Being the most easterly of the Caribbean islands, Barbados has for centuries been the potential first landfall for any sailors venturing westwards. And so it proved to be for the Spanish and Portuguese adventurers who rode the winds of the prevailing North East Trades in the 1500's. They came in search of gold and riches but merely found a densely vegetated island inhabited by a small population of Amerindians.
The Spanish were the first Europeans to set foot on the island in the early 1500's. They chose not to settle here, but they did take Amerindians as slaves to work in Hispaniola. This seems to have driven the Indians away, since the Portuguese found the island deserted when they first landed in 1536. Like the Spanish, they did not establish any settlement and simply used the island as a place to replenish their water and food supplies.
The word Barbados was first seen on a world map of 1529. The linguistics of the name and the timing of its appearance suggest that it is of Spanish origin. In Spanish "barbado" means to have a beard, and "Los Barbados" translates to "The Bearded Ones". Traditional folklore explains this as a reference to The Bearded Fig Tree, with its aerial roots reminiscent of a Spanish nobleman's long beard. A more recent theory contends that the reference was not to any tree, but to actual bearded men, who could have been early African explorers or their offspring through unions with the Amerindians.
The First European Settlers 1625 - 1637
By 1625 when an English ship stumbled across Barbados by virtue of the navigational miscalculations of its captain, Henry Powell, the island had a name but no inhabitants. The English, finding an empty island with fresh water, rich soils, generally flat land and a favourable climate, promptly claimed it in the name of the Crown and left to return in the future.
On February 27th, 1627 when Powell returned, he brought with him the first 80 settlers and a small number of African slaves captured en-route from a trading vessel. This group of pioneers started a period of British rule that was to remain uninterrupted for the next 339 years.
Such a long period of continuous rule was unique in the Caribbean, where islands often changed hands between the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Danish. This prolonged state of continuancy must have contributed enormously to both the infrastructural development of the island and the sense of security that Barbados still enjoys today.
Having off-loaded the first group of settlers, Powell almost immediately set sail for Guyana in South America, searching for suitable crops for farming in the tropics. In addition to cotton, tobacco, yams, cassava and fruits, he also brought back knowledge of the Dutch colonists' agricultural techniques and Amerindians who already knew how to grow these crops.
Life was extremely difficult for these first pioneers, spent struggling to survive in strange surroundings, trying hard to grow crops which they knew very little about, in climate conditions totally alien to what they had left behind.
Continue reading more by viewing Sugar, Slavery and Economic Growth 1637 - 1702. |
