Elizabeth I "Golden Speech" / Barbados gains independence - November 30th Flashback

Elizabeth I delivered her "Golden Speech" on this day in 1601.

On this day in 1966, the east Caribbean island of Barbados gained its independence from the United Kingdom.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey there, history fans. We're off through the end of November,
but we've got plenty of classic shows to tide you over.
Take a trip down memory lane with these flashback episodes,
and then meet me back here on Friday, December first
for a brand new episode.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to This Day in History Class from HowStuffWorks dot
com and from the desk of Stuff you Missed in
History Class. It's the show where we explore the past
one day at a time with a quick look at
what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and it's November thirtieth. Queen Elizabeth

(00:37):
I delivered her Golden Speech on this day in sixteen
oh one. The speech was before members of the House
of Commons and it was expected to be about economic issues.
In particular, they were expecting her to talk about monopolies.
Monopolies were a contentious issue, and the Queen had previously
pledged to subject all monopolies to quote the trial and

(00:59):
true touch stone of the law, but then shouldn't actually
carry through on that pledge. So monopolies were widely attacked
in the House of Commons because they drove up prices,
they bestowed an unfair advantage on the people who had
the monopolies. No one else was allowed to take part
in that area of business. So this led to some

(01:20):
contentious arguing on the subject, until the Queen finally agreed
to abolish some of the monopolies that she had been
granted and to do what she had said expose others
to trial under common law. So this speech on November
thirtieth was expected to stick to this topic of monopolies.

(01:40):
It was delivered in the Council Chamber at Whitehall, and
it did start out this way. She started with an
acknowledgment that quote, we perceive your coming is to present
thanks to us. That's thanks for dealing with this issue
of monopolies. And it went on to say quote of myself,
I must say this, I never was any greedy, scraping grasper,

(02:04):
nor a strict, fast holding prince, nor yet a waster.
My heart was never set upon any worldly goods, but
only for my subjects good. What you do bestow on
me I will not hoard up, but receive it to
bestow on you again. Yeay, mine own properties, I account
yours to be expended for your good and your eyes

(02:24):
shall see the bestowing of it for your welfare. She
went on to thank the Speaker and the Lower House
because she said that without them she might have made
the wrong decision just because she didn't have the correct information,
so she was thanking them for raising her attention to
this issue. She said that she had made these grants
through a focus on the greater good, and that they

(02:46):
wouldn't be allowed to stand if instead of working toward
the greater good, they were instead causing a grievance or oppression.
But then her focus shifted a bit. She started talking
more about how she saw herself as a monarch and
what she felt for her kingdom and her subjects. She said,
quote the zeal of which affection tending to ease my

(03:08):
people and knit their hearts unto us, I embrace with
a princely care, far above all earthly treasures. I esteem
my people's love more than which I desire not to merit.
And God that gave me here to sit and placed
me over you, knows that I never respected myself, but

(03:28):
as your good was concerned in me. Yet what dangers,
what practices, and what perils I have passed some, if
not all, of you know, but none of these things
do move me or ever made me fear. But it
is God that hath delivered me. And she ended this
speech by really acknowledging that she was getting very close
to the end of her reign. She was sixty eight

(03:51):
years old at this point, and she said, quote, for
it is not my desire to live or reign longer
than my life, and rain shall be for your good.
And though you have had and may have many mightier
and wiser princes sitting in this seat, yet you never had,
nor shall have, any that will love you better. Thus,
mister Speaker, I commend me to your loyal loves and

(04:13):
yours to my best care and your further counsels. And
I pray you, mister Controller, and mister Secretary, and you
of my counsel, that before these gentlemen depart to their countries,
you bring them all to kiss my hand. It was
reported that many in the room were deeply moved by
the speech, some of them moved to tears. It was

(04:35):
Queen Elizabeth the First's last speech to Parliament, and she
died on March twenty fourth of sixteen oh three. The
Golden Speech was written down by someone in the room,
it was printed and distributed in what might have been
considered an official version. It was also reprinted several times
throughout the sixteen hundreds under the reign of subsequent monarchs,
and it really became part of Queen Elizabeth the First's legacy,

(04:56):
really emblematic of her relationship that she developed with the
nation and its subjects, and the way she used what
we would think of today as public relations. She framed
what was really a dispute over monopolies as an expression
of how much she loved her people and how much
they loved her. Thanks to Eve's Jeffcope for her research

(05:17):
work on today's podcast, and thanks to Casey Pegram and
Chandler Mays for their audio work on the show. You
can subscribe to The Day in History Class on Apple Podcasts,
Google Podcasts, and where real to heet your podcasts, and
you can tune in tomorrow for a woman who was
tired of giving in.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Hello, and welcome to this Day in History Class, a
show that flips through the pages of history to deliver
old news in a new way. I'm Gabe Luesier, and
today we're celebrating the independence of Barbados by looking at
the island nation's path to sovereignty, as well as how
that quest has taken on new meaning today. The day

(06:11):
was November thirtieth, nineteen sixty six, the East Caribbean island
of Barbados gained its independence from the United Kingdom. The
tiny nation measures just twenty one miles long and fourteen
miles wide. It was home to about one hundred and
forty five thousand people in nineteen sixty six, but the

