Looking for Charleston in Barbados

Doug Pardue // The Post and Courier

The north coast of Barbados is tormented by the Atlantic’s onslaught. The constant wave pounding creates cliffs and interesting rock formations.

The tiny island nation of Barbados is sometimes called the mother of Charleston.

That's because many of the Holy City's early settlers came from Barbados in the late 1600s and early 1700s to earn their fortunes in a place where land was plentiful. And they brought along slaves to do the rough work of turning South Carolina's rich coastal soil into wealth, just as they did in the sugar cane fields of Barbados.

That Barbados connection contributed to the development of South Carolina's plantation economy, the source of what would make Charleston, for awhile, the wealthiest city in England's 13 American Colonies. It's also responsible for helping spread a slave-dependent agricultural economy throughout the South.

The connection with Barbados remains evident today in the names of many famous Charleston and South Carolina families, such as the Draytons, Middletons, Yeamans and Gibbs, and in the city's famed architecture.

Single houses

The design of Charleston's single houses is believed by many to be based on houses that existed in Barbados in the late 1600s. Most are gone from the island, but one, the Arlington House, now serves as a museum in Speightstown on Barbados' northwest coast.

As with most of Charleston's single houses, the narrow side of the Arlington House faces the road. The three-story house is topped with gables, and porches run the length of one of the house's long sides.

Many of Charleston's early settlers left Barbados from Speights-town, then a thriving port, and brought the architectural style with them, or so the story goes.

Some historians, however, doubt that the style was brought from Barbados. Among them, John Hiatt, historian at Charles Towne Landing, where Charleston's first settlers came ashore. He says the basic style was generally known at the time, but developed its unique character in Charleston.

Whatever the case, Arlington House would be right at home in the Holy City.

Cottage views

My wife, Judy, and I rented a cottage just north of Speights-town in a small fishing village called Half Moon Fort. Our cottage came with two porches, a covered one on the ground floor and an open one off our second-floor bedroom, both offering stunning views of sea and sunsets. The cottage also came with well-cared-for grounds planted in native flowers, bushes and trees that hosted visiting monkeys.

The monkeys were a treat until we learned to be cautious lest they slip in open doors or windows to snatch food.

From the online photos, our cottage appeared to front on a tiny beach framed with large rock outcroppings. But when we arrived, the beach was mostly rock and cliff. Literature in the house stated that the beach has a tendency to come and go with the weather or seasons.

If beaches are your thing, this is not the best Caribbean island to pick. All of the most desirable beaches sit on the west and southwest coasts and tend to be small. Barbados' beaches are all public, but most of the best ones are surrounded by hotels and other developments.

Many of the island's beaches also lack the calm, soft waves enjoyed by most Caribbean islands. That's because Barbados is not really in the Caribbean. It sits out in the Atlantic, 100 miles east of St. Lucia, its nearest West Indies neighbor.

Fine dining

From our cottage we planned day trips to see as much of the island as possible. In the evenings, we returned to rest, watch the sunset and drive to one of the many fine restaurants that, for foodies, make Barbados stand out among Caribbean islands. Among the best is Fish Pot, a beach-front restaurant that served lunch and dinner, and was just down the street from our cottage.

Fine restaurants dot almost the entire length of the east coast, making it easy to just drop in as you explore the island. We found two nice ones in Bathsheba. Both offered stunning views of this wave-pounded coast, where huge rock formations resemble giant mushrooms as swirling waves continue to eat away at their bases. Few good restaurants sit on the west coast, so plan ahead if you want to dine there.

Holetown, an east coast shopping mecca midway between Bridgetown and Speightstown, boasts among the island's biggest concentrations of good restaurants. They offer something for every taste and wallet.

Among our favorite there was Bistro Flindt, a deli where you could dine outside or order takeout.

If you want to eat the way Bajans do, then you should plan to spend a Friday evening at Oistins. Once a week this tiny fishing village comes to life as a giant fish fry.

Hundreds of people converge on a strip of land along a southwest beach where dozens of vendors compete to woo them with numerous versions of grilled or barbecued fish and chicken along with numerous other varieties of Bajan soulfood.

As the eating dies down in the largely outdoor occasion, the music comes on and the beer, Banks beer if you want to drink local, keeps flowing. This is definitely the occasion for a taxi.

Getting around

Driving can be a challenge in Barbados, not just Friday evenings in Oistins, but in the everyday crunch of bustling Bridgetown and along narrow two-lane roads where luck is all that separates you from oncoming trucks.

In addition. Bajans drive the same way their former colonial rulers do -- on the left side of the road -- and everything inside the rental car is on the opposite side of where it's supposed to be.

Once in the countryside, though, driving provides the best opportunity to see this beautiful island. Fields of golden green sugar cane, 10 feet tall or more, wave in the wind, living evidence of the plantation economy that brought wealth and slavery to this island and to South Carolina.

Then, forced labor was seen as necessary for the backbreaking task of hand-chopping the sweet harvest. Hands remained the main tool to harvest sugar cane until the last third of the 20th century when mechanical harvesters arrived on the island.

Sugar cane remains a dominate agricultural product for Barbados, with fields covering much of the island's arable interior. Sugar also provides the basis for one of the island's other main products: rum. And a trip here should include a tour of the Mount Gay Rum distillery, which is the world's oldest in operation, producing the sweet potent liquor since 1703.

Plantation life

Sugar cane fueled the island's early wealth, but tourism, now, ranks as the island's biggest economic engine, followed by financial services and international investments. Because of the island's focus on education, it enjoys one of the highest literacy rates in the world, and that educational level has helped Barbados develop one of the highest standards of living in the Americas. The drive for education stemmed from the people's desire to throw off the legacy of slavery and the plantation economy.

On day trips, you can capture a sense of what that plantation economy was like, at least for the wealthy whites who benefited from it, by visiting some of the restored plantation homes.

Among those is St. Nicholas Abbey, which is not an Abbey, but a great house named for a site in England. It dates from the 1650s, and with its 400 acres, some of it planted in sugar cane, visitors can step back in time. The Abbey also offers an inviting terrace cafe, where visitors can dine and sample some of the excellent rum distilled on the property.

John Yeamans, one of the early owners of the Abbey, offers yet another connection to Charleston. He was named governor of Carolina when both Carolinas were one, and sent ships to the Colony in an effort to establish a plantation.

The first settlers in Charleston arrived in 1670 at what is now the Charles Towne Landing state historical site in West Ashley. Hiatt, the historian at Charles Towne, said that first landing involved settlers who were mostly from England but included a few from Barbados. More Bajans followed, he said, among them Yeamans, who built a plantation along the Ashley River near what is now the restaurant and bar, California Dreaming.