Barbados was one of Britain’s first sugar colonies in the Caribbean. Among the many West Africans enslaved there were Yorùbá people from the Bight of Benin, part of the heritage of today’s Bajans.
History
From the seventeenth century Barbados imported enslaved Africans on a vast scale for its sugar plantations. Captives came from many parts of West Africa, including the Bight of Benin, the coast through which Yorùbá people were sold, until the slave trade was abolished in 1807 and slavery itself in 1834.
Cultural Heritage
Yorùbá heritage in Barbados is part of a wider West African inheritance that shows in Bajan music, food, storytelling and festivals. Bajans tracing their roots, and Yorùbá living on the island, are part of the growing Caribbean conversation with the African homeland.