Anglicanism is one of the oldest Protestant faiths in Latin America and the Caribbean yet today represents only a small fraction of the non-Roman Catholic Christianity on the continent. The region has long been peripheral to Anglicanism, with the possible exception of the West Indies (given their more direct links to British colonialism), although some significant aspects of the Anglican worldwide mission strategy hinged on critical issues experienced in the area, particularly as regards the connections between mission, colonialism, slave trade and labour, and massive immigration. Only in the mid-twentieth century, at Lambeth 1958 and 1968, after almost 150 years of Anglican presence in Latin America, did the Anglican Communion openly acknowledge the latter's importance.

The colonial dilemmas of rendering compatible personal faith, pastoral care, institution-building and geopolitical interests that the combination of Christian mission and imperialist expansion intertwine found lasting expressions in the region. On the one hand, the Church of England decidedly refused to missionise in ‘Catholic countries’. On the other hand, tensions developed between catering for expatriate communities – businesspeople, technicians and working-class immigrants – and reaching out to marginalised Indigenous groups and carrying out missionary work among national majorities.

Eventually, such apparent dilemmas gave way and the intimations of modern state-building, economic development and cultural autonomy in Latin America also found expression within Anglicanism. Questions of growth, institutionalisation and positioning in the wider context of a postcolonial Anglican communion took many years to be worked out even at the most basic level. Challenges of autonomy, self-support, small numbers and how to address critical issues of the present in the communion and in their own social settings continue to weigh heavily on the development of these churches. However, as will be seen, their trajectory has also left marks and contributions within the wider communion. This chapter will seek to spell them out by providing a brief account of that trajectory before pausing for a closer look at the current trends and features of the five Anglican provinces established in the continent.

Laying Roots, Connecting National Identities

The arrival of Anglicanism coincided with a transition period in Britain's political and economic interests in the Americas. Already in the seventeenth century, Britain was involved in direct colonisation, in the Caribbean, Central and North America.