How Other Countries Celebrate Thanksgiving: Barbados
Eye Ubiquitous/UIG via Getty ImagesA scene from the Crop Over in Barbados.
Like many of the countries included in this roundup, Barbados’ answer to Thanksgiving comes in the form of a harvest festival.
The Crop Over festival celebrates the end of the sugarcane harvest season. Beginning in June, Barbadians and tourists that travel to experience the festivities celebrate for weeks. The celebration lasts anywhere from six weeks to three months.
Crop Over is a 300-year-old tradition that has its roots in the sugarcane plantations on the Caribbean island. Slaves that worked in those plantations began celebrating the end of the sugarcane harvest season, which signaled the end of their strenuous plantation labor.
The first Crop Over celebration took place in the 17th-century. At the time, the festivities included singing, dancing, and feasting. Drinking competitions were also a part of the celebration, as well as the tradition to climb a greased-up pole.
Crop Over suspended for a period of time in 1943. Barbados suffered from economic struggles due to World War II and didn’t have the funding to continue on the raucous festival.
But it was revitalized 30 years later by the Barbados Tourist Board and a group of passionate Barbadians.
In the years since its revitalization, Crop Over has become one of the largest festivals, joining the ranks of the carnival festivals celebrated in Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago.
