Attempts to use these laws to intimidate slaves and to discourage them from resisting did not succeed. Though they met with defeat, slaves undertook three major rebellions in Barbados in 1649, 1675, and 1692. The first insurrection involved two plantations and was sparked by anger over the inadequate food supplies being allocated to slaves. This uprising did little damage and was suppressed almost immediately.

Plans for the second rebellion were uncovered in 1675 when a female slave named Fortuna betrayed the organizers. The revolt had reportedly been devised over a three-year period and involved plantations throughout the island. Colonial officials arrested more than 100 alleged conspirators and tortured them until they named others. The court found nearly 50 slaves guilty of rebellion and sentenced them to be executed. At least 6 were burned alive;11 more were beheaded and their bodies dragged through the streets of Speightstown. Five slaves committed suicide before they could be executed. Plans for the third rebellion were discovered in 1692. An estimated 200 to 300 slaves were arrested, including the principal conspirators, and 93 slaves were executed for their alleged involvement.

There are no records of any armed slave insurrections occurring in Barbados between 1702 and 1815, a fact that scholars attribute to the presence of a powerful colonial militia that had been assembled on the island by the beginning of the eighteenth century. Moreover, British military ships frequently stopped at the island to purchase supplies, probably an indication to most slaves that armed rebellion was an unrealistic option. Armed resistance also lost its appeal as the proportion of Barbadian-born slaves (known as Creoles), mulattos or coloreds (persons of African and European ancestry), and free blacks increased. Scholars of slave resistance cite evidence that African-born slaves who had experienced freedom at some point in their lives were more likely to engage in overt acts of defiance. The perception held by many white slave owners in Barbados was that Creole slaves were more docile than their African-born counterparts. Plantation owners often tried to widen these divisions by appointing Creoles to positions of power over African-born slaves.

By most historical accounts the number of free blacks and free coloreds on Barbados remained quite small throughout the eighteenth century. According to official records there were only 78 free blacks and free coloreds on the island in 1773. Most were treated little better than slaves. Free blacks could not vote, hold public office, or testify against whites in court. Most lived in towns and worked as tradesmen and innkeepers.

Free coloreds were placed under the same political restrictions as free blacks. Since they represented 75 percent of the free nonwhite population in eighteenth-century Barbadian society, free coloreds occupied an important place in the social hierarchy. Many of them reacted to racial discrimination by distancing themselves from free blacks, embracing British culture, and in some cases even accepting many tenets of white supremacy, including the notion that blacks were intellectually incapable of being productive citizens. Many in the free colored community distanced themselves even more from their African ancestry by favoring those with European features, such as light skin and straight hair, and by embracing British customs.

White Barbadian society experienced its own demographic shift in the late eighteenth century. The enormous profits accumulated by white plantation owners in Barbados made the island a haven for the European elite. Since most of them were sugar and tobacco planters, they became known as the white plantocracy - a planter elite that controlled the economic, legislative, and political affairs of the island. During the eighteenth century the Barbadian plantocracy solidified its power, and in the process perpetuated the racial and class-based distinctions in Barbados. Ownership of land became concentrated in the hands of fewer than 100 of the colony's elite families, in contrast to the more than 700 landowning families in 1667. Members of the plantocracy firmly controlled the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council. They lived on a grand scale, building elaborate estates like Drax Hall and Nicholas Abbey, which still exist. They promoted slave reproduction in an effort to avoid dependence on the importation of slaves. By the beginning of the nineteenth century Barbados was the only island in the British Caribbean that was no longer dependent on slave imports. The British Parliament met with little resistance from Barbadian planters when it abolished the international slave trade in 1807.

The 1807 ban posed no immediate threat to Barbadian planters, but it sent a glimmer of hope to slaves throughout the Caribbean. In the meantime slaves in Barbados were closely following the Haitian Revolution, the presence of abolitionist missionaries on Barbados, and antislavery debates in England and the United States. Their desire to be free culminated in the Easter Rebellion of 1816. Also known as Bussa's Insurrection, because it was led by an African-born slave named Bussa, the revolt began on Sunday, April 14, and engulfed the southern half of the island for more than three days.

The Easter Rebellion is considered the first large-scale slave insurrection in the British Caribbean. Between 500 and 1000 slaves were killed in the fighting; more than 140 slaves were executed; and 123 were forcibly removed from the colony. Frightened by the uprising and hoping to avoid future insurrections, officials in London insisted that the colonists implement reforms to ease the burdens of slavery. This policy, known then as amelioration, met with fierce resistance from Barbadian planters. But after a tumultuous debate the policy was approved by the Barbadian legislature. The 1825 Consolidated Slave Law, as the new legislation was called, established three "rights" for slaves: the right to own property; the right to testify in all court cases; and a reduction of the fees charged for manumission (a strategy used in the past to discourage white slaveholders from emancipating their slaves).

