Prime Min­is­ter has called on Bar­ba­di­ans to con­front their colo­nial past and shape a new fu­ture, as the  400th an­niver­sary of the land­ing of the first British ship here passed large­ly un­no­ticed by the na­tion.

On May 14, 1625, the Eng­lish mer­chant ship owned by William Cour­teen and cap­tained by John Pow­ell ar­rived, and its crew took pos­ses­sion of the is­land of King James I, who, un­be­knownst to the ship, had died two months pre­vi­ous­ly and had been suc­ceed­ed by Charles I. Al­though for­mal set­tle­ment at Jamestown – now Ho­le­town – was not un­til Feb­ru­ary 1627, the 1625 ar­rival marks the start of coloni­sa­tion of the is­land, which had ap­par­ent­ly been long aban­doned by the in­dige­nous Taino and Kali­na­go peo­ples.

In her mes­sage, Mot­t­ley urged cit­i­zens to stand strong, ho­n­our the past, and ac­tive­ly re­claim the des­tiny once de­nied to their an­ces­tors.

She ac­knowl­edged the painful lega­cy of slav­ery that fol­lowed, call­ing it “one of the dark­est chap­ters in our na­tion’s his­to­ry”.

“With the ar­rival of that ship, the Olive Blos­som, re­gret­tably came one of the dark­est chap­ters in our na­tion’s his­to­ry, a sys­tem of en­slave­ment that would test the very lim­its of hu­man en­durance.

But 400 years on, we re­main stand­ing to­geth­er and stronger. To­day, we ho­n­our those whose lives were for­ev­er al­tered. We cel­e­brate the in­domitable spir­it of their de­scen­dants, and we ac­knowl­edge how far we have jour­neyed and how far, my friends, we still must go to re­claim a stolen des­tiny for the ben­e­fit of the past, present, and fu­ture of the glob­al African di­as­po­ra and the en­tire world.”

In keep­ing with the theme of re­claim­ing the coun­try’s des­tiny, the prime min­is­ter ref­er­enced the Char­ter of Bar­ba­dos, which was adopt­ed in 2021 as a de­c­la­ra­tion of na­tion­al val­ues root­ed in dig­ni­ty, equal­i­ty and civic du­ty.

“This was our bench­mark that beck­ons us to con­front the shad­ows of the past, dis­man­tle lin­ger­ing bar­ri­ers to uni­ty, and weave a so­ci­ety in which every Ba­jan can flour­ish, as our great com­pa­tri­ot George Lam­ming so poignant­ly ob­served in his 1966 es­say, The West In­di­an Peo­ple, and I quote: ‘The ar­chi­tec­ture of our fu­ture is not on­ly un­fin­ished, the scaf­fold­ing has hard­ly gone up,’ un­quote.”

She point­ed to ini­tia­tives such as the digi­ti­sa­tion of archival records and the es­tab­lish­ment of the Bar­ba­dos Her­itage Dis­trict at New­ton as tan­gi­ble steps to­wards re­claim­ing the agency lost through cen­turies of colo­nial­ism.

“We must an­swer through ac­tion, every mu­se­um wing that is opened, every oral his­to­ry project that is launched, every stu­dent that is guid­ed through these dig­i­tal archives, we see them as a seed of hope tak­ing root, en­sur­ing that de­ferred dreams do blos­som in­to pur­pose and in­to promise,” she said.

“So to­day, my friends, is not sim­ply an an­niver­sary of sor­row… it is ac­tu­al­ly a cel­e­bra­tion of re­silience, of in­no­va­tion and of uni­ty. It is a tes­ta­ment to the un­break­able bonds that join us to one an­oth­er and that join us to the wider Caribbean civil­i­sa­tion and the wider African di­as­po­ra. It is a re­minder that though our past was marred by in­jus­tice, our fu­ture, yes, our fu­ture re­mains ours to forge on this solemn day,” Mot­t­ley said.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, May 15, CMC

CMC/bbd/kb/2025