Barbados

Although the British did not pursue permanent colonization of Barbados until 1627, Spanish and Portuguese explorers landed on the island during the 16th century as part of European efforts to explore and eventually colonize the Western Hemisphere.

Before contact with European explorers, the inhabitants of Barbados lived in relative obscurity from the rest of the West Indies. Over the course of its history Barbados, a small island (430 square kilometers in area) with, at the time of European arrival, a substantial tropical rain forest, experienced various successive waves of migration of inhabitants from the South American mainland. Modern research suggests that, contrary to the assumptions of 16th-century Europeans, the four American Indian groups that migrated to Barbados from the seventh century until the arrival of the Carib came from a similar ancestral background. During the mid-13th century one such group, termed Carib by the Spanish, replaced the Lokonos (Arawak) through conquest. The Carib maintained their stronghold on the island until at least the late 15th century.

As the Spanish and Portuguese explored the New World during the late 15th and early 16th centuries, they learned that Barbados and much of the Lesser Antilles lacked significant quantities of gold. Thus, for some time they worked under the assumption that Barbados was of little value to their efforts in the West Indies. Then, in 1511, Charles V, responding to the need for mine laborers in Cuba, authorized various slaving expeditions to islands in the Caribbean. The Spanish extended their search for potential Indian slaves throughout the area, reaching Barbados during the early 1520s.

The arrival of Spanish coNQuisTADores on Barbados coincided with the end of American Indian settlement on the island. Whereas European explorers recorded their experiences in other locations throughout the Caribbean, no such records exist for the first contact with inhabitants of Barbados. Thus, whether the depopulation of Barbados occurred before, during, and/or because of European activities has yet to be determined. While it is possible that the Spanish effectively removed the remaining inhabitants of Barbados to Cuba, it is also possible that the American Indian population relocated themselves on other islands, knowing beforehand of the impending arrival of the Spanish. What is certain is that during the first half of the 16th century, as Spaniards combed the Caribbean in search of laborers for their mines, they landed on Barbados and found it largely or entirely uninhabited.

Although the exact date of first contact between Europeans and American Indians on Barbados is unknown, scholars maintain that the first written reference to the island can be traced to a Spanish expedition in 1518. Then, in 1536, a Portuguese explorer, Pedro a Campus, landed on the island, describing it as deserted. The island remained uninhabited until the arrival of the British during the 17th century.

Further reading: Hilary Beckles, A History of Barbados: From Amerindian Settlement to Nation-State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Peter L. Drewett, Prehistoric Barbados (London: University College London, 1991); F. A. Hoyos, Barbados: A History from the Amerindians to Independence (London: Macmillan, 1978); Lyle McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 14921700 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984); Jan Rogoziiiski, A Brief History of the Caribbean: From the Arawak and the Carib to the Present, rev. ed. (New York: Facts On File, 1999).

—Kimberly Sambol-Tosco

Barlowe, Arthur (fl. 1580s) cartographer Arthur Barlowe’s description of RoANOKE Island as an earthly paradise helped encourage Sir Walter Ralegh to choose it as a site for the first English colony in North America.

In 1584 Ralegh sent two ships, commanded by Barlowe and Philip Amadas, to explore the coast of North America and recommend a site for a colony. Little is known about Barlowe’s early life, although he had served under Ralegh in Ireland in 1580-81 and had, at some point, sailed to the eastern Mediterranean. Amadas and Barlowe reached the islands off the coast of North Carolina in July 1585. After exploring the vicinity they declared Roanoke Island a suitable site. Barlowe, in his report to Ralegh, compared the island to the Garden of Eden and described it as “full of deer, conies, hares, and fowl, even in the midst of summer, in incredible abundance,” with trees “of excellent smell and quality.” The two explorers also met and traded with some Indians in the area, reporting “[W]e were entertained with all love and kindness, and with as much bounty, after their manner, as they could possibly devise.” The explorers returned to England, bringing two Indians, Manteo and WANCHESE, both of whom learned to speak English and returned to Roanoke with a later voyage. Barlowe’s glowing report on the potential of the land helped convince Ralegh, wrongly, that a colony could easily be built and sustained at Roanoke.

