Decades in the making, on Nov. 30, Barbados joined the small club of former British-American colonies turned republics (Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica and Guyana). And let's not forget the club's founding member, the United States.

While still a teenager, in 1751, George Washington visited Barbados with his ailing half brother Lawrence. Twenty-five years later, when Great Britain cut trade ties between its loyal Caribbean domains and its wayward continental colonies, disaster struck Barbados. Britain's sugar islands had become monocrop economies, dependent on food imports from North America; when those trade connections were severed, hundreds of slaves starved.

Historically, Barbadians have been ambivalent about monarchical rule largely because two often-conflicting strains of monarchism have manifested themselves on the island, one British, the other African. During the English Civil Wars (1642-1651), Barbados' House of Assembly (mostly composed of slaveholding plantation owners) remained loyal to the English Crown, reluctantly accepting the Commonwealth's authority only in 1651 when the Rump Parliament deployed an invading force and blockaded the island.

In 1675, slaves of the Akan ethnic group, known as highly skilled warriors, planned a revolt with the objective of gaining control over Barbados and installing a slave named Cuffee as king, enstooling him — the verb exists — in the fashion of the Akan whose descendants inhabit present day Ghana. British authorities learned of the plot and executed dozens of its leaders. While Ghana gained its independence from Great Britain in 1957 and became a republic three years later, kings, princes and nobles still play important social and symbolic roles and are enstooled as their ancestors were centuries ago.

Barbados' largest slave revolt took place in 1816 under the leadership of an African-born slave named Bussa. Like Cuffee 141 years earlier, Bussa was to be enstooled in the Akan regal tradition, but he was killed in battle against British militias. Symbols in one of the rebels' captured flags reflect the abolitionist, pro-independence and African monarchical orientation of the revolt and at the same time show reverence for King George III, who they believed approved of the rebellion. Another revolt leader had the suspiciously republican name Joseph Pitt Washington Franklin. King George III's subjects executed him, something Britain did not get to do with his American namesakes.

In 1998, when Barbados established its Order of National Heroes, it bestowed that honor on Bussa. He was the first to receive that distinction and has been joined by 10 more Barbadians, most of them politicians and union leaders, a pop music star, and cricket legend Sir Garfield Sobers, who until recently opposed the queen's removal. Nonetheless, he was one of the transfer ceremony's guests of honor.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip visited Barbados in 1966, 10 months before it became an independent nation. They were warmly greeted by Barbadians. With the exception of a few poets and intellectuals there were no antimonarchical sentiments at the time. In fact, Oxford-educated Tom Adams, leader of the Barbados Labor Party and second prime minister (1976-1985) held a staunchly monarchist position.

Serious considerations of turning Barbados into a republic began in the late 1970s, when the Cox Commission advised against it. Later commissions opined that the establishment of a republican government was feasible and favorable.

Republicanism gained momentum beginning in 2014, when the Black Lives Matter movement (formed in 2003) swelled in the aftermath of the police killing of Michael Brown. By the end of the year, the movement had gone global. In 2015, Barbados' Prime Minister Freundel Stuart pushed for a referendum, but it did not materialize at the time.

Then came 2017 with the infamous "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. That was the year when Confederate statues began to collapse like the proverbial row of dominoes. That year on the eve of Barbados' Independence someone defaced the statue of Horatio Nelson, painting it in yellow and blue, the island's flag colors.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley, elected in 2018 was a major force behind the republican movement. In 2020, she presided over a ceremony to remove Horatio Nelson's statue, standing since 1813. Trafalgar Square had been renamed National Heroes Square in 1999; the admiral had overstayed his welcome.

On Nov. 30, 2020, six months after the execution of George Floyd, Mottley announced that Barbados would become a republic. Three weeks ago, in her transfer ceremony speech, Mottley quoted another National Hero, the nation's first Prime Minister Errol Barrow, who had warned against "loitering on colonial premises after closing time." For Prince Charles, who represented the British Crown that night, and Admiral Nelson, it was closing time.

Luis Martinez-Fernandez is author of "Revolutionary Cuba: A History" and "Key to the New World: A History of Early Colonial Cuba." Readers can reach him at LMF_Column@yahoo.com. To find out more about Luis Martinez-Fernandez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www. creators.com.

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