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Religion and History in Saint Kitts and Nevis

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Religion and History in Saint Kitts and Nevis

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Saint Kitts and Nevis, a two-island federation and the smallest sovereign state in the Americas by both land area and population, was the first English colony in the Caribbean, founded in 1623, and its religious institutions reflect nearly four centuries of continuous Anglican and later broader Protestant presence: the Anglican Church, Methodist and Moravian congregations, the last tracing to eighteenth-century missionary work among enslaved plantation laborers, together with a growing Pentecostal and evangelical presence, make up the large majority of a population whose sugar-plantation economy once made these two small islands among the most valuable colonial possessions in the Caribbean.

A significant Roman Catholic minority and small numbers of Rastafarians, Baha'is and Muslims round out the religious landscape. The federation's unusual constitutional structure, granting Nevis its own island legislature with a stated right to secede that has twice come close to a formal vote, has occasionally put island identity ahead of national identity in local politics, though the two islands' Protestant churches have generally functioned as a shared institution rather than dividing along the same lines as island politics.

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Sources
Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
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