Barbados says “girl bye” to Queen Elizabeth II

Barbados Breaks With Elizabeth II to Become the World’s Newest Republic.

Barbados officially became a republic early Tuesday morning, casting off Elizabeth II as head of state and swearing in Sandra Mason as the country’s new president. The former Caribbean colony declared its independence from the United Kingdom on November 30, 1966, but retained Elizabeth II as its ceremonial head of state until this week. By removing the queen from her position, the democratic nation of 300,000 people has finally cast off one of the last institutionalized vestiges of British colonialism, officially becoming the world’s newest republic.

Though its leaders no longer swear loyalty to the crown, Barbados remains part of the Commonwealth of Nations, a voluntary organization of 54 former British colonies that the queen has sought to uphold throughout her reign. As Amy McKeever reports for National Geographic, the association took shape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when wars and decolonization movements weakened the once-dominant British Empire.

Fifteen realms in the Commonwealth, including Canada and Jamaica, still recognize Elizabeth as their head of state, report Yuliya Talmazan and Shira Pinson for NBC News.

European colonization of Barbados dates to the 16th century. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the region’s first settlers may have migrated from South America as early as 1600 B.C.E. Indigenous Arawak and Carib people inhabited the island between roughly 500 and 1500 C.E.

English colonizers laid claim to Barbados in 1625, rapidly establishing farms staffed by enslaved African people. By the end of the so-called sugar revolution in the early 19th century, European enslavers had deported some 2.3 million enslaved Africans to sugar plantations in Barbados and other Caribbean colonies, generating huge profits for English investors.

For two centuries, British forces enslaved nearly half a million African people on Barbadian sugar plantations, reported Jon Hurdle for the New York Times in 2017. Britain abolished slavery in 1834, prompted in part by massive anti-slavery uprisings such as the 1816 Bussa’s rebellion, writes historian Padraic X. Scanlan for the Washington Post.

Some of the chief investors in the transport of enslaved African people to the Caribbean were members of the British royal family. During Tuesday’s ceremony, Prince Charles, heir to the English throne, acknowledged Barbados’ history of enslavement but did not apologize for the monarchy’s role in sustaining it.

“From the darkest days of our past, and the appalling atrocity of slavery, which forever stains our history, the people of this island forged their path with extraordinary fortitude,” said Charles, who attended the event as a guest of honor in his 95-year-old mother’s stead.

A generation of political leaders inspired by the global Black power and anti-colonialist movements of the 1960s and ’70s helped negotiate Barbados’ independence in the 20th century. In his first speech in front of the United Nations, Barbados’ inaugural prime minister, Errol Barrow, declared that the newly formed nation would be “friends of all, satellites to none.” He urged his country not to “loiter on colonial premises.”

Neighboring Caribbean islands became republics shortly after gaining their independence. (Guyana cast off royal rule in 1970, and Trinidad and Tobago followed suit in 1976.) But Barbados’ road to republicanism proved far longer.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley bestowed Rihanna’s National Hero title with a nod to one of the singer and Fenty founder’s most recognizable songs. “May you continue to shine like a diamond,” she said, “and continue to bring honor to your nation by your words, by your actions, and to do credit wherever you shall go.”

Rihanna is only the 11th person to receive this honor, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and the second woman.

That’s my girl!