Known as the Caribbean's most "British" island, Barbados, a former British colony was nicknamed "Little England" as British culture is very noticeable throughout the island. Blacks speak with a British accent, play the British sport of cricket, and adhere to British custom in their legal and political affairs.

Arawaks - Caribs

Barbados, called Ichirouganaim by the Native American nomads commonly known as Amerindians, has been inhabited from as far back as 1623 B.C. or 4000 years ago, according to recent archaeological discoveries unearthed at a site at Port St. Charles.

The first movement of Native Americans known as the Saladoid-Barrancoid, came from Venezuela - South America, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in dugout canoes to reach Barbados around 350 c.e. They were farmers, fishermen, and ceramists.

The second movement of Amerindian migrants known as the Lokono or Arawak, arrived around 800 c.e. The Arawaks were a short tribe of agriculturalists who grew cotton, cassava, guavas, corn, papaws, and peanuts. They also used harpoons, nets, and hooks to fish.

The third movement of migrants from South America were the Caribs who were a taller and more violent Amerindian tribe than the Arawaks. The Spanish called this tribe "Caribes" (Caribs) which means cannibals, the word from which the region got its name Caribbean.

The Caribs were exceptionally precise bowmen who utilized potent venom to paralyze their victims. They were a warlike, savage group who were said to have barbecued their captives and washed them down with cassava beer. Textbooks continue to promote this legend of Carib cannibalism, but in fact human flesh was not actually eaten as food, but was used as a ritual practice to gain control over the dead enemies' or ancestors' qualities. This type of ritual was usually performed prior to a raiding mission or during an induction, when it was believed that young men would take over the spirit of an illustrious warrior.

The Arawaks were a peace-loving tribe who lived on one side of the island, while the Caribs occupied the other side.

Around 1200 AD both the Arawak and the Salodoid-Barrancoid inhabitants were displaced by the warrior-natured Carib Indians whose control lasted for almost 300 years, until Amerindian existence was disrupted in 1492 by the Spanish conquistadors who began capturing them throughout the Caribbean to work on plantations as slaves.

The Caribs soon disappeared off the island as a result of emigration to other islands to escape enslavement, famine, the contagious European small pox and tuberculosis brought in by the conquerors, abduction to and enslavement in larger islands by the Spanish who systematically captured and took them to Hispaniola to work in gold mines as slave labourers. This combination of events left the island desolate by the time the first British ship arrived.

Portuguese - British

Pedro a Campos gave the island the name "Os Barbados" when the Portuguese stopped by in 1536 en-route to Brazil, but choosing not to stay, left wild pigs behind that greeted the first British colonizers. It is believed that "Os Barbados" was derived from the Iberians' fascination with the hanging, aerial roots of the Bearded Fig Tree (A Ficus), which resembled a long, thick beard. "Barba" translates as "beard" and "barba-dos" translates as the "bearded ones", hence "Barbados." Another viewpoint points out that the reference was not to any trees on the island but to actual bearded men who may have been earlier Afrikan explorers, or their offspring through unions with the Amerindians.

It was not until May 14, 1625 that a ship stopped on the island as a result of the navigational blunders of Captain John Henry Powell, and after confirming that it was deserted, returned to England to formalize a plan to introduce a permanent settlement on the island. Two years later on February 17, 1627, a British ship carrying 10 Afrikan slaves and over 80 British colonists landed at a site called Jamestown now Holetown to claim the island in the name of king James 1st. This settlement was funded by Sir William Courteen, a London merchant who owned the title to Barbados and other unclaimed islands.

Courteen later lost his title to the Earl of Carlisle Bay in what was known as the "Great Barbados Robbery." Carlisle then chose Henry Hawley as governor, who laid the foundation for the first parliament - House of Assembly - in 1639, which along with a nominated advisory Council and the Governor of the island, ruled the island in partnership with the Anglican Church, the state sanctioned religion, establishing the third oldest parliament in the world following the British House of Commons, and the Bermuda House of Assembly.

Barbados' House of Assembly was always very loyal to the British crown, so when Charles I was executed in 1649, Barbados declined to accept the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, who as a result sent a fleet to seize control of Barbados in 1651. However, the settlers kept his forces at bay during six months of heavy resistance until he was forced to sign the Articles of agreement in Oistins town, Christ Church on January 11th 1652, which were later recognized as the Charter of Barbados by the Parliament in England.

