Barbados

Barbados is an island in the Lesser Antilles whose period shown on the map opens with its transformation into England's most prosperous Caribbean colony. An English ship, the Olive Blossom, arrived on 14 May 1625, its men taking possession of the island in the name of King James I; in 1627 the first permanent settlers arrived from England, and Barbados became an English and later British colony. The colony operated a plantation economy, relying at first on the labour of Irish indentured servants and subsequently on enslaved Africans brought to work the sugar fields that made Barbados the richest of the sugar islands; Bridgetown grew as its capital and principal port. The island's legislature, founded in 1639, made it one of the oldest parliamentary democracies in the Caribbean. Through the 1500–1945 window shown on the map Barbados stayed in British hands continuously while its neighbours changed flags, and its society was reshaped by emancipation in 1834 and the arrival of indentured labourers thereafter. Barbados remained a British colony until independence on 30 November 1966, and today it is an independent island country with Bridgetown as its capital.