Barbados is cutting ties with the Queen — but lack of public vote has some island residents asking why

On the eve of the 55th anniversary of its independence, hundreds of years after it was claimed for King James of England, the tiny island of Barbados is set to become the youngest republic on Earth.

Early Tuesday morning, Governor General Sandra Mason will be sworn in as president and officially cease being a representative of Queen Elizabeth, thereby severing the government's final official ties to the monarchy of the United Kingdom.

"If we are going to face the world with confidence, then we need to do so as whole as we can," Prime Minister Mia Mottley explained in an interview with CBC News. "Which is having the confidence that we can be responsible for our affairs, in every respect  — and that means having a Barbadian head of state."

The move to position a native Barbadian in the highest office in the country — and not simply as a representative of the Queen — is a powerful one that helps to alleviate colonial baggage extending back centuries.

While Mottley's party — which won every seat in parliament in the most recent election — decided on the move more than a year ago without a public referendum, historians and academics in the country believe it is just another inevitable, though admittedly slow, step toward liberation.

"The British monarchy has fallen like a leaf in autumn in Barbados, and that's basically what I am sensing as the general response to it," explained Tennyson Joseph, a lecturer in political science with the University of the West Indies in Cave Hill, Barbados. "Something that was due to happen — it happened very late, but it is happening anyway."

That lateness, Joseph said, has led to muted excitement from the people of Barbados over the declaration of a republic, which has been in discussion since at least the late 1970s.

Even so, politicians have firmly cast Mason's transition to president as a symbolic yet definitive departure from its colonial past, and one that can help the nation move toward self-determination.

"What it does is ... give us the confidence that we need at this particular point in time so that we can literally confront all of the crises that are facing us," Mottley said, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and the echoes of the colonial past.

"There are some who said, 'Well, why not wait?' And we said 'Why?' Because what we need more than anything else is the resilience of the people, the courage of the people, the confidence of the people."

While generally positive about the prospect of a republic and throwing off the yoke of colonialism, many Barbadians are doubtful about the real-world benefits, while others resent the general lack of public participation in a political and societal move meant to be about liberation.  

Barbados was established as a colony by England in 1625, and was subsequently used as a slave society for more than 200 years, in which enslaved Africans were forced to work on sugar plantations throughout the island.

Enslaved Barbadians gained full emancipation in 1838, but it wasn't until 1966 that the country gained full independence as a constitutional monarchy within the British Commonwealth, with the Queen represented as head of state by a governor general.

While it is doing away with the Queen's role — the first country to do so in nearly 30 years, after Mauritius in 1992 — Barbados will stay in the Commonwealth.