Barbados: Independence Movement

Calls for political change in Barbados grew out of the labor unrest of the 1930s, when descendants of enslaved plantation workers pressed for relief from poverty and for voting rights then restricted by income and property requirements. Grantley Adams helped found the Barbados Labour Party in 1938 to channel these demands, and gradual constitutional reforms through the 1940s and 1950s expanded the franchise, culminating in universal adult suffrage in 1951 and growing local control over internal affairs.

In 1955 Errol Barrow broke from the Barbados Labour Party to form the Democratic Labour Party, campaigning for faster progress toward self-government and full independence from Britain. Barrow's party won the 1961 election, and Barbados moved to full internal self-government that year, with Barrow serving as Premier while Britain retained authority over defense and foreign affairs. A second DLP victory in 1966 kept Barrow in office as the territory prepared for full sovereignty.

Barbados achieved independence on November 30, 1966, following a constitutional conference in London, and Errol Barrow was sworn in as the country's first Prime Minister. The new nation retained the British monarch as head of state under a parliamentary system, joined the United Nations and the Commonwealth of Nations, and Barrow is widely remembered in Barbados as the Father of Independence.