Bajans eject Horatio Nelson’s statue
By George Alleyne
It stood at the top end of the
main thoroughfare of the Barbados
capital, Bridgetown, for 207
years imperiously over-looking
activities of residents but Barbadians
lowered the statue of Vice-
Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson
from its commanding height
and relegated it to a place in the
museum on Monday, Nov. 16.
Following years of wrangling,
the statue of this man who has
a place in British history for his
naval battle accomplishments
but historians argue none for
Barbados, was removed leaving a
coral pedestal that now appears
to be begging for a replacement
in an area ironically named
‘Heroes’ Square.’
Another irony is that the statue
yards away from the area
where ships had delivered captured
Africans who were on the
spot auctioned off into slavery.
Maybe the island will consider
a monument to the enslaved
for the now empty pedestal.
In decades of debates historians
contended Nelson’s sole
relationship to Barbados to
sabotage welfare of its majority
inhabitants, but there were
also his sympathisers, a minority,
who wanted the effigy to
remain.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley
appeared to recognise the
dissenting few to its removal
among her citizenry when she
said in a conciliatory tone,
“while the statue of Vice-Admiral
Lord Horatio Nelson is an
important, historic relic, it is
not a relic to be placed in the
National Heroes’ Square of a
nation that has had to fight for
too long to shape its destiny and
to forge a positive future for its
citizens.”
“National consciousness and
Caribbean L 16 ife, December 4-10, 2020
identity come at the core of the
nation-state and if we do not
know who we are, if we are not
clear what we will fight for, then
we are doomed to be exploited
and to be colonised again,” she
said during the pomp and ceremony
chockful of cultural songs
and dances at the removal.
Design, construction and
erection of the bronze statue
was funded by slave-owning
planters and merchants in 1813
commemorating the anniversary
of the British Royal Navy’s
victory in the Battle of Trafalgar
in 1805.
Since then they have annually
paid homage to the monument
with flowers until an Errol
Barrow halted the practice in
1962.
According to historian Trevor
Marshall, the colonists’ love
affair with Nelson was based on
a mistaken belief that the navy
man had rescued Barbados from
the French.
During the Napoleonic war
Nelson visited Barbados with a
fleet in search of a French admiral.
“Barbadian people had never
seen such a large force — 10
ships — and thought that the
French had come to attack Barbados
Workmen lower Nelson’s statue in Bridgetown, Barbados.
Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation TV-8
and Nelson came to save
them. So when he fought the
battle of Trafalgar on Oct. 21,
1805 and won it and died in the
process, Barbadians developed
a cult.”
This veneration annoyed
mostly black Barbadians over
the years who, from the preindependence
period, began
being educated and in the process
learned that by his actions
Nelson was more of an enemy
to this island with a 95 per
cent black population descended
from enslaved Africans.
“Yes, he won fantastic battles
for England. In the Caribbean,
he was sadistic, narcissistic,
callous and brutal. He scoured
the Caribbean checking to
make sure that England’s slaves
reached Barbados and Jamaica
safely,” Marshall said.
A statue of Royal Navy Vice-
Admiral Horatio Nelson. REUTERS/
Nigel R. Browne, fi le
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