A Symbolic State of Affairs and Some Words from Our Fallen Historians

A Symbolic State of Affairs and Some Words from Our Fallen Historians 

By, Dr. Tara Inniss Department of History, Philosophy and Psychology, The UWI, Cave Hill Campus 

How symbolic of our current state of affairs that we remove from among our first landing places of indigenous, European and African peoples, the very civic institutions that are part of an enduring (and admittedly problematic) development of our modern democracy to put up yet another hotel on our already hotel-dense “Platinum Coast”? According to the Ministerial Statement delivered by Dr. the Hon. William Duguid on March 7, 2025 the listed indigenous archaeological site, the remnants of a military fortification, and a monument may now be retained – we hope. But the land tax department. The post office. The police station and magistrate’s court. The library. All parts of movements and institutions that have been providing Barbadians and visitors to these shores with services that have become part of our daily lives and responsibilities will be removed to somewhere else. But the people did not have the full information about a space that belonged to them. They did not have a say. We have been silenced and made absent in the process. 

 A land transaction was initiated with an investor in 2021 – the same year that the Republic was founded when all crown property became state property – after a Request for Proposals (RFP) was sent out by BTI, Inc. for tourism development. Incidentally, we were getting regular COVID updates at the time and there seemed to have been a thrust towards better public information due to the pandemic – but mum on this. But today I feel like I am left to imagine a lot about what happens in Government – I don’t really feel like I know and apparently, members of the ruling party’s Government did not know either, but our civil servants must have known and so did our members of Cabinet, and then the House of Assembly and then the Senate – where probing questions about this land transfer reached the public for the first time!

 

Something seems amiss in the new Republic – and I think it seems to have similar themes of “silence” or “removal” or “absence”. 

 Well, we know where Dr. Karl Watson would have stood on this matter of questions raised about what happens to our heritage in these transactions? I don’t even have to say. I heard his name invoked several times by Senators just days after his funeral in their response to the “Resolution re Acquisition of land at Trents, St. James for Holetown Civic Centre” (Barbados Senate Debate 5/2/2025). 

 And, at the time of our move to a Republic Professor Emeritus Pedro Welch said of the Republic that "The historical significance is already laid. The thing is fait accompli. It will happen and historically, it will be recorded in the history books. What will be missing from the history books is a sense of the vox populi. In other words, the voice of the people" (Barbados Today “Historian: Switch to republic undermined by lack of public education” 27/ 11/ 2021). It is still missing in yet another fait accompli.

Trevor Marshall, another recent fallen historian, spoke of a game of “chess” and “castles” in reference to the Prime Minister’s move to establish the Republic and that “Under a future republican system of governance, … [he] does not contemplate Barbadians having any deeper nationalistic pride, generally” (Barbados Today “The Impact of the New Republic” 30/11/2021). We have not. There is no greater pride.

 

I do sense, however, that we have a Republic to defend since we now have one and what we cannot afford is to continue to have our voice missing from the history books. 

I agree that the services at the civic buildings can be moved if another existential threat to our island nation – climate change – is likely to continue to have an impact on the provision of services at that location, but this should have been done so in consultation with the public as a principle of sustainable development and in our work towards achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 13 Climate Action. I think, however, that climate change also places an existential threat on our tourism economy and hotel development too, right? And that should have also been a consideration in any plans to take public land out of public use. 

A whole host of thoughtful, creative and locally-inspired and designed public uses for that land could have been integrated into any RFP back in 2021 – maybe even a reflective park commemorating all the events and services provided at that space for over a thousand years which have gone into bringing us to our state entering a new phase of sovereignty and self-rule using sustainable development principles. And yes, Golden Square Freedom Park opened in the City in November 2021 but I think we have emerged from an oppressive land regime as a people who deserve more access to public space in our parishes – not less. That fact could have also been considered.

Imagine the power of symbolism there – to establish a democratic space where all of the people of Barbados could own a piece of this rock near the sea; where they could make a firm statement of belonging where visitors would be welcome too all while recognizing that that this site of landing which brought a lot of pain to our people, also could be a space of resilience against old and new forces that are here to limit us. 

But in the year of the Republic – public land was vested in a foreign investor/ local business to build a luxury hotel and none of us knew. No one told us. I guess we have now learned that there was an ad in the paper when we were homeschooling and looking for COVID vaccines. I suppose that suffices for public consultation when in fact public officials were appearing in press conferences almost daily/ weekly on other important national matters at the time. 

And now, is this the legacy of that space? Is it a monument to our civic silence, absence and removal? 

I wonder what Watson, Welch and Marshall would have to say about that from beyond… they don’t have to. We all know. 

         They said it before. 

             Listen 

                 and don’t forget. 

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A post-script on what will be removed to somewhere else and what legacies those civic institutions represent: 

The land tax department (now Barbados Revenue Authority BRA). Well, our indigenous ancestors did not have a capitalist economic relationship with the land, so I don’t think they paid taxes as such. And for hundreds of years most people in Barbados did not own enough of anything to pay land tax so they could not vote. But we have land deeds going back to the 1640s in Barbados and for as long as the English (later British) have been on the island we have been paying taxes, and that certainly seems to have continued into our Republic but whether we have a say may be up for debate. 

The post office. We have one of the oldest postal services in the Americas dating to 1663. Mail used to come through Barbados first from London to Barbados to the English Americas. Later, mail remittances would be the salvation of our people as Barbadians migrated en masse to the rest of the region, Panama, Cuba and beyond! It was (maybe still is) the place that Barbadians heard from loved ones who had sought opportunities globally because they could not sustain themselves locally. 

The police station. Yes, undoubtedly a part of our problematic history of law and order established just after emancipation in 1835 when the colonial government invested more in law and order to control a newly emancipated population than in education or health care – something that would not be fully reversed until our Independence in 1966 – and what our people really needed – and continue to need! However, the Barbados Police Force has contributed to the story of continued stable rule on this island. 

The library. In 1777, a Literary Society was established in Barbados and a Library Association in 1814 – both private organisations – were not really organized for “we” as such. The first public library established in 1838 (same year as full emancipation) at Codd’s House in Bridgetown (now demolished) which was endowed with the collections of the Literary Society and Library Association. In 1874, it was moved to a section of the Public Buildings or Parliament. In 1904, another angel investor Scottish-American industrialist/ philanthropist Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Free Library in Bridgetown (a year before the Holetown monument was erected) – now vacant. A cherished institution which proved vital to generations of students looking for quiet places to study and to escape into the world of literacy. Now, young people are disappearing into the digital world – and that is ok – I guess. But what of digital literacy? But I suppose the irony is Carnegie invested in our minds. I suppose this investor could be said to invest in our pockets. 

 The library. The archive. Our local tradition of continued record-keeping in the face of fires and hurricanes and the people who manage access to the public record, information and data should not be made to disappear without our say either.