This is not an area of great study on my part, so I am welcome to hearing from others on this one. When I was young, the answer was simple… It was Adoniram (and Ann) Judson. They traveled to India under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (a Congregationalist missions entity) in 1812.

But then I learned that another American traveled to foreign lands before the Judsons. In fact, George (and Hannah) Lisle traveled to Jamaica in 1783 to do mission work, five years before Judson was even born.

Now, I have heard some arguments as to why Judson should be considered the first. Two that I have heard are that (1) Lisle was a slave, and (2) He was not sent out by a church.

I so cannot see the logic of the first point that I wonder whether it is more of a straw man argument. After all, Lisle went to Jamaica by choice. In fact, he was an African-American freeman. He chose to go to Jamaica to serve in a missions capacity, and used indentured servanthood as the mechanism or platform to do so.

The second point might be a bit stronger. It does not seem as if Lisle was sent out formally by a church— although he was most definitely involved with the “Ethiopian Baptist” church in Savannah, Georgia. Judson was formally sent out by the ABCFM— the mission arm of the Congregationalist churches of New England. But even that fact deserves an “asterix” by it. After all, Judson may have been sent out by the Congregationalists, but he and his wife changed denomination to Baptist before they arrived in their mission field. The ABCFM disconnected from their work, and only through later work by Luther Rice, did Baptist churches in the US embrace the role of sender for the Judsons.

I have known missionaries who have been “self-sent” or perhaps “sent by God” but with no formal church sender. Should they be considered missionaries? Ideally they should be sent by a church. But the Twelve were sent by Jesus, not a church. Philip, in Acts 8 seems to have embraced a missionary role without being sent. The same seems to apply to Apollos. More to the point, if Lisle was not a missionary, what was he? He evangelized non-Christians in a cross-cultural setting, leading thousands to Christ in his lifetime, planted churches, and trained up church leaders. He did the work of a missionary, and frankly did so in a denomination that has never been very strict in defining religious offices.

That being said, I suppose one might argue that George Lisle was not the first American because he left the US before the Treaty of Versailles was passed ending the Revolutionary War. However, the US officially identifies as existing from 1776. Also, the term “American” is not limited to citizens of the USA anyway.

I feel it safe to say that George Lisle is the first American missionary to foreign lands. This does not disparage Judson. It does not disparage William Carey who went to India 10 years after Lisle went to Jamaica. They all share important roles in early Protestant (as well as Baptist) missions.