Barbados
Barbados is 21 miles long by 14 miles wide. It is a civilized, orderly country with a gentle topography of rolling hills and green fields. Under British rule for over 300 years, it is often called Little England. Barbados became independent in 1966 and is today a stable parliamentary democracy and active member of the Commonwealth. It is a relatively affluent country. The driving force of the economy is tourism, and this has fueled many other light industries, including printing and light manufacturing. The second largest money-earner is in the overseas financial sector.
The population of Barbados is a little under 300,000. Most are of African descent; the rest came mainly from England and India. The island has many British traditions, though these are well mingled with African influence.
Geographically, Barbados is an anomaly in the Eastern Caribbean. Ninety miles to the east of St. Vincent, it is way outside the arc of the other islands and straight to windward. It is the only island in the Eastern Caribbean that is not volcanic. It is the top of a buckle in the seabed that got pushed above the surface during tectonic plate movement. At a later period it was largely submerged, which gave it a heavy limestone capping, then it rose again to make a relatively flat island (the highest hills are about a thousand feet) with spectacularly beautiful white sand beaches.
In the days of sail, especially in the days of square-rigged ships, it was very hard to reach from the rest of the island chain, which helped it stay outside the battles between the British and French that characterized the history of most of the other islands.
Left to their own devices, English-speaking Bajans evolved the most distinctive accent in the region. It is a pleasant friendly sound, thick enough to cut with a cutlass. After you have spent a while here you will recognize a Bajan anywhere else in the world as soon as he speaks.
Bajans count among the finest seamen in the Caribbean. Their fishermen venture far out to sea in all conditions. For their yachtspeople, visiting any other destination and getting home involves serious windward work in the open ocean, with seas that are often rougher than they are in the island chain. There is often a foul current to deal with as well. I am always amazed at the casual way Bajan yacht crews turn up for races throughout the Caribbean then think nothing of beating their way back afterwards, a trip that would give most of us considerable pause.
Because it was missed by Columbus, Barbados narrowly escaped being named after a dead Catholic saint. The word Barbados came instead from “bearded one,” a name given to it by a visiting Portuguese explorer, Pedro a Campos. He stopped by in 1536 and was impressed by all the fig trees with the thick aerial roots that give them a bearded appearance.
Barbados was claimed for England in 1625 by one Captain John Powell and colonized two years later by his brother Henry, with a party of 80 settlers and 10 enslaved people. They called their settlement Jamestown and it was in the area that is now Holetown. The island was uninhabited when they arrived, though archeological evidence shows that it had once been inhabited by the Kalinargo people from South America.
During the early years of settlement, Barbados had many small farmers, but around 1650 the advent of sugar brought about a sharp change. Small holdings were bought up by the richer landowners, who imported slaves and created an immensely rich plantocracy that survived for several centuries.
The first legislative assembly was formed in 1639. It opposed Cromwell when he took over England and beheaded King Charles I. Cromwell sent over an invasion force, but the Bajans managed to negotiate a surrender in which they accepted governance by a governor and a freely elected assembly, and they were given freedom from taxes without local consent.
Of course, freely elected in those days meant elected by the landowners, not the enslaved people or indentured workers, who lived in very impoverished conditions. Although slavery was abolished in 1834, power to the people only became a reality in the 1930s and ‘40s, long after sugar had become a far less profitable industry. It happened as the result of class struggle, with the formation of labor unions, serious unrest, and street riots. One of the leaders of the 1937 labor disturbances was Clement Payne, now one of the country’s national heroes.
As the sugar industry declined, tourism evolved to take its place. The island is flat enough that a large airport required no special feats of engineering and, unlike square-riggers, jet planes have no problem getting here. Barbados’s quiet beauty, dreamy beaches, and pleasant climate make it natural for tourism, and Barbados was the first of the eastern Caribbean islands to develop this industry on such an intensive scale.
As a result, there is plenty to do here, with many types of restaurants and shops, lots of nightlife, and plenty of roadside attractions. The people are very welcoming; they understand the value of visitors and treat them well. While the south and west coast are heavily built up to cater to this industry, if you head to the northeast or center of the island, you soon get away from it all.
Barbados is a landfall for many yachts every year between November and March. Most arrive in modern conventional craft, but they have their share of the oddballs too. Bombard arrived here, having drifted over on his inflatable dinghy, and the raft Ra arrived here, as did the world’s smallest gondola. Someone even crossed in a converted factory boiler, and a Frenchman claimed to have swum across, towing his rubber raft behind him.
It is well worth visiting Barbados, but from a yachting perspective it can be a challenging trip from the other islands. For Europeans, it makes a lot of sense to make Barbados your first landfall as you come across the Atlantic. However you get here, you can be sure of enjoying your stay.
