Barbados

Where the name comes from

Barbados comes from Portuguese As Barbadas, “the bearded ones”, possibly for hanging fig-tree roots; the original meaning is uncertain.

First people

Indigenous Arawak and Kalinago peoples lived here before Europeans came.¹

Known for

Barbados is known for rum, distilled on its sugar estates since the 1600s, and for its great cricketers.²

Outside rule

England colonized the island in 1627; from the 1640s, sugar made it a wealthy colony built on enslaved African labour, and its plantation system spread across the Caribbean and to Carolina.^3,4

The modern country

Barbados became independent in 1966 and a republic in 2021; descendants of enslaved Africans make up much of its population.¹