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redlegs of barbados?

how many redlegs famalies are in barbados? i heard it was 250 in the 1950s

Update:

this question isnt specificly about white barbadians its a question on the poor farming communities from the anncestors of primarly scottish and irish decent, to be more clear white farming families that trace there roots to white slaves and servants of the 16 and 1700s i do not use the term redleg as racist i am white myself

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  • 1 decade ago
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    It is an offensive term. That's basically like you're saying "n*ggers" but instead you're talking about "white" people....

    It is tough to tell because White people have been in Barbados since the start.... In the 1700-1800s Barbados went from being significantly white to being over ~75% Afro-Caribbean.... The majority of whites in Barbados moved to the United States and helped to spur early development in North / South Carolina and even to Massachusetts. 7 of the first 21 Governors of the Carolinas were actually born in Barbados and the printer of the US constitution was a white Barbadian as well.

    The US system of slavery was largely modeled after the one developed in Barbados by the British. Whites which stayed in Barbados lost out economically as blacks were used to do slave labour for free so the whites without any power in Barbados became poor. And this is generally who are called "redlegs" or an "ecky becky" but in a derogatory way. Ecky Becky is pretty much a slam on how supposedly whites always name their girls "becky" or "beth" or "elizabeth" etc. in those days.

    You'll likely not be able to find stats on "redlegs" because there's constantly many races moving in and out of Barbados including a lot of Brits these days which are now one of the larger expatriot groups of people living in Barbados and ofcourse many Brits are white too...

    According to the B'dos Government Barbados is about

    *90% Black (of which like 6-10% is part black/bi-racial --this group is no longer broken out in the local census)

    *6% is Asian/Indo-Caribbean ancestry.

    *4% is of European decent.

    B'dos Total island population is between 280,000 - 300,000 people by some est.

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