Barbados sheds ties to its past as British colony
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The Caribbean island of Barbados on Monday prepared to wave goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II as head of state, cut ties with its colonial past and become a republic for the first time.
The preparations came a month after the Parliament of the former British colony once nicknamed “Little England” elected its first president in a two-thirds majority vote. The push to become a republic began more than two decades ago.
Thousands of people were expected to watch the latenight event on TV, listen to it on the radio or see it in person at a popular square where the statue of a well-known British lord was removed last year amid a worldwide push to eradicate symbols of oppression.
“It should be a historic moment,” said Dennis Edwards, a property manager who was born in Guyana but lives in Barbados.
His son was born on the island, and Edwards said he planned to take him to see the once-in-a-lifetime event.
The most high-profile guest was Prince Charles, who arrived Sunday in Barbados, an island of more than 300,000 people and one of the wealthier nations in the Caribbean, with a dependence on tourism, manufacturing and finance. The Prince of Wales was greeted with a 21-gun salute and was scheduled to speak ahead of the president-elect.
Barbados Governor General Sandra Mason, who was appointed by the queen, was scheduled to be sworn in as president early today, which marks the 55th anniversary of the island’s independence from Britain.
“The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,” Mason said in a speech to Parliament last month, adding that the move should not be seen as a condemnation of anyone and that Barbados looked forward to continuing its relationship with the British monarch.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley praised the vote at the time, saying: “We have just elected among us a woman who is uniquely and passionately Barbadian. … I can think therefore of no better person at this juncture of our nation.”
Mottley added that the “responsibilities and rights come with the understanding that there is no one else to look over us. … This is our moment.”
Mason, 72, is an attorney and judge who also has served as ambassador to Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and Brazil.
Barbados has slowly distanced itself from its colonial past after gaining independence from the United Kingdom in November 1966, more than three centuries after English settlers arrived and turned the island into a wealthy sugar colony based on the work of hundreds of thousands of African slaves.
In 2005, Barbados dropped the London-based Privy Council in favor of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice as its final court of appeal.
Then in 2008, it proposed a referendum on the issue of becoming a republic, but it was pushed back indefinitely. Last year, Barbados announced plans to stop being a constitutional monarchy and removed a statue of British Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson from National Heroes Square, the location of the ceremony to celebrate republic status.
Barbados did not need permission from the U.K. to become a republic, although the island will remain a member of the Commonwealth Realm, the first nation to do so after ceasing to be a constitutional monarchy.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement Monday that Britain and Barbados would remain friends and allies: “Ours is a partnership built to last as we tackle shared global challenges like the climate crisis and global recovery from the pandemic together.”
The transformation into a republic is an event the Caribbean had not seen since the 1970s, when Guyana, Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago became republics.