Why go
This is the link between emancipation and independence. Descendants of enslaved people still faced political barriers, including voting rules tied to income. The Barbados Progressive League, associated with Grantley Adams, pressed for broader rights. Following these reforms shows why self-government grew out of organized demands rather than arriving suddenly in 1966.
The full story
For much of the colonial period, political power rested with a narrow group of property holders and merchants. Income qualifications kept many Barbadians outside the electorate. During the 1930s, descendants of emancipated people organized for greater political rights. Grantley Adams founded the Barbados Progressive League in 1938; it later became the Barbados Labour Party. Labour activism and demands for representation put pressure on the established political order. Voting rules began to change in the 1940s, including a lower income qualification and voting rights for women. The wider movement continued into the following decade. These reforms did not erase the inequalities inherited from plantation society, but they opened government to people who had long been excluded. Adams became premier in 1958, by which point debate over the island's future also involved a proposed federation of British Caribbean territories.