Barbados Code

Barbados was a land familiar to the Spanish and Portuguese, before the British took over. It was John Powell who on May 14, 1625, explored the land and on February 17,1627, landed at a place in Barbados which was later colonized .He brought along with him British people who settled on the land and did plantation agriculture. African and Amerindian slaves were brought into the land and formally made the property of the whites in 1636.Earlier, the European indentured worked on the islands and on tobacco and cotton plantations. These people could not be enslaved, but worked on a contract for the white community. They however, had no lands of their own and had to work on the plantation without any kind of freedom. It became very difficult for the land owners to get indentured labors from Europe and with less labor they found it difficult to face the international competition. The Barbados Code was passed in the British colony in the Caribbean island of Barbados in 1661.Similary, slavery codes were passed in Jamaica in 1664, South Carolina in 1696 and Antigua in 1702. His legalized slavery in the colonies and the preamble of the code assured that they would be protected like any movable property .The code outwardly aimed to protect the slaves against the inhuman acts of their masters, but in realty it protected the white masters. The code failed to provide the slaves with basic amenities by their masters and it altogether did not specify any rights to them nor were they allowed to beat drums, blow horns, or play other loud instruments as a way of communication among themselves. White in Carolina who had slaves under them adopted this code in 1696 in order to keep them under control. Though this code was inhuman it was necessary as there was fear about the growing majority of blacks in Carolina.