Between 1760 and 1778, there were more than 150 major attacks against Baptists in the colony, most of them carried out by leaders of local Anglican churches. By one estimate, half of all the Baptist preachers in Virginia had been arrested by the time of the American Revolution. In “Imprisoned Preachers and Religious Liberty in Virginia”, we can see some on the many ways Baptists were persecuted for practicing and preaching their faith.

Source(s):

John A. Ragosta, Wellspring of Liberty: How Virginia’s Religious Dissenters Helped Win the American Revolution and Secured Religious Liberty (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2010), p. 32.

Lewis Peyton Little, Imprisoned Preachers and Religious Liberty in Virginia (Lynchburg: J. P. Bell, 1938), pp. 516–20.