It is called Charles City County, Virginia. But there is no city there, not even a town or village in the rural county north of the James River. Early in the 1600s plantations and tobacco farms sprang up along the James, and farming continues to be the main occupation. It was in this rural Virginia county that Lott Carey was born about 1780.

Born into Slavery
Lott was born a slave on the estate of William A. Christian, about thirty miles from Richmond. Though his parents were illiterate, Lott's father was a respected member of the Baptist Church. When he was twenty-four, Lott was hired out as a laborer in the Shockhoe tobacco warehouse in Richmond. As a young man he was profane and given to drunkenness.

Born Again to a New Life
In 1807 Lott was converted and joined the First Baptist Church of Richmond. Hearing a sermon on John 3 caused Lott to want to learn to read the story of Nicodemus in John 3 for himself. Soon he learned to read and was licensed to preach by the church.

Lott was an excellent worker, and his efficiency, faithfulness and literacy soon earned him a promotion to shipping clerk in the tobacco warehouse. The merchants often rewarded him with an extra $5 and allowed him to collect and sell the waste pieces of tobacco. In 1813 Lott's wife died, but he was able to purchase his own freedom and that of his two young children with $850 he had saved. While preaching to the slave population around Richmond, Lott continued to work in the tobacco warehouse. He was able to purchase a house for $1,500 and see that his children received an education. By 1820 he was receiving an annual salary of $800.

In 1813, about the time Lott bought his freedom, William Crane from New Jersey came to Richmond and took an interest in the young blacks of the town. Crane worked with Lott Carey to organize the Richmond African Missionary Society. The Society collected funds for mission work in Africa and within five years had collected $700. The Richmond Society worked with the Triennial Baptist Convention and the American Colonization Society in sending missionaries to Africa. Lott Carey and Collin Teague, another Richmond free black, were chosen as missionaries to Africa.

When Carey announced he was going to Africa as a missionary, his employers at the tobacco warehouse offered him a $200 annual increase if he would stay on the job. Carey was not tempted; he wanted to be where his color was not a hindrance to useful service, and he was eager to preach the Gospel in Africa.

Shortly before Carey, Teague, and their families departed, William Crane gathered them and a few Baptists in the upper room of his Richmond home and organized the emigrants into the First Baptist Church of Monrovia, Liberia. On January 16, 1821, they set sail from Norfolk for West Africa. During the forty-four day journey across the Atlantic the missionaries held regular worship services. At the beginning of March they joined the other settlers of the American Colonization Society at Sierra Leone. Soon after their arrival, Lott's second wife died.

Off to Africa
Lott was more interested in missionary work among the natives than in establishing a colony, but in 1822 he moved to Monrovia. There he established the first church in Liberia, Providence Baptist Church, and ministered to the congregation as well as to native tribes. One native named John walked eighty miles to Monrovia from Cape Mount, adjacent to Sierra Leone. John had first heard of Christianity from the British but wanted to learn more. Under Lott Carry's ministry he was converted and baptized. He returned to his people with Bibles and hymnbooks and iron bars used in trade.