Barbados, a small island, lies north of Venezuela in the Atlantic Ocean. Coral reefs circle a large part of the island. Barbados is thought to have been originally inhabited by Arawak Indians.
But, when the Europeans arrived, it was uninhabited. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to set foot on the island. However, it was the British who first established a colony there in 1627.
When the British arrived in Barbados, the island was almost totally covered in dense jungle, with a very large population of wild pigs! The colonists cultivated tobacco, cotton, and later sugar, which proved to be enormously profitable. Slaves were brought in from Africa to work on sugar plantations, and eventually, the population was about 90 per cent black.
Britain granted the colony independence in 1966, and it became a parliamentary democracy within the Commonwealth. The name ‘Barbados’ is derived from the bearded fig trees once found in abundance on the island.
