Island Hopping Barbados History

ISLAND HPPING

A Brief History of Barbados

Barbados is less that one million years old, being created by the collision of the Atlantic and Caribbean plates, along with a volcanic eruption. Barbados is geologically unique, being actually two landmasses that merged over the years. As with all the islands of the Caribbean, the first settlers on Barbados were Amerindians that arrived on the islands somewhere between 2,000-1,500 BC. Recent radiocarbon dating of shell tools place the first Arawakan settlers in the vicinity of Heywoods, just south of the Port St. Charles development, around 1630 BC, this of course means that area in and around Heywoods has been inhabited for over 3,600 years! By now, you probably know that the Caribs followed the Arawaks up the chain of islands, killing them and enslaving their women. However no evidence of Carib inhabitation has been found on Barbados, leading some experts to theorize that the Caribs only visited the island from nearby St. Vincent or St. Lucia. The Caribs continued to visit Barbados even after the British arrived on the island and who documented some of the Caribs’ comings and goings.

Interestingly, unlike most of the other islands of the Caribbean, Columbus never “discovered” Barbados. There is no record of the Admiral of All Oceans even sailing by the island and the early Spanish explorers ignored Barbados in their search for gold. The first mention of the island in recorded history is on December 23, 1511, when King Ferdinand of Spain permitted Spanish slaving expedition to Los Barbudos. It was a group of early Portuguese explorers that named her Los Barbudos after the “bearded” fig trees that they found there. Other tales tell of a race of bearded men who were said to be Barbados’ pre-European settlers. Experts point out that this is unlikely as the Arawaks were not bearded, while other “experts” say the bearded men were of African origin, which opens up all sorts of theories about how these people got to Barbados in the first place.

The British arrived in 1625 when Captain John Powell landed near today’s Holetown and claimed Barbados for the King of England, James I, who unbeknownst to Powell had passed away on his voyage across the Atlantic. Two years later the first true attempt at colonization was funded by a London merchant, Sir William Courteen, and on February 27, 1627, 80 mostly male British settlers let by Captain John Powell’s brother Henry, and 10 slaves who were captured from a Spanish vessel, arrived on the leeward coast of Barbados near Holetown and named their settlement Jamestown. These first settlers did not own land; rather they kept small plots of land and a slave or a white indentured servant to work the land. At this time, only people with social connections and good financial backgrounds were allocated land in Barbados proving once again that it’s not what you know, but who you know. The indentured servants agreed to work for a period of up to ten years for a small plot of land or a sum of money payable at the end of their indentureship to get the workers started. Many of these indentured servants were white men and women who signed an agreement to serve a particular planter for a period of 5-7 years. Most employers reneged on their agreements and the majority of the indentured servants moved on to North America or other Caribbean islands. Many of the indentured servants that remained, called Red Legs, still live in Barbados today in the St. Martin’s River area and other eastern shore regions. Besides slaves and indentured servants, some of the Bajan workforce of the day were kidnapped, while others were convicted criminals who chose a life in the cane fields of Barbados over life in a British prison.

The settlers at Jamestown were successful in their efforts and the profits from their tobacco, indigo, cotton, and ginger crops went directly to their expedition’s financial backer, the island’s “owner”, Sir William Courteen. Courteen was an able administrator, but his successor, the Earl of Carlisle was quite the opposite, ambitious and driven. In the 1630’s, the Earl of Carlisle succeeded in convincing King Charles I to grant him certain rights to Barbados, which conflicted with Courteen’s own agreements. The Earl of Carlisle then sent his own band of settlers to the southwestern tip of Barbados in the vicinity of Bridgetown setting up a confrontation between himself and Courteen and which later became known as the Great Barbados Robbery. Stunned by the turn of events, Courteen turned to his friend, the Earl of Pembroke, to assist him in getting his rights to Barbados restored. King Charles I agreed and then in a turnabout, re-granted ownership to Carlisle who had pulled many strings to achieve his goal.

