History of Barbados

Barbados was inhabited by Arawaks and Caribs at the time of European colonization of the Americas in the 16th century. The island was an English and later British colony from 1625 until 1966. Since 1966, it has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, modelled on the Westminster system, with Elizabeth II, Queen of Barbados, as head of state.

Some evidence suggests that Barbados may have been settled in the second millennium BC, but this is limited to fragments of conch lip adzes found in association with shells that have been radiocarbon-dated to about 1630 BC. Fully documented Amerindian settlement dates to between about 350 and 650 AD. The arrivals were a group known as the Saladoid-Barrancoid from mainland South America. A second wave of settlers appeared around the year 800 (the Spanish referred to these as "Arawaks") and a third in the mid-13th century (called "Caribs" by the Spanish). This last group was politically more organised and came to rule over the others.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to discover the island. Portuguese navigator Pedro a Campos named it Los Barbados (meaning "bearded ones").

Frequent slave-raiding missions by the Spanish Empire in the early 16th century led to a massive decline in the Amerindian population, so that by 1541 a Spanish writer could claim they were uninhabited. The Amerindians were either captured for use as slaves by the Spanish or fled to other, more easily defensible mountainous islands nearby.

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