The History of Petroleum Exploration on Barbados, 1865-1985

Book excerpt: This book documents the history of the Barbadian petroleum industry and the effort of that island’s black-nationalist political elite to take control of the island’s petroleum resources. In a direct challenge to the white Barbadian planter class, this group made it known that it wished to wrest from them ownership of the colony’s petroleum rights. Stating that it would do so for the national good rather than for the good of the few who for centuries held power within the colony, the island’s political leadership gave notice of its desire to disrupt the colonial order. The politically charged appropriation of this natural resource which one member of the House of Lords called “an unhealthy manifestation of self expression,” was a brazen and defiant stand against colonialism and imperialism filled with political risk for the island. This book documents petroleum exploration on Barbados from the mid-nineteenth century to 1985 and examines the island’s careful cultivation of political and foreign policy relationships as well as the machinations involved as the island strove to take control of its petroleum industry.