Barbados Emigration and Immigration

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Emigration and Immigration

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Online Resources

• 1607-1707 The Original Scots Colonists of Early America. Supplement 1607-1707 at Ancestry - index & images ($)
• 1611-1707 The Original Scots Colonists of Early America. Caribbean Supplement 1611-1707 at Ancestry - index & images ($)
• 1612-1783 The Original Scots Colonists of Early America, 1612-1783 at Ancestry - index & images ($)
• 1614-1775 Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1775 at Ancestry - index & images ($).
• 1654-1686 Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654 - 1686, index
• 1637-1800 Caribbean, English Settlers in Barbados, 1637-1800 at Ancestry - index & images ($)
• 1670 Carolina - The Barbadian Settlers, 1670 Ships lists: Carolina - Port Royal and the Three Brothers
• 1679 "List of tickets granted to people leaving the island in 1679" in "The dispatches of Governor, Sir Jonathan Atkins, relating to the population of the island of Barbados, A.D. 1679-1680"
• 1775-1825 Irish Emigrants in North America, 1775-1825 at Ancestry - index & images ($)
• 1812 List of persons seeking passports to travel from New York to Barbados, 1812
• 1813-1834 Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813-1834 at Ancestry - index & images ($)
• 1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960 at Ancestry - index & images ($)
• 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at Findmypast - index & images ($)
• 1892-1924 New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924 Search results for Barbados
• Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
• The Original Lists of Persons of Quality: Emigrants; Religious Exiles; Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children Stolen; Maidens Pressed; and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700, with Their Ages, the Localities Where They Formerly Lived in the Mother Country, the Names of the Ships in which They Embarked, and Other Interesting Particulars; from MSS. Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office, England, images Indexed at Ancestry ($)
• Omitted Chapters from Hotten's Original Lists of Persons of Quality ... and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations at Ancestry - index & images ($).
• Immigrant Servants Database at PriceGen - 20,000+ colonial immigrants, primary focus: Chesapeake Bay colonies (Virginia and Maryland)
• Britain, Early Emigration to Barbados at Findmypast - index & images ($)
• ShipIndex Vessel Research Database at shipindex.org - index

Emigration and Immigration

Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or coming into (immigrating) a country. For Finland, emigration information is usually found in passport records and passenger lists. The information in these records generally includes the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, and destinations and their places of origin.

Background

The British that first landed in Barbados recorded that there were no persons living in Barbados at the time of landing at James Town in the 17th century. The British Government next sent large numbers of persons from Scotland and Ireland to the island, many were indentured servants sent in order to work off or settle debts owed to the British Government.

In the years that followed, Jewish migrants from the then Dutch controlled areas of modern-day Brazil sought safe passage to Barbados. As the Jewish community brought their advanced agricultural technology to Barbados, plantations boomed with introduction of Sugar cane. This led to large groups of African people being brought to Barbados as slaves. Large numbers of African descendants began to outnumber the Europeans, who were represented by large numbers of Irish people from Ireland was then under British rule.

Many European immigrants came to Barbados in the 19th and early 20th centuries: the French, Germans, Austrians, Greeks, Italians, Portuguese and Russians emigrated to the island to escape World War II and the Cold war.

In the years that followed other groups of Europeans, East Indians, and a small number of Asians developed their own communities in Barbados in the late 20th century.

Many Barbadians now live overseas and outside of Barbados; the majority have migrated to Anglophone countries, including 37,780 Barbadians in Canada, some 19,000 in the United Kingdom, around 65,000 in the United States and some 500–1,000 Barbadians in Liberia. In addition to Anglophone countries other groups of Barbadians have moved to Latin countries including Brazil, Cuba and Panama.

Published Sources

1600-1800

A standard work on early Barbados immigrants, which includes some passenger lists from the 1630s, is now also widely available on the Internet:

• Hotten, John Camden. The Original Lists of Persons of Quality: Emigrants; Religious Exiles; Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children Stolen; Maidens Pressed; and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700, with Their Ages, the Localities Where They Formerly Lived in the Mother Country, the Names of the Ships in which They Embarked, and Other Interesting Particulars; from MSS. Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office, England. London: the author, 1874. Digital versions at Ancestry ($); Google Books and Internet Archive; 1983 reprint: FS Catalog Collection 973 W2hot 1983

Brandow published an addendum to Hotten's work:

• Brandow, James C. Omitted Chapters from Hotten's Original Lists of Persons of Quality ... and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001. Digital version at Ancestry ($).

Peter Wilson Coldham has published several volumes of English records that identify, among other American immigrants, those destined for Barbados. Coldham's works are indexed in Filby's Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s (digital version at Ancestry ($)).

• Coldham, Peter Wilson. British Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1788. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2004. FS Catalog Collection CD-ROM no. 2150.
• Coldham, Peter Wilson. The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654-1686. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1988. FS Catalog Collection 942.41/B2 W2c; digital versions at Ancestry ($); Chronicle Barbados (Barbados entries only); Virtual Jamestown.
• Coldham, Peter Wilson. The Complete Book of Emigrants: 1607-1776. n.p.: Brøderbund, 1996. FS Catalog Collection CD-ROM no. 9 pt. 350; digital version of select portions at Virtual Jamestown.