(06:33):
population is nearly double that today. For centuries, the island
was dominated by an incredibly lucrative sugar cane industry built
on the exploitation of European indentured servants and enslaved African workers.
The descendants of the latter group account for most of
the island's residents today. From about five hundred a d

(06:57):
to fifteen hundred AD, the island is thought to have
been inhabited by the Arawak and Colinago people, indigenous tribes
of South America and the Caribbean. In the early sixteenth century,
Spaniards became the first Europeans to visit Barbados, followed shortly
by Portuguese explorers. It was these early visitors who gave

(07:21):
the island its familiar name Barbados, meaning the bearded ones.
The name was likely a reference to either the bearded
tribesmen who lived on the island or to the hanging
roots of the bearded fig trees that grew there. Unfortunately,
the explorers didn't stop at naming Barbados. Over the next

(07:43):
few decades, they repeatedly raided the island, enslaving the inhabitants
and shipping them off to labor and Spanish colonies. By
the mid sixteenth century, Barbados had been almost entirely depopulated.
Because of this, as well as the island's small size
and remote location, Spanish and Portuguese explorers gave up their

(08:06):
claims to it. This allowed the British to swoop in
and establish a permanent colony. The settlers began building vast
sugar cane plantations and shipping in thousands of enslaved Africans
to work the fields. Nearly two hundred years later, that
slave trade was finally abolished, and by eighteen thirty three

(08:29):
all the enslaved workers and Barbados had been freed. At
that point, the island was a British colony, and it
would remain one for another one hundred and thirty three years.
By the nineteen thirties, the island was primed for a
labor revolt. The last two centuries had transformed Barbados into

(08:50):
a plantocracy, where the wealthy plantation owners were the dominant
class and the descendants of their formerly enslaved workers were
on the bottom. The right to vote in Barbados had
only been granted to males and was further limited by
income and property requirements. Middle class reformers began to push

(09:11):
back against these voting restrictions, as well as the poor
social services provided by the British government. This civil unrest
led to the rise of Sir Grant Herbert Adams, a
West Indian attorney and social reformer, who helped establish the
Barbados Progressive League, or, as it later became known, the

(09:32):
Barbados Labor Party. Within a decade, the movement succeeded in
lowering the income qualification for voting rights. As the face
of that victory, Grantly Adams was elected as the country's
first premier. His mission to dethrone the plantocracy is now
viewed as the nation's first step on the path to independence.

(09:56):
Twenty years later, in nineteen sixty one, Adams was replaced
by a new premier, Errol Walton Barrow. By the time
he took office, the Barbadian economy had expanded and diversified,
largely as a result of the policies instituted by he
and Adams. The elite class of planters and merchants no

(10:18):
longer had the power they once did, finally enabling the
working class to call for an end to British rule.
Five years later, the Barbados Independence Act of nineteen sixty
six made the transition official. Through this act of British Parliament,
Barbados became the fourth English speaking country in the West

(10:40):
Indies to be granted full independence from Great Britain. As
a result, Errol Barrow became the first Prime Minister of Barbados,
and today he's remembered as the father of independence and
social transformation. When independence was declared on November thirtieth, it
kicked off an island wide celebration, complete with a parade

(11:04):
and a ceremony that featured the first playing of the
national anthem and the first raising of the national flag.
Native resident Sondra Straker recalled the historic day in twenty sixteen,
saying quote I was a little girl, and I will
never forget that night as we watched the flags change.

(11:24):
There used to be whites only areas. We as little
black people could not walk there. That's all changed now.
The island has thrived in the nearly sixty years since
achieving independence, now boasting one of the most stable political
systems in the Caribbean. It's made tremendous strides in education,

(11:45):
health care, and housing, and now has an economy based
on tourism rather than plantations. However, the story of Barbadian
independence doesn't end there. Although the island became a sovereign
nation in nineteen sixty six, it remained a Commonwealth realm,
meaning that Queen Elizabeth was still the head of state,

(12:08):
but that all changed. On November thirtieth, twenty twenty one,
in the lead up to the island's independence celebration, Barbados
Governor General Sondra Mason announced that quote, the time has
come to fully leave our colonial past behind. Barbadians want
a Barbadian head of state. This is the ultimate statement

(12:32):
of confidence in who we are and what we are
capable of achieving. Hence, Barbados will take the next logical
step toward full sovereignty and become a republic by the
time we celebrate our fifty fifth anniversary of independence. When
this symbolic act took effect, Sondra Mason became the first

(12:54):
ever president of Barbados and the former British colony became
an independent republic. That shift also means that today is
Independence Day in Barbados two times over. In many ways,
the country is still shaped by its British heritage. But
whether that continues and to what extent, is now at

(13:18):
long last for the people of Barbados to decide. I'm
Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. You can learn
even more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at TDI HC Show. If you enjoy today's episode,

(13:41):
consider rating and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, or drop us
a line at this Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks
to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank you
for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for
another Day in History class. Good For more

Speaker 2 (14:08):
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