Imported Manpower

Barbados had become a destination for military prisoners and Irish natives in the early years of the colony's growth. Oliver Cromwell "barbadosed" any Irish who refused to clear their land, while allowing other Irish to be kidnapped from the streets of Ireland and shipped to Barbados as slaves. Many West Country men were also exiled or "barbadosed" by Judge Jeffreys and were also sold as slaves or indentured servants to British planters, where they lived in slave conditions with no control over the number of years they had to serve.

The number of "barbadosed" Irish is not exact but estimates vary from as low as 12,000 to as high as 60,000. Persecuted Catholics from Ireland also worked the plantations.

Barbados quickly acquired the largest white population of any of the English colonies in the Americas, and became the springboard for English colonisation in the Americas, also playing a leading role in the settlement of Jamaica and the Carolinas, while sending a steady flow of settlers to other destinations during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Not only did Barbados become the most populated of England's overseas colonies, but also one of the most heavily populated places in the world.

European indentured servants were the main source of labour during most of the island's history as poor, uneducated labourers were recruited in England, Scotland, and Europe to work on tobacco and cotton plantations. Under the law these indentured servants could not be enslaved but were deemed tenants at will. They were not permitted to own the land they cultivated or to leave the plantation without permission from their employer. The harsh conditions of indentured servitude gradually made it more difficult for Barbadian tobacco and cotton planters to recruit white labour, causing the labour supply to drop, and the capacity of the island's tobacco and cotton producers to compete with their international competitors - to fall.

Cultivation of tobacco, cotton, ginger and indigo was handled primarily by European indentured labour until the start of the sugar cane industry in the 1640s, which was introduced by Pieter Blower in 1637. As sugar developed into the main commercial enterprise, Barbados was divided into large plantation estates that soon replaced the smaller holdings of the early British settlers by the wealthy planters.

The type of weather and soil condition in Barbados provided perfect growing conditions for the flourishing sugar industry, and out of this economic experience the Barbados society was formed with the changeover to large-scale production and exportation to England during the mid 1640's.

Slavery

However, with the disappearance of Carib populations combined with the skyrocketing cost of white labour in England, it meant that external labour had to be imported to work on the increasing number of sugar plantations. So, on the advice of Dutch and Sephardic-Jewish merchants, planters turned mainly to West Afrika as their source of manpower.

Tribal clans from Ghana were imported in huge numbers as slaves into Barbados, with the Asante, Ga, Ewe, Fon and Fante tribes providing the bulk of those importations. Nigeria also provided slaves for Barbados with the Yoruba, Igbo, Efik, and Ibibio being the major ethnic clans targeted. The Ivory Coast, Benin, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Senegal/Gambia, Angola and Cameroon also supplied human cargo to Barbados. During the days of slavery and colonialism, these different Black Afrikan tribes intermarried among themselves and with the white British slave masters.

Between 10 to 20 million Afrikan slaves were jammed into overcrowded, unsanitary European vessels against their will headed for colonial plantations all over the world, and by the mid-seventeenth century, Barbados was a leading participant in the slave trade, and one of the most profitable European colonies in the world. In 1645, there were an estimated 5,680 Black slaves in Barbados, by 1667 there were more than 40,000, and by 1685, the numbers had grown to around 60,000. In 1700 it was estimated that there were about 135,000 Afrikan-born slaves in Barbados. Around 387,000 Afrikans were shipped to Barbados between 1627 and 1807.

The English conquered Jamaica in 1655 with a force that involved 1 000 Leeward islanders and 2 811 Barbadians, many of whom then settled permanently in Jamaica, followed later by more settlers from Barbados. It is estimated that Barbados delivered a third of all Jamaican slaves up to 1674, and about a fourth for the remainder of the 17th century.

St Kitts was the first English colony in the Leeward group of islands from where most of the other Leeward Islands were settled with the partial exception of Antigua, which received a great number of immigrants from Barbados and Suriname, though settled initially from St Kitts. Suriname was first permanently settled in 1650 by settlers from Barbados and the Leeward Islands

Slaves in Barbados were forced to work on sugar plantations cutting and processing sugar cane in conditions of severe heat while being subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment, but one of the most physically demanding aspects of sugar production was the grinding of the sugar cane which the slaves were forced to do by hand.

