Barbados

Arawak and later Kalinago peoples lived on the island before Europeans came, but it was empty when English settlers landed near today's Holetown in 1627. Tobacco and cotton failed; in the 1640s planters learned sugar-making from Dutch traders and the island changed within a generation.

Sugar needed labour on a vast scale. Tens of thousands of enslaved Africans were shipped in, and Barbados became the model for plantation slavery across the English Caribbean and the Carolinas. Its slave code of 1661 was copied by other colonies.

In 1816 an uprising led by an African-born man known as Bussa spread across the south-east parishes before it was crushed. Slavery ended in stages between 1834 and 1838; 1 August is still Emancipation Day, and the statue at the Haggatt Hall roundabout is known to everyone as Bussa.

Unlike most Caribbean islands, Barbados never changed colonial hands, and its House of Assembly, dating from 1639, is one of the oldest parliaments in the Americas.

After emancipation, Black Barbadians built villages on the edges of estates and slowly won education, land and the vote. Riots in 1937 led to trade unions and political parties, and Grantley Adams and Errol Barrow led the island to universal suffrage in 1951 and independence on 30 November 1966.

Church, school and cricket are pillars. The island has produced great cricketers, from Garfield Sobers to modern West Indies players, and a Test at Kensington Oval empties offices. Rihanna, raised in Bridgetown, was named a National Hero in 2021.

Bajan Creole mixes English with West African grammar and sounds. It is warm and fast, and most people move easily between it and standard English. Rum shops, small wooden bars with dominoes and loud talk, are the social heart of every village.

Flying fish was once so common that it became a national symbol. It is steamed in a tomato and onion gravy and served with cou-cou, a cornmeal and okra mash that came from West Africa. Fish catches have fallen in recent years, and some flying fish is now imported.

Saturday is for pudding and souse, pickled pork with sweet-potato pudding; Sunday for macaroni pie, baked chicken and rice and peas. The cutter, a salt bread roll with fried fish or ham, is the everyday lunch.

Rum was probably first distilled on Barbados in the 17th century, and Mount Gay has records going back to 1703. Foursquare and St Nicholas Abbey make highly rated rums, and the rum punch recipe follows the rhyme 'one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak'.

Barbados is not volcanic like its neighbours. It is a cap of coral limestone lifted from the sea floor where two plates meet, which is why it is relatively flat, why rainwater filters into underground caves such as Harrison's Cave, and why the tap water is drinkable.

The calm west coast faces the Caribbean Sea; the east coast takes the full Atlantic swell. In the north-east the limestone has worn away to expose older clay hills, the Scotland District, with gullies and landslips.

Reefs fringe the west and south coasts. Hawksbill and green turtles feed in Carlisle Bay and along the west coast, and hawksbills nest on beaches from June to November.

Crop Over began on plantations as a celebration at the end of the cane harvest, with a decorated cart bringing in the last canes. It faded with the sugar industry and was revived in 1974 as a national festival.

Today it runs from about June to the first Monday of August. Calypso tents and competitions lead to Pic-o-de-Crop; Foreday Morning is a night-time street party in paint and mud; Kadooment Day is the costumed road march to the Spring Garden highway.

For visitors it means music everywhere, crowded roads and full hotels in the last two weeks. Tickets for fêtes and a place in a band are sold months ahead.

On 30 November 2021 Barbados removed the British monarch as head of state and became a parliamentary republic, staying in the Commonwealth. Prime Minister Mia Mottley has made the island a loud voice on climate finance through the Bridgetown Initiative.

Tourism is the main earner, alongside international business. Costs are high by regional standards, and the government has pushed remote work through the Welcome Stamp and new air links.

For travellers the basics are simple: fill in the online ED card, carry a little cash for buses, swim on the calm coasts and plan around the hurricane peak.