Barbadian Independence
Barbados, an island in the Caribbean that was created by a collision between the Caribbean plate and the South American plate,
first came into contact with the British in 1625 AD, having previously been encountered by the Portuguese on their way to Brazil.
Barbados got its name from the island's fig trees which appear to have beards which led to Portuguese explorer to call the island Los Barbados (bearded-ones). Britain only dropped the Los part of the name and the island was claimed on behalf of King James 1 of England by Captain John Powell. In 1661, the harsh and inhumane act of slavery was legalised which saw the Arawaks and the Caribs who are indigenous to Barbados receive new neighbours from Africans place we recognise today as Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast and Nigeria. They were brought in to harvest the sugar, tobacco and cotton while the owners of the
slaves just sat there and counted the money they were getting as well as punishing their slaves, just like pre 1865 America. When
slavery was abolished in 1834, the new citizens took advantage of the education and prominence in the Barbadian lives grew
whether it was office work or farming.
On 30 November 1966, 5 years after internal autonomy was granted, Barbados was granted dominion status independence was granted
which meant while Barbadians could hold political careers from home, they had to pledge allegiance to the British monarch (Queen Elizabeth
11) and in her place on a national basis was a government general. In the wake of African-American George Floyd's violent and racist death,
many people reckoned with the history of racism and glorification of imperialism. One of these was the Barbadian government who decided
the time had come to drop the dominion status (and Lizzy) and declare themselves a republic on the 55th anniversary of the island nation's
independence. At 12AM AST (Atlantic Standard Time), Barbados welcomed in Dame Sandra Mason as first president of Barbados with Prince Charles standing in for his mother at the momentous ceremony. Even singer Rihanna was there where she was hailed as Barbados' national hero. After all, she is from there.