Settlement

Amerindians were imported into Barbados from Guyana to educate the early settlers in survival techniques, as they had knowledge of the local foods and how to prepare them, as well as knowledge of the most effective ways to clear dense tropical forest for the construction of colonial buildings and residences.

Colonial officials passed a law in 1636 which formalized the status of the Amerindian and Afrikan slaves including their offspring as the property of white settlers, which declared that all slaves brought into Barbados, both Amerindian and Afrikan, must be enslaved for life.

As a consequence, Barbados became a nation of masters and slaves with a minority of Jews, poor whites and free coloureds. Between 1627 and 1838 a colonial structure was developed based on race and wealth, with the economy tied to England whose impact moulded the islands' society and culture.

As the resident white land-owning classes or elites expanded, it brought into being the need for facilities and an infrastructure more developed than in the other islands, as schools for children, reading rooms, a press, and other social facilities were made available, prompting General Haynes, a planter, to write, 'tis to me the first country in the world'.

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The Black population also developed qualities that were different from those of the other islands, since from the beginning of the eighteenth century the majority of Barbadian Blacks were born locally. This large proportion of locally born Blacks of Afrikan descent as opposed to imported Afrikans, contributed greatly to the early development of a Barbadian identity. There was also an excess of women over men in both racial groups, a pattern which surfaced in the last decades of the seventeenth century that made Barbados different to the other Caribbean islands where the reverse was the case in both ethnic groups.

This trend allowed the Black population to easily reproduce itself during the second half of the eighteenth century, rather than having to rely heavily on new imports from Afrika to sustain population levels. This was a reversal of what was occurring on other English speaking Caribbean islands, where the death rate surpassed the birth rate, and forecasts indicated that without continued imports, the slave population would have died out. Barbados became one of England's most popular colonies, with a rich economy based on sugar and slavery.

As the Afrikan population continued to grow in Barbados, it facilitated the process of forming a new mixed language that saw West Afrikan and West European cultural patterns acting on each other to produce a Barbadian version of a wider Caribbean culture. Travellers to the island observed these changes in the eighteenth century on the white population especially, who were said to be "lisping the language of the Negroes," or "adopting the Negro style."

Around the beginning of the eighteenth century, the white indentured servants, who were the prime source of labour, began to leave Barbados in droves, questioning their future status on the island.

Over 30,000 whites migrated to neighbouring islands leaving a racial imbalance that placed the colony's white plantation owners in a vulnerable state. The growing size of the slave labour force with its possibility for rebellion intimidated them, but since they were very dependent on the cheap and supposedly infinite stock of Afrikan slaves, colonial officials institutionalized white supremacy to counter the racial imbalance.

The church of England was especially guilty of the institutional hypocrisy widespread at the time, preaching the gospel to save the souls of all mankind, yet turning a blind eye to condone the planters' profiteering from the brutality of the slave system so it could secure the needed financial aid to maintain the island's churches and clergy.

Bajan Influence

From 1664 and onwards, Barbadians played an important role in the early development of the USA. It was during this time that Sir John Colleton, a Barbadian planter, asked Charles II of England to allocate land to him there, and he was given a section known as the Carolinas. Many left Barbados to settle the Carolinas, and most of the early governors were Barbadians. The imprint left can still be noticed today through the similar names of the parishes and streets, the single house style of abode which was based on early Barbadian designs, and the Gullah dialect - a fusion of West Afrikan languages with old English which goes back to the days of slavery - which is similar to the Bajan (Barbadian) dialect.

In 1751 George Washington, then 19 years old, came to Barbados with his brother Lawrence to recuperate from tuberculosis. It was his only trip outside the USA, and while in Barbados, he developed smallpox. Provided with excellent care, he quickly recovered and his body built up a natural immunity to the virus. This became significant later when his army was decimated by smallpox during the American war of independence, but the immune Washington was not affected and survived to win the war, later becoming the first president of the USA.

