[William Screven]].<ref>{{Citation | title = Baptist Pioneers in America | publisher = Mainstream Baptists | url = http://www.mainstreambaptists.org/mbn/pioneers.htm | access-date = 3 Feb 2013}}.</ref> A Baptist church was formed in [[Virginia]] in 1715 through the preaching of [[Robert Norden]] and another in [[North Carolina]] in 1727 through the ministry of [[Paul Palmer (minister)|Paul Palmer]].

The Baptists adhered to a [[congregationalist polity]]. They operated independently of the state-established [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] churches in the Southern United States at a time when states prohibited non-Anglicans from holding political office. By 1740, about eight Baptist churches existed in the colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, with an estimated 300 to 400 members.<ref name="Southern Baptist Beginnings">{{cite web|url= http://www.baptisthistory.org/sbaptistbeginnings.htm|title= Southern Baptist Beginnings|first= Robert A|last= Baker|publisher= Baptist History & Heritage Society|year= 1979|access-date= 2012-10-28|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121018074627/http://www.baptisthistory.org/sbaptistbeginnings.htm|archive-date= October 18, 2012}}</ref> New members, both black and white, were converted chiefly by Baptist preachers who traveled throughout the Southern United States during the 18th and 19th centuries, in the eras of the [[First Great Awakening|First]] and [[Second Great Awakening]]s.{{sfn|Taylor|1859|pp=57, 60, 71, 83}}

Black churches were founded in Virginia, South Carolina, and [[Province of Georgia|Georgia]] before the [[American Revolution]]. Some black congregations kept their independence even after whites tried to exercise more authority after [[Nat Turner's Rebellion]] of 1831.{{Sfn | Raboteau | 2004 |p=178–79}}