Barbados is significant to Wide Sargasso Sea because it was an island in the Caribbean under British rule during the 1840s that also experienced the effects of the abolition of slavery. Most of Barbados' history is unknown from before colonization, as Europeans conducted slave raids throughout the 16th century, and then the British took over in the 1600s. The Sugar Revolution resulted from social, political, and economic tensions rooted in slavery. This information comes from a website called Britannica. This location illustrates colonization and empire because when slavery ended in Barbados, it came apprenticeship, when that also ended, it left racial issues and exploitation in its wake. In Wide Sargasso Sea, I was only able to find two mentions of the location itself, but the one I want to focus on is in Part One and is the introduction of Mr. Mason's son Richard, who is studying there (Rys, 19). This draws a connection between Bertha's hometown of Jamaica and Barbados, both countries were, of course, under British rule at the time and suffering from the repercussions and backlash of slavery. Mapping this location on COVE reveals its geographical relationship not only to Jamaica but also to other Caribbean islands colonized by the British.
Image: https://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0101
Research: https://www.britannica.com/place/Barbados/Cultural-life