Short answers, pulled from the story.
1609 is the year considered the foundation of the Baptist tradition. That year, English Dissenters in Amsterdam, led by John Smyth and Thomas Helwys, baptized only professing believers and formed the first Baptist church.
Believer's baptism, or credobaptism, is baptism administered only to individuals who personally profess faith in Jesus Christ. Baptists perform it by full immersion in water and reject infant baptism on the grounds that the Bible neither commands nor exemplifies it.
In May 1845, Southern Baptist churches seceded from the Triennial Convention after the Home Mission Society refused in 1844 to appoint a slaveholder as a missionary. The breakaway churches founded the Southern Baptist Convention, believing the Bible sanctioned slavery.
The Baptist War, also called the Christmas Rebellion, was a major uprising of as many as 60,000 enslaved people in Jamaica organized by Baptist deacon Samuel Sharpe. It began as a general strike for better conditions, escalated into armed rebellion, and was suppressed by government troops within two weeks; an estimated 200 enslaved people were killed outright and more than 300 were judicially executed afterward.
According to researcher Sebastien Fath of the CNRS, the Baptist movement had around 170 million believers worldwide as of 2020. A Baptist World Alliance census released in 2025 counted 53 million baptized members across 178,000 churches in 138 countries, though some members may be counted multiple times due to dual affiliation.
General Baptists hold that Christ's atoning death extended to all of humanity, a position rooted in Arminian theology. Particular Baptists, also called Reformed or Calvinistic Baptists, believe atonement extended only to the elect; their defining doctrinal document is the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith.