Barbados holds an unusual distinction among Caribbean islands, it changed colonial hands only once in its history, settled directly by the English in 1627 and remaining a British colony continuously until independence in 1966, unlike many neighbouring islands that passed repeatedly between French, Spanish, Dutch, and British control. That singular colonial history gave Barbados a distinctly consistent Anglo-Caribbean culture, cricket, afternoon tea traditions, and British-derived legal and educational systems blended with a strong, distinctly Bajan identity shaped by the island’s African heritage and history of slavery on its sugar plantations.
Bridgetown, the capital, and its historic garrison were jointly named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011, recognised for representing an unusually well-preserved example of British colonial urban planning and military architecture in the Caribbean.
An Island That Became a Republic Within Living Memory
Barbados formally became a republic in 2021, removing the British monarch as head of state after 396 years of continuous British association, a transition marked by installing the island’s first president while Barbados remained within the Commonwealth, a deliberate, carefully negotiated evolution rather than a sudden break. Rihanna, perhaps the island’s most globally famous citizen, was declared a National Hero of Barbados that same year, a rare honour typically reserved for historical independence figures rather than contemporary pop stars.
The island’s rum production dates back to the 1600s, and Barbados is widely credited as the birthplace of rum as a distinct spirit, sugarcane byproducts first distilled there centuries before the practice spread throughout the wider Caribbean.
Painting Coral Stone and Turquoise Water
Bridgetown’s coral-stone colonial architecture against Barbados’s turquoise coastline gives a watercolourist warm, historic colour to work with. We’ve captured that character in our own Barbados Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of the Caribbean for a wall at home.
Colonised only once and only recently a republic, Barbados remains one of the Caribbean’s more consistent, continuous national stories, ending, at last, entirely on its own terms.