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The vast majority of its people are descendants of African slaves who were freed in 1834. The rest are of British or British-African descent.

Barbados is the most easterly of the Caribbean islands. It is located at 13 degrees N of the equator and longitude 59 degrees 32 West of Greenwich. It is 166 sq miles, 34 km long and 23 km wide at it widest part and has a total area of 430 sq km. It lies east of St Vincent and the Windward Islands. We have the Caribbean sea on the west coast and the east coast is the Atlantic Ocean.

The largest city and only seaport is the capital, Bridgetown a shipping center with a deepwater harbor, completed, it has a colonial-style government building The Campus of the University of the West Indies is in Bridgetown.

The island has a museum and a library.   Barbados (the Portuguese word for "bearded") probably takes its name from the bearded fig trees that grow there. When British colonization began, in 1627, the island was uninhabited because the Spanish had earlier deported the native Arawak Indians to Hispanola to work in the mines there.

The first parliamentary body was established in 1639 Under British rule From 1958 to 1962 it was part of the short-lived West Indies Federation. Barbados was granted internal self-government in 1961, the Island became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations in 1966 with the government headed by the prime minister and a governor-general representing the British Crown, Parliament consists of the Senate and the House of Assembly.

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