The Ins & Outs of Barbados 2022

104 Shopping Did You Know? Holetown Did you know that the first Englishman to come to Barbados was Captain Simon Gordon, in 1620? Then in 1625 The Olive Blossom, under Captain John Powell, landed at The Hole and placed a cross on a tree, claiming the island for James, King of England. The Spanish and Portuguese had been to Barbados, but although the Portuguese claimed the island and apparently left some pigs, they never returned! The Olive Blossom’s owner, a London Merchant, Sir William Courteen, organised settlement, and the William and John, under Captain Henry Powell, arrived with eighty English settlers and ten captured Africans at the Hole on February 17th, 1627. But things became complicated. The first Earl of Carlisle (after whom Carlisle Bay is named), obtained from King Charles I a grant of the ‘Caribbee Islands,’ including Barbados. Carlisle was heavily in debt to some London merchants, to whom he gave in payment a lease of 10,000 acres of land. These merchants sent out settlers under Governor Charles Wolverston. Battles broke out, and the basa-basa ended in a Carlisle victory. The Hole became James Town, then Holetown. Some old books gave Powell’s visit as 1605, not 1625, and this date was celebrated in 1905. Hence on the forecourt of the Holetown Police Station (part of the old James Fort) is the Holetown Monument – an obelisk with this erroneous date of 1905! An excerpt from "Did You Know, People Places & Untold Stories" by Sir Henry Fraser.