Barbados is a coral island separated from the chain formed by the East Caribbean islands, a place full of fantastic beaches and landscapes, of which its kind inhabitants are proud of (map)

The huge waves of the Atlantic ocean, known by islanders as “white horses”, burst against the cliffs of River Bay, a vast and arid plateau (tableland), at the northern end of the island, crossed by the dried bed of an ancient river.

Generally, this is a deserted place, but today is Boxing Day (December 26), and in the curves of the highway going to this rough place, sport cars park forming a row that watched from some distance seems a long yellow and blue serpent. The crowd coming in these cars, walks to a close hill that gives shadow to a little casuarinas forest. Women dressed with their best clothes, carrying a basket with food. Then they look for a good place to sit down and enjoy a rural meal, prepared at home, on this holiday.

Barbados, with its 431 square km., has an astonishing variety of landscapes. The island is divided in 11 parishes, each one with its own landscape and character. The north is an almost uninhabited zone of splendid cliffs, against which the huge waves crash. Something similar occurs in the eastern region, where you’ll find reefs and large, deserted beaches whipped by the Atlantic winds. At the south coast, the sand at the remote coves becomes whitest, bordered by palm trees. The most popular beaches of the island are in the west coast, were tourists and natives enjoy the mild waves of the Caribbean ocean. The inner lands are full of sugar cane fields, small peasant’s villages, and an exuberant tropical vegetation.

Though there are some craggy hills, Barbados is generally plain. Its higher point is Mount Hillaby, a mountain which peak is only 340m. over sea level. Located at 160 km. east of the rest of the Little Antilles; isolation was its best defense. Besides, the east wind makes it a very difficult to sail when coming from the other islands.

The First Inhabitants in Barbados
Barbados was a British colony known as “little England”. In the XIX century, a man that came to this island, said it was “more English than England”. British traditions are very much present, like tea time in the afternoon. In fact, many towns take their names from English cities, like Hastings, Brighton and Worthing. Besides, in the capital there’s a Trafalgar Square, where as in its London namesake, stands a statue of Admiral Nelson. They even consider cricket, as their national sport.

In this little coral island of only 22 km wide x 23 km long, live some 265,000 people. Density in population is no obstacle for inhabitants to enjoy one of the highest per capita rents in the Antilles, and an illiteracy index lower than one percent.

The first inhabitants in Barbados, were Amerindians that arrived from Venezuela in canoes, around 1600 BC The island was a passage place for different tribes, though it seems the Arawaks established here, definitively (there are no archaeological rests indicating the presence of the Caribbeans). However, at the beginning of the XVI century, the few Arawaks still here, were captured by the Spaniards, and sent as slaves to La Española. When the British arrived in 1625, they only found a population of wild boars that were left behind by the Portuguese explorers that landed in Barbados for a short time, in 1536.

The Most Brilliant Gem
In February 17, 1627, eight British colonists and ten slaves, that were held as prisoners in the ships making the route from Africa to America, landed on the western coast of Barbados, that, since, turned out to be the first British possession producing sugar cane at a wide range. In the middle of the XVII century, Barbados had a wealthy economy based on the cane plantations, and the island was known as being, the most brilliant gem in the British crown. On the fields, great numbers of slaves labored, and some revolts took place in l675, 1696 and 1702, though owners repressed, cruelly, those mutinies. The most important of them was in 1816, when 5,000 slaves rioted after realizing that the dream freedom never reached them, after the official abolition of the slavery routes. In fact, they were not freed till 1834.

New Challenges
Between 1850 and 1914, some 20,000 inhabitants emigrated to Panama, to work in the channel construction. Most of them returned with pockets filled with dollars, allowing them to buy lands, to educate their children, and to improve their way of life. However, a little later, the black people of Barbados, had to go back to the plantations, as hired workers. Poverty and the lack of political stability made the first half of the XX century in Barbados, an age of great social and political transformations.

Maybe the most outstanding figure, that challenge the power of the white plantations owners, was Grantley Adams, who in 1938, founded the Barbados Progressive League, the first massive political party in the island. For more than thirty years, this party, that finally changed its name to Barbados Labor Party, fought to obtain better working conditions for the laborers of the island, and the right of universal vote.

The political independence from Britain, came in 1966, with the leader of the Democratic Labor Party, Errol Barrow, as Prime Minister. The island continued forming part of the British Commonwealth, and now has a political system based on a Senate and a Congress, elected democratically. The two most important political parties, the BLP and the DLP, alternate in power.