Further reading: Arthur Barlowe, “Discovery of Virginia, 1584” in Hakluyt’s Voyages: A Selection, ed. Richard David (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), 445-453; Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000);-,

Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony (Totowa, N. J.: Rowman and Allanheld, 1984); David Beers Quinn, Set Fair for Roanoke: Voyages and Colonies, 1584-1606 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985).

—Martha K. Robinson

Battel, Andrew (fl. 1589-1614) writer, soldier Author, prisoner, soldier, and trader, Andrew Battel was best known for his account of a journey that took him from LONDON in 1589 to Brazil and Angola before his return to England around 1610.

Little is known of the early life of Andrew Battel. He was probably born in Leigh, Essex, in the 1560s. Like many young men in Elizabethan England, he found his way to London, where he signed up for passage on a vessel that took him far from his native shores. He sailed from Plymouth on May 7, 1589, on one of four pinnaces under the command of Abraham Cocke bound for South America. Delayed by storms that forced them back to Plymouth, the ships traveled via the Canary Islands and the Guinea coast across the Atlantic. After 30 days at sea the ships docked at Ilhe Grande on the coast of Brazil. Seeking fresh supplies after surviving on seals for a month, Battel and some of the other sailors traveled to the island of Saint Sebastian, where he and four others fell captive to local Indians who left them with Portuguese authorities. Cocke left the captives behind and Battel never saw him again.

The Portuguese sent Battel to St. Paul-de-Loanda in Angola, where he spent four months as a prisoner. Battel gained his freedom, and after surviving an illness the Portuguese governor Joao Furtado de Mendonca hired him to lead a trading mission down the Congo River to acquire ivory, maize, and palm oil. Battel twice tried to escape but failed each time. After serving in battle with the Portuguese he eventually became a coastal trader once again, but the Portuguese left Battel among the Jagas, an interior nation, where Battel spent almost two years during which, he claimed, he learned that they practiced infanticide and sacrificed human beings. In 1610, under circumstances that remain unclear, Battel returned to London.

All knowledge of Battel’s activities comes from Samuel PuRCHAS, who published an account of Battel’s voyages in 1613 and then a longer version in 1625. Like THOMAS Harriot, Battel provided an English-language ethnography for an audience eager to learn about the peoples who inhabited the far reaches of the Atlantic world. His account included descriptions of various African groups, flora, and fauna, including descriptions of such exotic phenomena as zebras, chimpanzees, and the baobab tree. According to one 19th-century editor, Battel wandered along routes that were not traversed again by Europeans for at least 300 years.

Further reading: Peter C. Mancall, “Battel, Andrew,” in New Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Samuel Purchas, Pur-chas his Pilgrimes (London, 1613), book 7, ch. 9;

-, Haklaytus Posthumus (London, 1625), part ii,

Book vii, ch. iii; E. G. Ravenstein, ed., Strange Adventures of Andrew Battel of Leigh, in Angola and the Adjoining Regions, Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., VI (London, 1901).

Behaim, Martin (1459-1507) cartographer In 1492 Martin Behaim created a globe that depicted that world that Europeans knew before CHRISTOPHER CoLUMBUS sailed.

Behaim was born in Nuremberg in 1459 but lived for some time as an adult in Portugal. In 1490 he returned to his home city, where the town council commissioned him to make a globe. The result, the oldest surviving globe in the world, depicted a small Atlantic Ocean, suggesting that ships that sailed west might quickly reach the riches of Asia.

Cartographic matters were much in dispute in the 15th century. Mapmakers disagreed about the size of the world, the possibility of finding new trade routes to Asia, and the existence of distant lands. Behaim’s globe agreed in many respects with the geographical theories of Christopher Columbus. Both Behaim and Columbus believed that the world was much smaller than it is, for example, and that it might therefore be practical to sail west to reach Cipangu (Japan). There is, however, no evidence that the two men ever met or that Columbus was familiar with Behaim’s work. Behaim’s globe also showed a number of mythical lands, including the kingdom of Prester John, the land of the Biblical Magi, and the islands of Antillia and St. Brendan.

Further reading: Anthony Grafton, New Worlds, Ancient Te-xts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1992); E. G. Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, his Life and his Globe (London: 1908); R. V. Tooley, Maps and Map-Makers (London: B. T. Bats-ford Ltd., 1987); Hans Wolff, ed., America: Early Maps of the New World (Munich: Prestel, 1992).

—Martha K. Robinson