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Home >> Barbados >> History Barbados may have been inhabited as early as some time in the 1600s BC. It is suggested that the 1st settlers on the island were the Amerindians, migrated here by canoes from the region of Venezuela. This was followed by the Arawak Indians who first arrived in the island around 350–400 BC. As elsewhere in the eastern Caribbean, Arawak Indians may have been annihilated by invading Caribs, who are believed to have subsequently abandoned the island.  The Portuguese, en route to Brazil in the 1530s, were credited as the first European nation to discover and name the island. They called the island Los Barbados, which is Portuguese for the Bearded Ones. British sailors landed on Barbados in the 1620s at the site of present-day Holetown. When they arrived, they found the island uninhabited. Tobacco and cotton were first cultivated, but by the 1640s sugar was found to be enormously profitable. Barbados was a self-funding colony under uninterrupted British rule. Sugar cane dominated Barbados' economic growth, and the island's cash crop was at the top of the sugar industry until 1720. As the sugar industry developed into the main commercial enterprise, Barbados was divided into large plantation estates, which replaced 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 Labour Party in 1938. Progress toward more democratic government for Barbados was made in 1951, when the first general election under universal adult suffrage occurred. This was followed by steps toward increased self-government, and in 1961, Barbados achieved the status of self-governing 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. Errol Walton Barrow replaced Grantley Adams as the people's advocate and became Barbados 1st Prime Minister. |
 
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