Barbados

Barbados is an independent island nation located in the western Atlantic Ocean, just to the east of the Caribbean Sea. Barbados is part of Lesser Antilles.

Barbados has one of the highest standards of living and literacy rates in the developing world and, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Barbados is currently the fourth most developed of all developing countries in the world. Despite its small geographical size, Barbados constantly ranks in the top 30 (or 31) countries in the HDI (Human Development Index) rankings. The island is a major tourist destination.

Turquoise ocean water as seen from the exclusive Crane Beach Resort on the island of Barbados. Photo credit: coopgreg. Check out more photos of all our featured destinations in our photo gallery.

Spring Break

Barbados is considered a newer spring break destination (several large student travel providers have only recently added Barbados to their list of spring break destinations).

Hotels and Restaurants

The island is well developed and there are many local quality-hotels known internationally which offer world-class accommodations. Timeshares are available, and many of the smaller local hotels and private villas which dot the island have space available if booked months in advance. The southern and western coasts of Barbados are popular, with its calm light blue Caribbean sea and fine white and pinkish sandy beaches.

Look for our full directory of hotels, coming soon.

Clubs and Bars

Look for our full directory of clubs, coming soon.

Attractions and Events

Barbados will be playing host to the 2007 Cricket World Cup final, as well as six "Super Eight" matches and several warm-up matches. The final is scheduled to take place on Saturday 28 April, 2007.

The largest Carnival cultural event which takes place in Barbados is the Crop Over Festival as known internationally. The Crop Over festival which includes various musical competitions, and other traditional activities usually kicks into high gear from the beginning of July, and ends in its entirety with the costumed parade on Kadooment Day, held on the first Monday of August.

The 'Soup Bowl' near to Bathsheba is a very popular spot with surfers all year round.

Tourism

The economy contracted in 2001 and 2002 due to slowdowns in tourism, but rebounded in 2003 and has showed growth since 2004.

The island of Barbados has a single major airport, the Sir Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) (IATA identifier BGI). The Grantley Adams Airport receives daily flights by several major airlines, from points around the globe, as well as several smaller regional commercial airlines and charters. The airport serves as the main air-transportation hub for the Eastern Caribbean. The airport is currently under-going a US$100 million upgrade and expansion.

Shopping districts are another treat in Barbados, with ample duty-free shopping. There is also a festive nightlife available in mainly tourist areas like the Saint Lawrence Gap. Other attractions include wildlife reserves, jewelry stores, scuba diving, helicopter rides, golf, festivals (the largest being the annual Crop Over festival July/August), sight seeing, cave exploration, exotic drinks and fine clothes shopping.

Climate

The climate is tropical, with a rainy season from June to October.

Barbados is often spared from the amount of tropical storms and hurricanes during the rainy season due to its far eastern location in the Atlantic Ocean pushing it just outside of the principal hurricane belt. The island does get brushed or hit about every 3 years and the average number of years between direct hurricane hits is about once every 26.6 years.

Transportation

Transport on the island is good, with 'route taxis', called "ZR's" (pronounced "Zed-Rs"), travelling to most points on the island. These small buses can at times be crowded, but will usually take the more scenic routes to destinations. These buses generally depart from the capital Bridgetown or from Speightstown in the northern part of the island.

Buses are abundant in Barbados. There are three bus systems running seven days a week (though less frequently on Sundays), and a ride on any of them costs $1.50 BDS. The smaller buses from the two privately owned systems ("ZR's" and "minibuses") can make change; the larger blue buses from the government-operated Barbados Transport Board system cannot. Most routes require a connection in Bridgetown. However, if you wait long enough, you might find a bus that bypasses the capital and takes you right to your destination. Drivers are generally happy to help you get where you're going; however, some drivers within the competitive privately owned systems are reluctant to instruct you to use competing services, even if those would be preferable.

Competition for patrons extends to the bus terminals (sometimes just a parking lot full of buses); it is normal for the 'ZR' bus conductors to attempt to escort you to his vehicle and engage in loud altercations with other drivers and conductors, in competition for your patronage. These altercations, though sometimes dramatic, are less problematic than they usually seem to the unaccustomed.

Some hotels also provide visitors with shuttles to points of interest on the island. Hotel shuttles generally leave right outside of the hotel's lobby. The island also has an abundance of taxis-for-hire, although visitors staying on the island may find this an expensive option. Visitors also have the option of transport by car, presuming that they have a valid driver's license (issued in their native country.) There are several locally owned and operated vehicle rental agencies in Barbados, however there are no multi-national car rental agencies (e.g. Avis, Europcar, Hertz, etc.).

Good to know

The country's official language is English.

