Ins & Outs of Barbados 2020

26  HISTORY INS& The demographer Alfred Chandler characterised Barbados in the seventeenth century as “the springboard for English colonisation of the Americas.” He was correct in this characterisation, but he could have gone further and expanded his definition to include Africans as well. As the centuries passed and the island’s population grew, making Barbados one of the most densely populated places on earth, groups of black and white Barbadians periodically hived off seeking elbow room and the possibilities of improving their socio economic fortunes. Barbados became a magnet for free and coerced migrants in the seventeenth century for one reason alone…wealth generation. Tropical export agriculture offered great possibilities when living standards in Europe were starting to rise. People were prepared to spend on the new tropical products being imported into Europe: tobacco, spices, cacao and above all, sugar. France, Holland and England were quick to challenge the claims of Spanish and Portuguese hegemony in the Americas, and the smaller West Indian islands, which had never been occupied by Spain, provided suitable bases for the spreading “No matter where I roam, Barbados will always be home.” John Roett This 1635 map depicts Barbados as a frontier island prior to the introduction of sugar. Courtesy British Library, King’s Topographical Collection Four Centuries of BarbadianMigration By Karl Watson