Research and history concerning Barbados

To : Catherine Seo

From : Edward Ellies

Date : 4/20/2008

Re : Barbados Presentation



I thought this introduction to be of the utmost importance for those of us who may not know of Barbados and or its location. The role this beautiful Island plays in the creation of the world in which we all live is so very relevant to the ways we live abroad. Barbados is situated just to the east of the Caribbean Sea, is an independent island nation in the western Atlantic Ocean. Found at roughly 13° North and 59° west, the country lies in the Southern Caribbean region where it is a part of the Lesser Antilles island-chain. Being that it is relatively close to the South American continent, Barbados is around 434 Kilometers (270miles) northeast of Venezuela. The closest island neighbors to Barbados are Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to the west. Grenada is to the south-west and Trinidad and Tobago to the south which Barbados now shares a fixed official maritime boundary with.
Barbados' total land-area is about 430square kilometers, (166square miles), and is primarily low-lying, with some higher regions in the island's interior. The organic composition of Barbados is thought to be of non-volcanic origin and is predominantly composed of limestone and coral. The island's atmosphere is tropical with constant trade winds off the Atlantic Ocean serving to keep temperatures mild. Some more undeveloped areas of the country contain woodland and scrubland. Other parts of the island's interior which contribute to the agriculture industry are dotted with large sugarcane estates and wide gently sloping pastures with many good views down to the sea coast.
Barbados has one of the highest standards of living and literacy rates in the developing world. Despite its small geographical size, Barbados constantly ranks in the top 30 (or 31) countries in the Human Development Index (HDI) rankings. It is currently ranked third in the Americas. The island is also a major tourist destination. As we may or may not know, Barbados is where my mother was born and a place I have visited many times as a child. This Island speaks volumes, both of origins and birth rights! I am planning on returning to Barbados to live out the rest of my life within the next five years so I think it necessary to look at its History. Through research, this is what I have found, as follows;
The earliest inhabitants of Barbados were American nomads. Three waves of migrants moved north toward North America. The first wave was of the Saladoid-Barrancoid group, whom were farmers and fishermen, arrived by canoe from South America (Venezuela’s Orinoco Valley) around350 CE. The Arawak people were the second wave of migrants, arriving from South America around800 CE. Arawak settlements on the island include Stroud Point, Chandler Bay, Saint Luke’s Gully and Mapp’s Cave. According to accounts by descendants of the aboriginal Arawak tribes on other local islands, the original name for Barbados was Ichirouganaim. In the thirteenth century, the Caribs arrived from South America in the third wave, displacing both the Arawak and the Salodoid-Barrancoid. For the next few centuries, the Caribs—like the Arawak and the Salodoid-Barrancoid—lived in isolation on the island.
The origin of the name Barbados is controversial. It is unknown whether the Spanish or the Portuguese were the first to discovered and named the island. As early as 1511, the island is referred to as Isla de los Barbados (island of the bearded ones) in an official Spanish document. It is a matter of conjecture whether the word "bearded" refers to the long hanging roots of the bearded fig-tree (ficus citrifolia) indigenous to the island, bearded Amerindians occupying the island, or, indeed, from foam spraying over the outlying reefs giving the impression of a beard. In 1519, a map produced by the Genoese mapmaker Vesconte de Maggiola showed and named Barbados in its correct position north of Tobago.
Spanish Conquistadors seized many Caribs on Barbados and used them as slave labor on plantations. Other Caribs fled the island.
British sailors who landed on Barbados in 1625 at the site of present-day Holetown on the Caribbean coast found the island uninhabited. From the arrival of the first British settler’s in1627–1628 until independence in1966, Barbados was under uninterrupted British control. Nevertheless, Barbados always enjoyed a large measure of local autonomy. Its House of Assembly began meeting in1639. Among the initial important British figures was Sir William Courten.
Starting in the 1620s, an increasing number of black slaves were brought to the isle. 5000 locals died of fever in 1647, and hundreds of slaves were executed by Royalist planters during the English Civil War in the 1640s, because they feared that the ideas of the Levelers might spread to the slave population if Parliament took control of Barbados.
