 Barbadian workers inPorto Velho, c.1900 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| c.Unknown | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Brazil:MainlyNorthern Brazil | |
| Languages | |
| Portuguese,Haitian Creole and manyothers | |
| Religion | |
| PredominantlyRoman Catholicism. Minorities practiseAfrican diasporic religions, areIrreligious or haveanother faiths | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| British African-Caribbeans,West Indian Americans,Caribbean Australians,Black Canadians,Afro-Brazilians,Barbadian Brazilians |
Caribbean Brazilians (Portuguese:Caraíba-brasileiro, Caribenho brasileiro) refers toBrazilians of full, partial, or predominantlyCaribbean ancestry, or Caribbean-born people residing in Brazil. Many Caribbean Brazilians are of Barbadian descent.[1]
During therubber boom in theBrazilian Amazon, between 1880 and 1912, the construction of a railroad linking theMadeira River in Brazil to theMamore River inBolivia was undertaken to solve the problem of rubber transportation in that region. The railway would help to get the Bolivian rubber out of the jungle, past the rapids on the Madeira and then reach the navigable part of the river inPorto Velho, in the state ofRondônia. For the construction of theMadeira-Mamoré railroad, many African-Caribbean workers, especially fromBarbados, were taken to that part of theBrazilian Amazon. The enterprise was first a British project but later was controlled by the AmericanPercival Farquhar who had a Brazilian business empire.
This adventure in the Amazon brought about the death of about six thousand workers, caused by attacks from Indigenous Amerindian tribes, malaria and many other diseases.
The term Barbadian, in fact, was used as a globalizing identification attributed to the foreign Blacks who went to the Amazon from several parts of the Caribbean, mainlyBarbados, but also fromSaint Lucia,Jamaica,Martinique,Grenada,Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andTrinidad and Tobago. They migrated, or rather were taken, to the Brazilian state ofRondônia which was a wilderness in the beginning of the twentieth century.
It was a migration motivated by work, by the search for a new life, causing the rupture of family roots and culture as well as producing a feeling of displacement and lack of emotional ties. Their job was to cut the railway through the mainly terrain of Rio Abuna. Under the order of the English engineer, Collier, the Caribbeans worked hard for the American enterprise.
 Caribbean diaspora | |
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