Political parrying between Courteen and Carlisle continued and the islanders suffered as they also had to deal with a drought and a decrease in food production. Across the pond in England, Carlisle pushed for an increase in his export profits at the expense of the islanders and as a result the 1630’s became known as the “starving time”. In 1639, Carlisle appointed Henry Hawkley as Governor of Barbados who was described as relentless and scheming and not at all received well by the local planters. To appease the powerful planters Hawkley set up a House of Assembly making many of the white landowners representatives. Barbados at this time, being far from Britain and out of the reach of treaties and enforcement, became a bit of a haven for gamblers, fortune hunters, political outcasts, and all manner of rogues. A local Captain complained about Hawkley’s appointments to the island’s Judge saying, “If all the whore-masters were taken off the beach, what would the Governor do for a council?”

The population increased on Barbados until by 1643, there were some 37,000 whites and 6,000 black slaves on the island, nearly all engaged in farming. In 1647 a yellow fever epidemic swept Barbados which took both plantation owners as well as slaves, several plantations were left to whomever could manage them as their owners passed away.

The 1640’s brought the English Civil War and Bajans did their best to remain neutral. When Oliver Cromwell took over England and Charles I was executed in 1649, the Royalists (Cavaliers), who were in the majority on Barbados and who opposed Cromwell, began open hostilities with the opposing Roundheads. During this period, if any Bajan called another Bajan a Cavalier or Roundhead as a joke, they had to invite their victim and all who had heard the jest to dinner. Eventually the Roundheads were deported to England where they reported to Cromwell that the Royalists were involved with trading with the Dutch who were enemies at the time. In retaliation, Cromwell sent a fleet carrying 4,000 troops to Barbados in 1651 and Bajan Governor Lord Willoughby and his troops surrendered to the British forces after a fierce battle at Oistins. The year 1652 saw the enactment of the Charter of Barbados in which the islanders had to pledge allegiance to the Crown, but were allowed the right of self-government and free-trade. This latter agreement did not last long as Cromwell reinforced a previous trade act banning foreign trade, which seriously damaged the burgeoning sugar industry on Barbados. After years of protests from the Bajan planters, a compromise was reached in 1663, which allowed free trade, but added in a 4.5% export tax and which lasted until 1837.

So, by the 1650’s, sugar had made its appearance on the island and most of the forests had been removed to make way for large sugar cane plantations. Barbados entered a period of great prosperity and for the white upper class Bajans the island became “the brightest jewel in the English Crown” as Barbados became the first country in the New World to plant sugar and export it on a large scale. The man accredited with the birth of the sugar industry on Barbados was a Dutch Jew named Pieter Blower who had learned the sugar cane business in Brazil and brought this knowledge with him to Barbados in 1637.

During this sugar boom, more and more slaves arrived on the island, delivered by Portuguese and Dutch slavers who brought slaves from many diverse tribes that hailed from West Africa. As I mentioned, in 1643 there were approximately 6,000 slaves on the island, but by 1685, the numbers increased to 60,000 slaves, outnumbering the white Bajans by over three to one. Strict laws were enacted for the capture and punishment of runaway slaves, even passing laws, which prohibited slaves from playing drums, blowing horns, and assembling in any sort of group. For those slaves who broke the law, the actions of the trained militia was said to be particularly brutal. The British Parliament granted planters in the West Indies the right to “...fight, kill, slay, repress and subdue all such as shall in a hostile or mutinous manner...disturb the peace.” On top of all this, Royalist prisoners from the recent Civil War were sold into slavery on Barbados and a group of these white slaves plotted a revolt that failed and 18 of the white slaves were summarily executed.