Large numbers of Celtic people, mainly from Ireland and Scotland, went to Barbados as indentured servants. Over the next several centuries the Celtic population was used as a buffer between the Anglo-Saxon plantation owners and the larger African population, variously serving as members of the Colonial militia and playing a strong role as allies of the larger African slave population in a long string of colonial rebellions. As well, in 1659, the English shipped many Irishmen and Scots off to Barbados as slaves, and King James11 and others of his dynasty also sent Scots and English off to the isle: for example, after the crushing of the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685. The modern descendants of this original slave population are sometimes derisively referred to as Red Legs, or locally 'ecky becky' and are some of the poorest inhabitants of modern Barbados. There has also been large scale intermarriage between the African and Celtic populations on the islands. I find this not only interesting that I uncoverd these fact though this research, but I should fit right in, for I to am part of an interracial marriage.
With the increase implementation of slave codes which created differential treatment between Africans and the White settlers, the island became increasingly unattractive to poor whites. Black and or Slave codes in 1661, 1676, 1682, and 1688. In response to these codes several slave rebellions where attempted or planned during this time but none succeeded. However increasingly repressive legal system caused the gap between the treatments of typically white indentured servants and black slaves to increase. Imported slaves became much more attractive for the rich planters who would increasingly dominate the island not only economically but also politically. Some have speculated that because the Africans could withstand tropical diseases and the climate much better than the white slave population the white population decreased. This is inconsistent with that fact that many poor whites simply immigrated to neighboring islands and remained in tropical climates. Nevertheless as those poor whites who had or acquired the means to emigrate often did so, and with the increased importation of African slave, Barbados turned from mainly Celtic in the seventeenth century to overwhelmingly black by the nineteenth century.
As the sugar industry developed into its main commercial enterprise, Barbados was divided into large plantation estates that replaced the small holdings of the early British settlers. Some of the displaced farmers moved to British colonies in North America, most notably South Carolina. To work the plantations, West Africans were transported and enslaved on Barbados and other Caribbean islands. The slave trade increased in1804. The continuation of slavery caused, in1861, the largest major slave rebellion in the isle's history. One thousand people died in the revolt for freedom, with 144 slaves executed and 123 deported by the king's army. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire eighteen years later in1834. In Barbados and the rest of the British West Indian colonies, full emancipation from slavery was preceded by an apprenticeship period that lasted six years.
However, plantation owners and merchants of British descent still dominated local politics, owing to the high income qualification required for voting. More than 70% of the population, many of them un-enfranchised women were excluded from the democratic process. It was not until the 1930s that the descendants of emancipated slaves began a movement for political rights. One of the leaders of this movement, Sir Gantley Adams, founded the Barbados Labor Party, then known as the Barbados Progressive League, in1938. Though a staunch supporter of the monarchy, Adams and his party demanded more for the poor and for the people. Progress toward a more democratic government in Barbados was made in1942, when the exclusive income qualification was lowered and women were given the right to vote. By 1949 governmental control was wrested from the planters and, in1958, Adams became Premier of Barbados.
From 1958 to1962, Barbados was one of the ten members of the West Indies Federation, an organization doomed by nationalistic attitude and by the fact that its members, as colonies of Britain, held limited legislative power. Adams' leadership of the Federation (he served as its first and only "Prime Minister"), his failed attempts to form similar unions, and his continued defiance of the monarchy demonstrated that he was no longer in touch with the needs of his country. Errol Walton Barrow, a fervent reformer, became the new people's advocate. Barrow had left the BLP and formed the Democratic Labor Party as a liberal alternative to Adams' conservative government. To this day, Barrow remains a beloved hero in the eyes of Barbadians, as it was he who instituted many of the reforms and programs currently in place, including free education for all Barbadians, regardless of class or color, and the School Meals system. By 1961, Barrow had replaced Adams as Premier and the DLP controlled the government.
With the Federation dissolved, Barbados had reverted to its former status, that of a governing colony. The island negotiated its own independence at a constitutional conference with the United Kingdom in June1966. After years of peaceful and democratic progress, Barbados finally became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on November 30, 1966, with Errol Barrow its first Prime Minister.
This information was very helpful in planning my return to Barbados for now I have a very in-depth look at what people and back-rounds make up the island paradise!

Thank you,
Edward R. Ellies