History and Development

The earliest inhabitants of Barbados were Amerindian nomads. Three waves of migrants moved north toward North America. The first wave was of the Saladoid-Barrancoid group, who were farmers, fishermen, and ceramists that arrived by canoe from South America (Venezuela's Orinoco Valley) around 350 CE. The Arawak people were the second wave of migrants, arriving from South America around 800 CE. Arawak settlements on the island include Stroud Point, Chandler Bay, Saint Luke's Gully, and Mapp's Cave. According to accounts by descendants of the aboriginal Arawak tribes on other local islands, the original name for Barbados was Ichirouganaim. In the 13th century, the Caribs arrived from South America in the third wave, displacing both the Arawak and the Salodoid-Barrancoid. For the next few centuries, the Caribs—like the Arawak and the Salodoid-Barrancoid—lived in isolation on the island.

The name "Barbados" comes from a Portuguese explorer named Pedro Campos in 1536, who originally called the island Os Barbados ("The Bearded Ones") upon seeing the appearance of the island's fig trees whose long hanging aerial roots, he thought, resembled beards. Between Campos' sighting in 1536 and 1550, Spanish conquistadors seized many Caribs on Barbados and used them as slave labour on plantations. Other Caribs fled the island, moving elsewhere.

British sailors who landed on Barbados in the 1620s at the site of present-day Holetown on the Caribbean coast found the island uninhabited. From the arrival of the first British settlers in 1627–1628 until independence in 1966, Barbados was under uninterrupted British control. Nevertheless, Barbados always enjoyed a large measure of local autonomy. Its House of Assembly began meeting in 1639. Among the initial important British figures was Sir William Courten.
Starting in the 1620s an increasing number of black slaves were brought to the isle. 5000 locals died of fever in 1647, and hundreds of slaves were executed by Royalist planters during the English Civil War in the 1640s, as they feared that the ideas of the Levellers might spread to the slave population if Parliament took control of Barbados.

Large numbers of Celtic people, mainly from Ireland and Scotland, went to Barbados as indentured servants. Over the next several centuries the Celtic population was used as a buffer between the Anglo-Saxon plantation owners and the larger African population, variously serving as members of the Colonial militia and playing a strong role as allies of the larger African slave population in a long string of colonial rebellions. As well, in 1659, the English shipped many Irishmen and Scots off to Barbados as slaves. With King James II, and other kings in his dynasty, also sending Scots, and English, off to the isle. For instance in 1685, after the crushing of the Monmouth Rebellion. The modern descendants of this original slave population are sometimes derisively referred to as Red Legs, or locally 'ecky becky' and are some of the poorest inhabitants of modern Barbados. There has also been large scale intermarriage between the African and Celtic populations on the islands. Because the Africans could withstand tropical diseases and the climate much better than the white slave population, and also because those poor whites who had or acquired the means to emigrate often did so, Barbados turned from mainly Celtic in the 17th century to overwhelmingly black by the 20th century.

As the sugar industry developed into the main commercial enterprise, Barbados was divided into large plantation estates that replaced the small holdings of the early British settlers. Some of the displaced farmers relocated to British colonies in North America, most notably South Carolina. To work the plantations, West Africans were transported and enslaved on Barbados and other Caribbean islands. The slave trade ceased in 1804. The continuation of slavery caused, in 1816, the largest major slave rebellion in the isle's history. One thousand people died in the revolt for freedom, with 144 slaves executed and 123 deported by the king's army. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire eighteen years later in 1834. In Barbados and the rest of the British West Indian colonies, full emancipation from slavery was preceded by an apprenticeship period that lasted six years.

However, plantation owners and merchants of British descent still dominated local politics, due to the high income qualification required for voters. More than 70% of the population, many of them disenfranchised women, were excluded from the democratic process. It was not until the 1930s that the descendants of emancipated slaves began a movement for political rights. One of the leaders of this movement, Sir Grantley Adams, founded the Barbados Labour Party, then known as the Barbados Progressive League, in 1938. Though a staunch supporter of the monarchy, Adams and his party demanded more for the poor and for the people. Progress toward a more democratic government in Barbados was made in 1942, when the exclusive income qualification was lowered and women were given the right to vote. By 1949 governmental control was wrestled from the planters and, in 1958, Adams became Premier of Barbados.

From 1958 to 1962, Barbados was one of the ten members of the West Indies Federation, an organisation doomed by nationalistic attitude and by the fact that its members, as colonies of Britain, held limited legislative power. Adams' leadership of the Federation (he served as its first and only "Prime Minister"), his failed attempts to form similar unions, and his continued defence of the monarchy demonstrated that he was no longer in touch with the needs of his country. Errol Walton Barrow, a fervent reformer, was to become the new people's advocate. Barrow had left the BLP and formed the Democratic Labour Party as a liberal alternative to Adams' conservative government. To this day, Barrow remains a beloved hero in the eyes of Barbadians, as it was he who instituted many of the reforms and programs currently in place, including free education for all Barbadians, regardless of class or colour, and the School Meals system. By 1961, Barrow had replaced Adams as Premier and the DLP controlled the government.

With the Federation dissolved, Barbados had reverted to its former status, that of a self-governing colony. The island negotiated its own independence at a constitutional conference with the United Kingdom in June 1966. After years of peaceful and democratic progress, Barbados finally became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on November 30, 1966, with Errol Barrow serving as its first Prime Minister.

This article has been modified from its original version (available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados) and is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.