In the 1750s, the British Colony of Georgia made slavery legal within the colony. A group of European-descended planters and slaveowners in areas of South Carolina, most notably near Dorchester, applied for and received land grants. They began moving to the Midway area in what was then St. Johns Parish, now Liberty County, and brought with them about three times their number in enslaved Africa-descended people, who were forced to create and work the rice, cotton, and indigo plantations. Liberty County has been majority African American ever since. Due to harsh conditions in coastal Georgia, the planter families often moved inland to higher ground for parts of the year, leaving the enslaved people isolated on the plantations where they developed their unique Geechee culture.

Much of life in the Midway area centered around the Midway Congregational Church and Society, founded by the planters in 1752. The church building was burned by the British during the Revolutionary War, but was re-built in 1792, and that building still stands today on Highway 17. The Midway Church has had both White and Black members since its earliest days. The first Black members were admitted on June 26, 1756: Scipio and Judy. Records of the names of all the Africa-descended church members still exist today and have been transcribed on this site. In 1867, after the Civil War, as many of the White members fled the area or left for other churches, the Black members petitioned to rent the building and form their own Church. They thus saved this historic church building. These members later founded the Midway First Presbyterian Church. The First African Baptist Church in Riceboro is the oldest African American church still existing in Liberty County, dating from before the Civil War.