Crown and Cross in Barbados : Caribbean Political Religion in the Late 19th Century

During the late 19th century, Caribbean society was generally controlled by the local plantocracy and the colonial administration of the Europeans. Barbados was so much the pride of the British colonies in the Caribbean that it was called Little England. The life-blood of the society, the Black labouring classes, reaped very little of the social and economic benefits from the Sugar industry which the White planter-class owned and controlled. The Church was also controlled by the planter-class, and it functioned effectively to sustain a pattern of rigid social containment, and to work consistently for the maintenance of the status quo. Political religion in Barbados was therefore an engine of social control of the poor Blacks by the rich Whites. Cross and Crown together created peace and poverty.