HISTORY
British
sailors who landed on Barbados in the 1620s at the site of present-day
Holetown on the Caribbean coast found the island uninhabited.
As elsewhere in the eastern Caribbean, Arawak Indians may have
been annihilated by invading Caribs, who are believed to have
subsequently abandoned the island.
From
the arrival of the first British settlers in 1627-28 until independence
in 1966, Barbados was under uninterrupted British control. Nevertheless,
Barbados always enjoyed a large measure of local autonomy. Its
House of Assembly, which began meeting in 1639, is the third-oldest
legislative body in the Western Hemisphere, preceded only by Bermuda's
legislature and the Virginia House of Burgesses.
As
the sugar industry developed into the main commercial enterprise,
Barbados was divided into large plantation estates, which replace
the small holdings of the early British settlers. Some of the
displaced farmers relocated to British colonies in North America.
To work the plantations, slaves were brought from Africa; the
slave trade ceased a few years before the abolition of slavery
throughout the British empire in 1834.
Plantation
owners and merchants of British descent dominated local politics.
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 Grantley Adams, founded the Barbados Labor
Party in 1938. Progress toward more democratic government for
Barbados was made in 1951, when universal adult suffrage was introduced.
This was followed by steps toward increased self-government, and
in 1961, Barbados achieved internal autonomy.
From
1958 to 1962, Barbados was one of 10 members of the West Indies
Federation, and Sir Grantley Adams served as its first and only
prime minister. When the federation was terminated, Barbados reverted
to its former status as a self-governing colony. Following several
attempts to form another federation composed of Barbados and the
Leeward and Windward Islands, Barbados negotiated its own independence
at a constitutional conference with the United Kingdom in June
1966. After years of peaceful and democratic progress, Barbados
became an independent state within the British Commonwealth on
November 30, 1966.