Between 1800 and 1885 Barbados served as the main seat of Government for the former British colonies of the Windward Islands, and the resident Governor of Barbados also served as the Colonial head. After the Government of Barbados officially withdrew from the Windward Islands union in 1885, the seat was moved to St. George's, Grenada where it remained until the territory of the Windward Islands had ended.

When Barbados exited from the Windward Islands, it became aware that Tobago was going to be united with another territory to form part of a single state, so Barbados made an official bid to the British Government to have the neighbouring Island of Tobago grouped with Barbados to establish a political union. However the British government decided that Trinidad would be a better alternative, making Tobago a Ward of Trinidad instead.

Abolition

Barbadian planters recognised that the island had an increasing slave population that would guarantee continuous sugar production, while the other regions like the newly occupied territories such as Trinidad, Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice, would be hampered in their economic development if access to slave labour was denied.

The colony had its own share of problems which included raids by Spanish and French pirates, in addition to chaotic weather at times that decimated crops and triggered Afrikan and Irish slave revolts. These revolts often coincided with the raids and uncontrollable weather which distracted the slave owners, who would send slaves to other settlers or towns for help. The freedom to move around gave slaves the opportunity to convey information to other revolutionaries. These rebellions increased the fear of white slave owners and added to the image of Irish natives as wild savages.

Barbadian law then banned slaves from leaving their plantations without permission from their owners in the mid-eighteenth century, and prevented them from beating drums, blowing horns, or playing other loud instruments as this was viewed as a medium that allowed those slaves who spoke different languages, to communicate with each other.

The Church of England even sent missionaries to convert the slave populations, and any noticeable ethnic trait of Afrikan origin was suppressed in the name of spreading Christianity. Other authorized restrictions broadened this objective by outlawing parties on Sundays, the Christian day of rest. Afrikan music was also used in the Afrikan religion known as Obeah which was prevalent all over Barbados.

Barbados passed its own adaptation of the Fugitive Slave Law, which required all whites to return runaway slaves to colonial officials. This law was however relaxed when it came to a slave master who deliberately killed a slave, requiring him to pay only a $15 fine, but those who killed their slaves "accidentally" usually escaped without being fined. These Barbadian Slave Codes were used as models for the other slave colonies in the Caribbean, including Jamaica and Antigua who passed identical laws in 1664 and 1702.

Bussa - Afrikan Warrior

In 1807 the British parliament abolished the slave trade but emancipation was not as forth coming as the slaves in Barbados expected, so this led to a major uprising in 1816 headed by "Bussa," an Afrikan slave warrior.

Bussa was born a free man in Afrika before he was captured and brought to Barbados as a slave in the late 18th Century. From this unfortunate position he managed to strike a deep blow for freedom by leading Barbados' longest slave revolt on April 14, 1816 against the racist and oppressive white Barbadian planters. The island-wide conspiracy was an attempt to totally transform the society to a Black image and to gain liberation by toppling the reigning planter class.

This carefully planned Rebellion by Bussa and his confederates of between 3,900 to 5,000 elite rebel slaves on a number of Barbadian sugar estates, was the first slave insurrection in Barbados for 124 years.

This famous freedom fighter led the slaves into battle at Bayley's plantation where Bussa was a head ranger, and there he commanded around 400 freedom fighters against troops of the First West India Regiment. However, a premature launch of the revolt allowed the white population to obtain an upper hand, if not large portions of the island would have gone to the rebels.

Though Bussa was killed in battle, his troops continued the fight until they were defeated by a superior fire power. The official figures recorded that 214 slaves were executed and 123 transported, but the actual death figures were said to be more in the region of 1,000 slaves killed and executed.
Captured rebels confessed that exploitation was not the reason for their rebellion but that the island belonged to them so they were going to kill every white man on it. Bussa's name lived on for generations in the memory of the Barbadian. An Emancipation Statue was unveiled in Bussa's honour 169 years after that rebellion.

As a result of that uprising and keen to prevent any future insurrections, officials in London insisted that the colonists put reforms in place to reduce the burdens of slavery. This course of action was met with intense opposition from the Barbadian planters, but the policy was eventually approved by the Barbados legislature.

Barbados was allowed to adopt its own slave registry laws making it possible to abolish slave laws from the Barbadian legislature. The Consolidated Slave Law of 1825 established three rights for slaves: the right to own property; the right to give evidence in all court cases; and a reduction in the rates charged to dissuade white slaveholders from freeing their slaves. The slave trade ceased a few years before the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1834, - 29 years before that of the USA.

