Irish indentured servants in the context of "Jamaica"

Barbados is an island country in the Caribbean located in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American and Caribbean plates. Its capital and largest city is Bridgetown.

Inhabited by Kalinago people since the 13th century, and prior to that by other Indigenous peoples, Barbados was claimed for the Crown of Castile by Spanish navigators in the late 15th century. It first appeared on a Spanish map in 1511. The Portuguese Empire claimed the island between 1532 and 1536, but abandoned it in 1620 with their only remnants being the introduction of wild boars intended as a supply of meat whenever the island was visited. An English ship, the Olive Blossom, arrived in Barbados on 14 May 1625; its men took possession of the island in the name of King James I. In 1627, the first permanent settlers arrived from England, and Barbados became an English and later British colony. During this period, the colony operated on a plantation economy, relying initially on the labour of Irish indentured servants and subsequently African slaves who worked on the island's plantations. Slavery continued until it was phased out through most of the British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

White Caribbean or European Caribbean is the term for people who are born in the Caribbean whose ancestors are from Europe or people who emigrated to the Caribbean from Europe and had acquired citizenship in their respective Caribbean countries.

The first Europeans to arrive in the Caribbean were Spaniards who discovered Hispaniola. Many white people in the Caribbean owned Afro-Caribbean slaves. Many whites came to the Caribbean during the colonial era. Some white Caribbean people descend from Indentured servants transported from Ireland and too a lesser extent other European countries, where they worked on tobacco and cotton plantations. Some of them were political prisoners and criminals, especially in Barbados.