“Today is a funny night”, a popular quote from the 1937 Labour Rebellions of Barbados

Happy belated Independence Day, Barbados! On November 30th, 1966, this Caribbean country gained independence from the British. To celebrate, we are exploring the country’s resistance to colonialism, from the colonial period until now.

Slavery was notoriously harsh in parts of the Caribbean like Barbados. During the British colonial era of Barbados, the economy, which was built on sugarcane, initially relied on indentured European servants who migrated to the island, and transformed to reliance on the forced labor of enslaved Africans, who were brought to the island from countries like Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and the Ivory Coast.

Enslaved populations on the island resisted the condition of slavery, notably through Bussa’s Rebellion of 1816. In 1815, governing Barbadians dismissed an act that aimed to stop the illegal trafficking of African slaves. In retaliation to the lack of progress towards freedom, a group of ambitious enslaved people and Black freedmen planned an island-wide revolt. This event was multifaceted, and included a series of meetings, and the election of leaders on various plantations. Known collaborators included: Dick Bailey, Johnny, and Bussa of the Bailey Plantation, Jakey, Nanny Grigg and Johnny Grigg of the Simmons Plantation, and Roach, Richard Sarjeant, and Cain Davis. Roach, Sarjeant, and Davis, who were free Blacks with the ability to read and write, helped to market, recruit, mobilize, and develop insurrection plans.  

(A statue of freedom fighter Bussa in Barbados. Image by Dogfacebob via Wikimedia Commons)