Slave revolts were occurring all over the Caribbean during these years, with many runaway slaves hiding in the mountainous interiors of islands such as Jamaica and St. Vincent. In Barbados revolts occurred in 1675, 1683, 1686, 1692, and 1702, but Bajan topography was not conducive to successful hiding. In 1807 the slave trade was abolished by Parliament and in 1815 a bill was passed that declared that all slaves in the West Indies had to be registered so as to control any black market slave trading activity and which led to another slave rebellion. Bajan planters saw this registration law as a threat to their self-government, however the slaves mistakenly thought the law was intended to free them and their resentment of their white owners grew. A slave named Bussa (now a Bajan National Hero), a ranger on Bayley’s Plantation in St. Phillip, started an uprising on Easter Sunday, April 14, 1816, on the Bayley Plantation which quickly spread to other plantations across the island. After troops from St. Ann’s Fort squashed what came to be known as Bussa’s Rebellion, hundreds of slaves, including Bussa, had been killed and a fifth of the Bajan sugar crop had been destroyed.

Bussa’s Rebellion was a victory of sorts for the slaves as it triggered reforms and was one more step on the road to Emancipation. Abolitionists took up the cause and in 1834 slavery was abolished and the 84,000 slaves on Barbados suddenly found themselves apprentices, which meant that they would continue to work for their plantation masters, with food, clothing, and shelter provided in exchange for a 45-hour workweek. In reality, the freed slaves weren’t much better off than before. The planters did not wish to lose their labor force, they feared that the freed slaves would immigrate to other Caribbean islands and so they did what they could to convince them to stay on Barbados. The planters finally realized that they could realize greater profits with a freed labor force than with their apprenticed help for whom they had to provide. On August 1, 1838, the former slaves were freed from their apprenticeships however a law was passed binding the freed slaves to their plantations as tenants. The planters would house the former slaves in tiny houses and charge them rent, virtually stripping the workers of their rights. This kept the Bajan sugar industry from a decline of the planter class as had happened on other Caribbean islands with Emancipation and allowed the Bajan plantation economy to grow steadily between 1838 and the 1870’s. In 1843, Samuel Jackson Prescod, the son of a white planter and slave mother, became the first non-white Member of Parliament. Prescod was a powerful voice for the plight of the downtrodden on Barbados and helped found the Liberal Party. Five years after Prescod’s death in 1871 Barbados found itself in the middle of a governmental shake-up that pitted whites against blacks and the rich against the poor

In 1876, Britain proposed that Barbados link with the other Windward Islands and Bajan Governor John Pope Hennessy tried to accept his fellow Bajans to accept this idea. However, many Bajans wanted no part of this scheme having self-governed for over two centuries. Plantation owners feared losing their work force to planters on other islands that paid higher wages while Bajan workers favored the union for the very same reason. The arguments for and against the move grew heated and blood was spilled when riots erupted in April of 1876 as black workers reacted violently against the stubborn planters. Hennessy took the heat for these riots and was transferred to Hong Kong and the planned Windward Islands association was shelved and by the end of the 1800s the plantation system with its cheap labor was still dominant on Barbados.

The twentieth century brought the end of the sugar boom on Barbados as cheap European sugar beets priced Bajan sugar right out of the market. Planters, who owned over 90% of the island, had to lay off workers, most of whom had no choice but to emigrate. Between 1904 and 1914, over 20,000 Bajan workers left for Central America to build the Panama Canal while others left for Brazil, Guiana, Trinidad, Curacao, and anywhere else that showed the promise of steady employment. Many canal workers were successful and were able to send money home to their families until finally returning to Barbados with U.S dollars in every pocket. Some of these returning canal workers purchased land from the planters who were forced to sell off their part or all of their properties to pay their mounting debts during the early part of the 1900’s when the number of plantations dropped from 437 to 305 in twenty years while large portions of some estates were converted into villages where anybody was free to reside.

