enslaved

When the British first settled in Barbados in 1627, it was uninhabited. Enslaved Africans worked the sugar plantations established on the island, which initially dominated the Caribbean sugar industry.

On Friday, 1st August, Anglophone Caribbean nations commemorate Emancipation Day, marking the 1834 abolition of slavery in the British Empire and the 1838 abolition of apprenticeship. This system forced formerly enslaved people to continue to work uncompensated for their former masters.