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Africans from the Bight of Biafra were primarily Igbo, Ibibio and Efik; Africans from the Gold Coast were primarily Akan; Africans from the Bight of Benin were primarily Yoruba, Ewe and Fon; and Africans from Central Africa were primarily Kongo.[3]
The Royal African Company in Barbados had its own preference on the origins of the slaves for work. Thus, the company considered, as reported once, that certain slaves were worth more than other slaves from a specific region.[4]
When English settlers first arrived in the 1620s on the island, Barbados was mostly unpopulated. Its indigenous Amerindian inhabitants had either fled to other countries or had been captured by European slave traders. As the colonists adopted sugar production as Barbados's central industry, the European colonists passed laws legitimizing slavery and established big plantations reliant on enslaved Africans.[5]
Rum and sugar was the focus of the industry In Barbados. As it developed into the main commercial enterprise, Barbados was divided into large plantation estates, which replaced the small holdings of the early English settlers as the wealthy planters pushed out the poor. The Irish, as they were called, were the poor white slaves and planters that became the first police force and fishermen of Barbados. Some of the displaced farmers relocated to the English colonies in North America, most notably South Carolina.[6] To work the plantations, black Africans were imported as slaves in such numbers that in the last two decades of the 17th century, blacks outnumbered whites by a margin of two to one, and, in the 18th century, there were three blacks for every one planter.[3]Sugar cane dominated Barbados's economic growth, and the island's cash crop was at the top of the sugar industry until 1720.
Roberts (2006) showed that slaves did not spend the majority of time in restricted roles cultivating, harvesting, and processing sugarcane – the island's most important cash crop. Rather, slaves were involved in various activities and in multiple roles: raising livestock, fertilizing soil, growing provisional crops, maintaining plantation infrastructure, caregiving, and various other tasks. One notable soil-management technique was intercropping, planting subsistence crops between the rows of cash crops – which demanded of the slaves skilled and experienced observations of growing conditions for efficient land use.[7]
In the mid-1640s, the population of Barbados was estimated at over 18,000, many of whom were coerced or voluntary indentured servants, but the number of "Negro slaves" was around 8,000. By the mid-1650s, there was near parity with 20,000 Africans and 25,000 Europeans. By the mid-1670s, there were approximately 33,000 enslaved people and 21,500 Europeans (both indentured and free).[8]
Due to the increased implementation of slave codes, which created differential treatment between Africans and the European workers and ruling planter class, the island became increasingly unattractive to poor whites. Slave codes were implemented in 1661, 1676, 1682, and 1688. In response to these codes, several slave rebellions were attempted or planned during this time, but none succeeded. Nevertheless, planters expanded their importation of African slaves to cultivate sugar cane.[citation needed]
By 1660, Barbados generated more trade than all of the other English colonies combined. This remained the case until it eventually was surpassed by geographically larger islands like Jamaica in 1713. Even so, in 1730–31 the estimated value of the colony of Barbados was as much as £5,500,000.[9]
From the beginning of the eighteenth century, most blacks of Barbados had been born on the island, which facilitated the creation of a Barbadian identity since these years. Moreover, as occurred in the white population, the percentage was much higher women than men, unlike in other Caribbean islands, where it was the opposite. This facilitated the reproduction of the black population during the second half of the 18th century without having to rely on new imports of Africans to maintain the same output of slave labor. In addition, the birth rate was higher than the mortality rate. However, in the early 19th century, there continued to be imported African slaves in Barbados.[3] Increasingly after 1750, the plantations were owned by absentee landlords living in Great Britain and operated by hired managers.[10]
Afro-Barbadian singer Rihanna
It is estimated that, between 1627 and 1807, approximately 387,000 enslaved Africans were sent to Barbados. Barbados (Bridgetown, in particular), re-exported many slaves to North America, other Caribbean islands, and the Captaincy General of Venezuela. Later, the Royal African Company established offices in Jamaica and Barbados. Thus, slaves were re-exported from Jamaica to Mexico, while slaves were re-exported from Barbados to Venezuela.[3] The slave trade ceased in 1807, and slaves were emancipated in Barbados in 1834.[7]
Barbadian culture and music are mixtures of African and European elements, with influence from the Indigenous peoples of the island.[11]
Barbadian culture is syncretic, and the island's musical culture is perceived as a mixture of African and British music, with certain unique elements that derive from Indigenous sources. Tension between African and British culture has long been a major element of Barbadian history, and has included the banning of certain African-derived practices and Afro-Barbadian parodies of British traditions.[12]
Barbadian cuisine includes a blend of foods with African and British influences.[13]
Barbados is an island country in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, situated about 100 miles (160 km) east of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Roughly triangular in shape, the island measures some 21 miles (34 km) from northwest to southeast and about 14 miles (23 km) from east to west at its widest point. The capital and largest town is Bridgetown, which is also the main seaport.