Cooper published a study of Cornish emigrants to Barbados 1634-1659:

• Cooper, Cliff. "Barbados Connection," Journal of the Cornwall Family History Society, Vol. 79 (Mar. 1996). FS Catalog Collection 942.37 B2cf

A collection labeled "Apprenticeship Indentures" for Lyme Regis Borough, held at the Dorset Record Office (Dorchester, England), identifies several English indentured servants shipped to Barbados and other American colonies in the 1680s (Reference DC/LR/M/9). Murphy published an abstract:

• Murphy, Nathan W. "‘To be sent to America,’ Indentured Servants Registered at Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, 1683-1689,” Genealogists’ Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 3 (September 2007): 101-102. FS Catalog Collection 942 B2gm v. 29, no. 3 (Sept. 2007); these immigrants are included in the free online Immigrant Servants Database.

English Ships

British Naval Office Shipping Lists, 1678-1825, have been digitized by British Online Archives (site requires subscription). Names of passengers are not included.

Lloyd's Register of Shipping identifies ships leaving England, their masters, ports of departure, and destinations. They survive as early as 1764 and are being put online at Lloyd's Register of Ships Online - free.

Many ships that sailed from Bristol, England to Barbados are described in: Bristol, Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Slave Trade to America 1698-1807 (4 vols.) FS Library British Books 942.41/B2 B4b v. 38-39, 42, 47. All four volumes are available for free online at the Bristol Record Society website. All four volumes are available for free online at the Bristol Record Society website.

African Immigrants

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database Internet site contains references to 35,000 slave voyages, including over 67,000 Africans aboard slave ships, using name, age, gender, origin, and place of embarkation. The database is about the slave trade between Africa, Europe, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Irish Immigrants

In their genealogical article on Irish settlers of Barbados, Radford and White conclude that Barbados probate records offer the most likely prospects of connecting a Barbadian back to the Emerald Isle.

Sheppard wrote a history of the Irish in Barbados. Many of the Irish were indentured servants brought to labor in sugar plantations. Because their pale skin burned red in the tropical climate, they were dubbed "redlegs" by the English.

• Sheppard, Jill. The "Redlegs" of Barbados, Their Origins and History. Millwood, N.Y.: KTO Press, 1977. FS Catalog Collection 972.981 H6s

Scottish Immigrants

David Dobson has dedicated many years to establishing links between Scots and their dispersed Scottish cousins who settled throughout the world. For Barbados connections, see:

• Dobson, David. Barbados and Scotland Links, 1627-1877. Baltimore, Md.: Clearfield, 2005. FS Catalog book 972.981 W2d; online at Internet Archive.
• Dobson, David. Scots in the West Indies, 1707-1857. 2 vols. Baltimore, Md.: Clearfield, 1998-2006. FS Catalog book 972.9 W2d; online at Ancestry ($).

North American Emigrants

The constant arrival of shiploads of African, English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh immigrants during the colonial period quickly led to overcrowding on this tiny island. Many people left to seek brighter futures on the North American mainland in colonies such as South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. Genealogists often encounter references to Barbados in colonial American sources. Published Barbados genealogies identify many such emigrants.

Unfortunately, lists of individuals leaving Barbados for the American continent are almost non-existent for the early period, with one noted exception:

• "List of tickets granted to people leaving the island in 1679" is kept at the Barbados Department of Archives. The collection has been microfilmed: FS Catalog Collection 1162149 Item 1

In 1664, a "group of Barbadians joined in an agreement to settle in Carolina." In the twentieth century, this document was kept in the South Carolina Historical Society Collection (reference V/29).

A list of persons seeking passports to travel from New York to Barbados and other West Indian destinations for the year 1812 survives at the National Archives and Records Administration (Washington, D.C.) and has been published:

• Scott, Kenneth. British Aliens in the United States During the War of 1812. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1979, 382-383. FS Catalog Collection 973 W4s; digital version at Ancestry ($).

Several histories chronicle these Atlantic World links:

• Alleyne, Warren and Henry Fraser. The Barbados-Carolina Connection. London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1988. FS Catalog Collection 972.981 H2a
• Kent, David L. Barbados and America. Arlington, Va.: C.M. Kent, 1980. FS Library Book 972.981 X2b.

In the seventeenth century, residents of Bergen County, New Jersey named a town "New Barbados."

Marler attempted to identify Barbados "Redbone" surnames present in Louisiana:

• Marler, Don C. Redbones of Louisiana: For 200 Years Redbones Have Been Louisiana's Mystery People. Hemphill, Texas: Dogwood Press, 2003. FS Catalog Collection 976.3 F2md

Genealogists attempting to track migrations from the British Isles to Barbados to Colonial North America, will be best served by attempting to find mention to an ancestor in other types of Barbados records, such as a census or census substitute, parish register, or will.

British Emigrants

As part of the Commonwealth until 1966, Barbadians had the full privileges belonging to subjects of the British Crown. This stimulated travel back and forth between the United Kingdom and Barbados. The twentieth century witnessed a large emigration of blacks from Barbados to the UK.

Caribbean Emigrants

Many Barbados indentured servants, after failing to secure land following their labor terms, left the island for Jamaica, see:

• Williams, Joseph J. Whence the "Black Irish" of Jamaica? New York, N.Y.: Dial Press, 1932. FS Catalog Collection 972.92 W2w

Central American Emigrants

More Barbadians were employed by the Isthmian Canal Commission of the United States in building the Panama Canal than any other nationality. Records of two-year work indentures survive documenting thousands of these short-term migrants. Many Barbadians also participated in the French failed attempt to build the canal in the 1880s, but fewer records survive.

For Further Reading

• Barbados - Emigration and Immigration