Info for Barbados

Barbados, an independent state within the British Commonwealth, is located in the Windward Islands of the West Indies east of St.Vincent. The coral island has an area of 431 sq. km and a population of 281,900. Capital: Bridgetown. The island was uninhabited when first settled by the British in 1627. Slaves worked the sugar plantations established on the island until 1834 when slavery was abolished. The economy remained heavily dependent on sugar, rum, and molasses production through most of the 20th century. The gradual introduction of social and political reforms in the 1940s and 1950s led to complete independence from the UK in 1966. In the 1990s, tourism and manufacturing surpassed the sugar industry in economic importance.