Starting around 1850, planters hired chemists, botanists, and all sorts of researchers to develop new and better fertilizers which would result in a new type of sugar cane, which could open a new market for the depressed sugar economy and there were certain advances made with profitable results. A hurricane in 1898 killed 80 people, blew down some 18,000 houses (mostly worker’s shacks), and increased incidences of dysentery and typhoid. In the aftermath of the 1898 hurricane, £50,000 was granted to Barbados for plantation repairs and Barbados began to gain a bit from the British and U.S. sugar markets. A cholera epidemic in 1854 killed over 15,000 Bajans, and a smallpox epidemic in 1902, followed by a yellow fever epidemic in 1908, struck the poorer labor force hard although the upper class Bajans were hardly affected.

The depression of the 1920’s was felt hard in the Bajan work force, especially those who had returned from the Panama Canal construction projects in 1914 and were used to having a bit of money. A lot of the work force returned to a tenant status and wages during these years for plantation workers were the same as those of almost a century before, one-shilling (five pence) per day. New political movements arose during these years in response to the people’s need. Charles Duncan O’Neal, a doctor, devoted his life to the improvement of the lives of the Bajan masses much as Samuel Prescod had done a century before. In 1924, O’Neal formed the Democratic League, the first of several political forces that were to shape Barbados’ future. The Democratic League was popular among middle class non-white Bajans and many won seats in the Barbados House Of Assembly including O’Neal himself in 1932. O’Neal, also was instrumental in forming the Workingman’s Association in 1925 which, along with the Democratic League, were influential in the formation of the Barbados Labour Party in 1938 and the Barbados Worker’s Union in 1941, both of which fought for Bajan worker’s rights.

Marcus Garvey (see the section on Rastafarians in the chapter entitled The Basics) brought his message to the dissatisfied segment of the Bajan population and brought about riots in the streets in 1937. Sparked by an orator named Clement Payne (a Trinidadian by birth though his parents and siblings were born on Barbados) who advocated trade unions in defiant speeches in Bridgetown, Bajan authorities deported him on July 16, 1937. Crowds gathered to protest his deportation and the outrage they felt exploded into violence that lasted for three days and moved into the rural areas as well with protesters bemoaning the fact that over 70% of the population of Barbados was not allowed to vote.

But the riots of 1937 were not in vain, a new movement was born of the unrest with Grantley Adams at the helm. Adams was the son of a Bajan teacher and had studied law at Oxford before returning to Barbados in 1925. In 1934 he was elected to the House of Assembly and carried on his fight for Bajan rights and social justice. In 1938 Adams helped form the Barbados Labour Party with Charles O’Neal and C.A. Braitwhite. The Labour Party won its first victory in 1940 when it gained five seats in the House of Assembly and Adams and his Labour Party set about to modernize the Bajan political system changing it from a feudal plantocracy to a modern democracy even though the Legislature was still controlled by white planters giving every Bajan adult the right to vote in 1951. Within two decades, Barbados made significant strides towards independence while leaders of other British West Indian islands were again speaking of federation. In 1958, Adams represented Barbados in the formation of the Federation of the British West Indies. The federation never truly gained momentum partly because each member nation had different ideas for the direction of the union and its goals and the short-lived effort dissolved after only four years.

In 1961, Errol Walton Barrow, the nephew of Charles O’Neal and Adam’s foil in political circles, succeeded Adams and with his Democratic Liberal Party, the DLP, Barrow took over the reins of Bajan government and instituted reforms lacking during the years of governmental rearrangement. Barrow also instituted a program of public works that was designed to provide relief for unemployed Bajans. In 1966, Barbados achieved independence and Barrow was elected the first Prime Minister. Barrow would later be voted out of office in 1976, but was reinstated as Prime Minister in a landslide in 1986, a year before his untimely death.

The 1990’s brought a nosedive to the Bajan economy partly due to the recession that was occurring in the United States. In 1994, Owen Arthur became Barbados’ fifth Prime Minister as the BLP returned to power and his policies renewed the confidence of investors in the island and the Bajan economy soared to new heights. Today Barbados has a new economy and an increased standard of living for all, in fact, at the end of the 20th century, the United Nations ranked Barbados as the most prosperous small state in the Caribbean and one of the top ten developing countries in the world. Not bad, not bad at all!