Mia Mottley

He gave some of the planters in Barbados land in the Carolinas.

And therefore there is a huge impact of Bajans and Bajan slaves moving into the Carolinas.

And the linkages between Charleston and Spite Stone in the north of Barbados go back 370, 375 years.

That's fascinating.

Yeah.

And there is also a belief that we need to do more research with the Gullah people and to really see the linkages between the Carolinas and Barbados.

In addition, prior to that, when the Royalists tried to fight against Cromwell, they had the Charter of Barbados in 1651.

which they say 125 years before independence, the Declaration of Independence in the USA, really spoke to a lot of the same things in terms of no taxation without representation.

And a lot of the same things that came to be discussed here.

So that you see Barbados popping up.

in a supersized way throughout history.

And in a sense, therefore, I don't try to claim it for Rihanna or myself or others today as the country, because it really has always had that tradition.

Yesterday on my social media, a picture came up of the father of independence, Errol Barrow, and his wife meeting President Lyndon Johnson here in D.C.

And the story goes at that time that President Johnson said to

this prime minister of a newly independent country, the Organization of American States, the U.S.

will pay your Jews to join.

And Mr. Barrow said, sir, with all due respect, where I come from, if you can't afford the Jews, you don't join the club.

I give you that story as well as in his first speech to the United Nations, he declared that we would be friends of all, satellites of none.

So there's a strong sense of dignity, a strong sense of we have a responsibility to do things and to give, especially because of what we went through.

And that does not mean that we are more powerful than we are, because at the end of the day, size still does matter.