However, a 4 year apprenticeship programme was put in place where the freed men worked a 45-hour week without pay in exchange for living in the tiny huts provided by the plantation owners until the end of the apprentice period on August 1st, 1838. By then the kidnapped Irish had disappeared into history and the census of the 1880's did not identify any Barbadians as Irish. Only a small population of poor whites often called "redlegs" remained, who were the descendants of those "barbadosed" Irish.

In celebrating the end of the apprentice period, over 70,000 Barbadians of Afrikan decent took to the streets with the Barbados folk song:

"Lick an Lock-up Done Wid, Hurray fuh Jin-Jin (Queen Victoria). 
De Queen come from England to set we free 
Now Lick an Lock-up Done Wid, Hurray fuh Jin-Jin" 

During the days of slavery and immediate post emancipation, the more entrepreneurial people established small shops where rum, other spirits and a variety of goods were sold.

These shops also functioned as a meeting point for discussions and playing games, which helped to strengthen the community spirit.

Barbados, because of its geographical location became a hub for the re-exportation of slaves to North America, other Caribbean islands, and to the Captaincy-General of Venezuela. After the War of Spanish Succession, England was given the authority to export slaves from their possessions in the Caribbean. The Royal Afrikan Company then established offices in Jamaica and Barbados where slaves were re-exported to Mexico from the Jamaican office, and to Venezuela from Barbados.

Around the 1930s, a movement for political rights was initiated by the descendants of emancipated slaves. One of the leaders of this movement was Sir Grantley Adams who, in 1938, founded the Barbados Progressive League, now the Barbados Labour Party. By 1944 civil rights were given to women, and in 1951 the right to vote by all adults was allowed. On November 30th 1966 Barbados gained its independence from Britain under the leadership of the late Sir Errol Walton Barrow.

Bajan (Barbadian) culture and music are a result of the fusion of Afrikan, European and Caribbean components. The earliest mention of Afrikan-Barbadian music came from a description of a slave revolt, where the rebels were inspired by the music played on skin drums, conch trumpets and animal horns - to fight. As a result, the English colonist and slave owning authorities banned musical instruments among slaves, as they imagined that they would use their drumming skills to send secret messages to organize and ignite rebellion against them, so in 1688 a law was instituted that outlawed the playing of drums and other "heathenous noises" on the plantation or even in the town. Death was one of the penalties, but the slaves got around this law to some extent by adjusting their Afrikan derived rhythms to sound more European.

Early Barbadian folk music among the slaves was "essential for recreation and dancing and as a part of the life cycle for communication and religious meaning". Afrikan musicians also provided the music for the white landowners' private parties, while developing their own brand of party music. This resulted in the world renowned crop over festival which started around 1688. Early crop over festivals featured dancing and call-and-response singing, accompanied by shak-shak, banjo, bones and bottles which contained varying amounts of water to produce different notes. By the end of the 17th century, a distinctly Barbadian folk culture had developed.

Barbadian traditional folk songs related to current events at the time they were written, such as the emancipation of the Barbadian slaves, and the coronations of Victoria, George V, and Elizabeth II. This song tradition that dates back to 1650. Some Barbadian songs and stories such as the famous "Inckle the English Sailor" and "Yarico the Indian Maid", made their way back to England and became English plays and an opera by George Coleman with music by Samuel Arnold; first performed in London in 1787.

Tuk bands are Barbadian musical ensembles, which consist of a bow-fiddle or pennywhistle flute, kittle triangle and a snare, along with a double-headed bass drum, that combine to create a distinct Barbadian mixture of Afrikan and local rhythms.

The kittle and bass drum provide the rhythm, while the flute provides the melody. The drums are made from cured sheep and goat skins, and being light weighted, they can easily be carried. Tuk bands played for special occasions such as visiting royalty and coronations, and are generally accompanied by a range of symbolic Barbadian characters, like "shaggy bears", "mother sally", "the steel donkey" and "green monkeys". Similar bands can still be seen in Ghana and Nigeria today.