The 1816 insurrection and the Consolidated Slave Law advanced the crusade for freedom more than any other events in Barbadian history. Slaves became more defiant, and British abolitionists increased their pressure on Parliament, frequently citing the severity and repressiveness of slavery on the island. These factors, combined with two other major slave insurrections - in Demerara in 1823 and Jamaica in 1832 - moved the British Parliament to reconsider abolition. In 1833 it voted to abolish slavery in all British territories, including Barbados, where an estimated 83,150 slaves were emancipated. To ease the burden of abolition on white planters, Great Britain imposed a program known as apprenticeship, which required slaves to enter into labor contracts as indentured servants for varying periods of time. In Barbados apprenticeship was implemented in a particularly cruel fashion. The 12-year tenure of labor contracts there was the longest in the British Caribbean. Black and colored laborers were paid just 9 to 11 pence per day, the lowest wages of all indentured workers in the region; were charged exorbitant rents; and were barred from participating in the island's educational systems. Great Britain repealed apprenticeship in 1838, but in 1838 and 1840 the Masters and Servant Act, also known as the Contract Law, institutionalized discrimination against black and colored workers in Barbados. Little changed over the next 60 years. Black and colored workers were confined to laboring on sugar plantations, and few earned enough to purchase their own land.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, black and colored workers began to unite within a self-help movement inspired by black activists throughout the Caribbean, including Marcus Garvey in Jamaica. The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of "friendly societies" that provided insurance to the families of black workers who fell ill or died. Weekly dues, or premiums, were collected and deposited in the National Savings Bank of Barbados. These groups became so popular that in 1905 the plantocracy prohibited individual societies from holding more than one acre of land. By 1910 there were 110 friendly societies. Thirty-six years later there were 161 groups across the island, worth close to $130,217 and with more than 97,000 dues-paying members. In addition to the friendly societies, voluntary neighborhood associations (known as landships) and revivalist churches worked to empower blacks in Barbados during the first two decades of the twentieth century.

In 1919 a radical wing of the black empowerment movement emerged with the formation of the Barbados Labor Union. In that same year the Barbados Herald, a weekly newspaper representing the black working class, was founded. Five years later the Democratic League (DL) became the first political party in Barbados. Led by black activist Charles Duncan O'Neale, the DL fought during the 1920s and 1930s to end child labor and provide compulsory education for black youth. Black workers also contributed to the self-help movement by establishing the Workingmen's Association, the union arm of the DL, in 1926. In 1932 black labor leader Errol Barrow capped the movement by establishing a second political party, the Democratic Labor Party (DLP).

White planters reacted to the emergence of black political and economic consciousness by consolidating their political and economic power. Although a few blacks and coloreds from the DL held positions within the legislature, in the 1930s the government was still dominated by wealthy whites. A further challenge to black advancement came in 1934, when white sugar planters united to form the Barbados Produce Exporters Association (BPEA). The organization secretly agreed to lower wages, thus weakening the emerging strength of black labor. Black workers in Barbados, like their counterparts throughout the Caribbean during this period, responded in 1937 with a strike. The demonstrations were met with violent resistance from the police, leaving14 strikers dead and 47 wounded.

In 1938 black activist Grantley Adams and others institutionalized the demands of black labor by forming the Barbados Labor Party (later renamed the Barbados Progressive League). Working with the Democratic League, they registered black voters who could meet the government's income and property requirements. They achieved their greatest victory when the government announced in 1946 that it would introduce limited reforms. Another milestone was reached four years later when the government granted universal adult suffrage. Reforms continued throughout the 1950s, and in 1961 Barbados was granted self-rule. It became an independent state on November 30, 1966.

Since 1966 Barbados has been a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations and has assumed a leadership role in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). It has enjoyed a stable democratic society in which the Barbados Labor Party and the Democratic Labor Party have continued to share power peacefully. In 1986 Errol Barrow, leader of the Democratic Labor Party, was elected prime minister, but he died in 1987 and was replaced by Erskine Sandiford. In 1994 Sandiford was removed from power by a no-confidence vote in the House of Assembly and was replaced by Owen Arthur, a member of the Barbados Labor Party.

Barbados has fused two worlds, the African and the British, to create a vibrant nation and popular tourist destination. It still relies on its sugar cane exports, and labor remains a powerful political force. Education has been an important tool in empowering the island's black majority; Barbados boasts a literacy rate of 98 percent - one of the highest in the world. But not all Barbadians are beneficiaries of the island's political and economic stability; poverty is still a persistent problem for some.