Slavery in the colonial history of the United States refers to the institution of slavery that existed in the European colonies in North America which eventually became part of the United States of America. Slavery developed due to a combination of factors, primarily the labour demands for establishing and maintaining European colonies, which had resulted in the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery existed in every European colony in the Americas during the early modern period, and both Africans and indigenous peoples were targets of enslavement by European colonists during the era.
Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered voluntarily for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment, or imposed involuntarily as a judicial punishment. The practice has been compared to the similar institution of slavery, although there are differences.
The slave codes were laws relating to slavery and enslaved people, specifically regarding the Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery in the Americas.
Redleg is a term used to refer to poor whites that live or at one time lived on Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada and a few other Caribbean islands. Their forebears were sent from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Continental Europe as indentured servants, forced labourers, or peons.
Sugar plantations in the Caribbean were a major part of the economy of the islands in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most Caribbean islands were covered with sugar cane fields and mills for refining the crop. The main source of labor, until the abolition of chattel slavery, was enslaved Africans. After the abolition of slavery, indentured laborers from India, China, Portugal and other places were brought to the Caribbean to work in the sugar industry. These plantations produced 80 to 90 percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe, later supplanted by European-grown sugar beet.
A plantation economy is an economy based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few commodity crops, grown on large farms worked by laborers or slaves. The properties are called plantations. Plantation economies rely on the export of cash crops as a source of income. Prominent crops included Red Sandalwood, cotton, rubber, sugar cane, tobacco, figs, rice, kapok, sisal, and species in the genus Indigofera, used to produce indigo dye.
Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.
Bussa's rebellion was the largest slave revolt in Barbadian history. The rebellion takes its name from the African-born slave, Bussa, who led the rebellion. The rebellion, which was eventually defeated by the colonial militia, was the first of three mass slave rebellions in the British West Indies that shook public faith in slavery in the years leading up to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and emancipation of former slaves. It was followed by the Demerara rebellion of 1823 and by the Baptist War in Jamaica in 1831–1832; these are often referred to as the "late slave rebellions".
Drax Hall Estate is a sugarcane plantation situated in Saint George, Barbados, in the Caribbean.
Bristol, a port city in the South West of England, on the banks of the River Avon, has been an important location for maritime trade for centuries.
Igbo Americans, or Americans of Igbo ancestry, or Igbo Black Americans are residents of the United States who identify as having Igbo ancestry from modern day Bight of Biafra, which includes Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe & Nigeria. There are primarily two classes of people with Igbo ancestry in the United States, those whose ancestors were taken from Igboland as a result of the transatlantic slave trade before the 20th century and those who immigrated from the 20th century onwards partly as a result of the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s and economic instability in Nigeria. Igbo people prior to the American Civil War were brought to the United States by force from their hinterland homes on the Bight of Biafra and shipped by Europeans to North America between the 17th and 19th centuries.
The Igbo of Igboland became one of the principal ethnic groups to be enslaved during the Atlantic slave trade. An estimated 14.6% of all enslaved people were taken from the Bight of Biafra, a bay of the Atlantic Ocean that extends from the Nun outlet of the Niger River (Nigeria) to Limbe (Cameroon) to Cape Lopez (Gabon) between 1650 and 1900. The Bight’s major slave trading ports were located in Bonny and Calabar.
A slave plantation was an agricultural farm that used enslaved people for labour. The practice was abolished in most places during the 19th century.
Buckra or Backra is a term of West African origin. It is mainly used in the Caribbean and the Southeast United States. Originally, it was used by slaves to address their white owners. Later, the meaning was broadened to generally describe white people.
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.
Afro-Vincentians or Black Vincentians are Vincentians whose ancestry lies within Sub-Saharan Africa.
Colonel Sir James Drax was an English planter and military officer. Born in Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, Drax migrated to the English colony of Barbados and acquired ownership of several sugar plantations and slaves. Drax was expelled from Barbados by the Royalists because he was a Parliamentarian, but he returned in 1651 when the island was returned to Parliamentarian control. Drax returned to England, where he died in 1662. He would go on to establish a dynasty of wealthy slave owning sugar planters.
Irish indentured servants were Irish people who became indentured servants in territories under the control of the British Empire, such as the British West Indies, British North America and later Australia.
The Barbadian Adventurers were groups of English-descended colonists who migrated from the English colony of Barbados to establish and settle the Province of Carolina.
↑ Millington, pg. 816 Millington notes that "(l)inks, fusion and tension between African and British cultural expressions are still currently manifested."
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