Spouge was a Barbadian form of popular music created by the late Jackie Opel in the 1960s, and is largely a blend of Jamaican ska and Banja, - a term used prior to the 1930s when Bajan calypso was called Banja. Spouge instrumentation consisted originally of a cowbell, bass guitar, trap set and various other electronic and percussion instruments, later boosted by the saxophone, trombone and trumpets. The cowbell and the rhythm guitar are generally considered to be the most essential part of the instrumentation that reflected the Afrikan origin of this Bajan musical creation.

During the 1960s, two different types of Spouge rhythms were popular; Raw Spouge popularised by the Draytons Two, and Dragon Spouge popularised by Barbadian Cassius Clay. The Spouge industry grew considerably by the end of the 1970s but suddenly vanished from the local music scene, though in recent years, there has been a renewal of interest in Spouge music in some quarters, with artistes like Desmond Weekes of the Draytons Two stressing that Spouge should be encouraged because of its national format and potential to arouse the nation's pride and also reach worldwide audiences.

Obeah

Obeah was practiced in Barbados and other Caribbean nations. In some instances the Christian religion embraced strong elements of Obeah as part of the faith. The Spiritual Baptist church for example, consists of an Afrikan-Caribbean integrated religion that blends elements of traditional West Afrikan religion with Christianity. However, despite the heavy Afrikan influences and ritual practices, Spiritual Baptists look upon themselves as Christians.

Obeah, sometimes written Obi, is an expression used in the Caribbean when referring to folk magic, sorcery or religious practices that originated in Central and West Afrika from beliefs of the Yoruba tribe like Voodoo, Santeria and the Orisha belief systems.

The West Afrikan Ashanti used this term Obi or Obeah to describe the practices of slaves of Central Afrikan descent. The practitioners of the Congo form of folk religion were called Obeah men or sorcerers.

An Obeah man is also called a medicine man, root doctor, Sorcerer, or voodoo witch-doctor. Obeah is therefore associated with black and white magic, charms, luck and mysticism in general, being similar in nature to Voodoo, Santeria, rootwork, Palo, and hoodoo.

Obeah is characterized by the use of magic rituals for protection against bad luck, or to cause harm, and is a practice which uses the power of duppies (spirits) to manipulate human events. Spiritualism or contact with the dead is a basic component of many Afrikan religions.

Obeah may also refer to any solid object such as a talisman or charm that can be used for evil magical purposes. In spite of its negative reputation however, Obeah, like any other form of folk religion, folk medicine and folk magic, contains many rituals for healing, attracting money, bringing about luck in love, controlling wandering partners, and even eliminating the difficult problems of life.

The Afrikan slaves used these supernatural rituals brought with them from their various Afrikan homelands as a means of protecting themselves against the domination of the white enslavers. Conflicts arose as slaves from different regions in Afrika who practiced diverse styles of Afrikan religion and spoke different languages came into contact with each other, but out of this interaction the common term Obeah was popularised.

A number of Afrikan languages contain words that have contributed to the term Obeah.
The Efik word ubio means bad omen; any harmful object; or a charm buried in the ground to cause sickness or death.

The Twi word obayi means magic or sorcery.

The Ashanti word obayifo means a wizard or witch.

Another Ashanti word Obi means sorcery and also refers to the West Afrikan snake god - spirit of evil, and includes animal sacrifices.

The Egyptian word Obion (Ob) or Aub means serpent. Oph is a winged serpent or dragon; and Ab means wisdom. Combined they signify Serpent of Wisdom or Serpent of Knowledge.

The Igbo word díbìà means folk healer.

Obeah can be defined as a source of occult power: a strong medium used to give power to induce spells for practical magic, witchcraft and other forms; to predict the future; to communicate with the gods; or to gain support or knowledge from planes beyond the physical realm. These actions are accomplished through the skills of the Obeah practitioner and go beyond the tenets of traditional witchcraft, sorcery, shamanism, voodoo or tribal magic.

In the domain of the occult practitioners where mystics, tribal elders, shamans, wizards, sorcerers, spell-casters, diviners, necromancers, witches and other sources of occult power operate in other dimensions, the most powerful, the most dreaded, and the most feared is Obeah.

Obeah today is blended with the worship of Orisha, which are spirits of nature, and powerful ancestors that are prayed to and sometimes allowed to take possession of the practitioners.

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