A statue of Royal Navy Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson stands with its plinth vandalized a day after the government of the Caribbean Island of Barbados said it wished to remove Britain's Queen Elizabeth as its head of state and become a republic. He said this was a historic moment for Barbados, the Caribbean, and all post-colonial societies. Barbados received 600,000 enslaved Africans between 1627 and 1833, who were put to work in the sugar plantations, earning fortunes for the English owners. "Barbados under English colonial rules became the laboratory for plantation societies in the Caribbean," said Richard Drayton, a professor of imperial and global history at Kings College, London who lived in Barbados as a child. The republic of Barbados will be declared at a ceremony which begins late in the evening on Monday, Nov. 29 at the National Heroes Square in Bridgetown.

Source: The Standard November 24, 2021 17:55 UTC