'Little England' to dump Queen Elizabeth II
Beach of former British colony Barbados
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II has eight dominions in the Caribbean, but Barbados no longer wants to be one.
The former British colony once known as “Little England” announced it plans to replace the monarch with its own head of state in time for next year’s 55th independence anniversary.
“Our country can be in no doubt about its capacity for self-governance,” Barbados’ Governor General Sandra Mason, who was appointed by the Queen, said late on Tuesday. “The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind.”
It is Barbados’ second attempt in five years to replace the Queen with a local leader, but some believe this time will be different, in part fueled by a recent push across the Western Hemisphere to bring down symbols of oppression.
Barbadian businessman Chester Sue said he supports the move even though he doesn’t think it would make much of a difference.
“It is long overdue,” he said. “I don’t subscribe to the present system ... We still have to pay homage to the queen of England. I find it to be a whole lot of nonsense.”
English settlers first arrived in Barbados in the 1620s and turned it into a wealthy sugar colony dependent on the work of hundreds of thousands of African slaves.
The island gained its independence from the United Kingdom in November 1966 and dropped the London-based Privy Council in 2005 for the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice as its final court of appeal.
