New website launched to strengthen Barbados-Liberia ties

The Africa-Barbados Heritage Initiative (TABHI) has launched a new website aimed at preserving the shared history between Barbados and Liberia while deepening cultural, educational and diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The website, launched on Africa Day 2026, traces its roots to research conducted by TABHI founder Ambassador Lorenzo Llewellyn Witherspoon into the 1865 migration of 347 Barbadians to Liberia aboard the brig Cora.

According to TABHI, the initiative grew from Witherspoon’s efforts to trace the ancestry of his family, descendants of Barbadian John Prince Porte, and later expanded into a broader project focused on reconnecting descendants and strengthening cooperation between Barbados and Liberia.

The organisation said momentum behind the initiative increased in 2021 following discussions between Witherspoon and Prime Minister Mia Mottley on ancestry, archives and engagement between the two countries.

That effort later evolved into the 2024 Sankofa Back2Barbados Pilgrimage, which brought more than 500 descendants of Barbadian emigrants from around the world to Barbados for ancestral tracing and cultural exchange.

TABHI also pointed to a series of recent diplomatic developments between Barbados and Liberia, including the signing of a joint communiqué in 2024 to establish diplomatic relations, the presentation of credentials by Barbados’ ambassador to Liberia in 2025 and the signing earlier this year of a visa waiver agreement and framework for political consultations.

“This website is a platform for remembrance, reconnection, and renewal,” Ambassador Witherspoon said. “It reflects a shared history and points to a shared future built on exchange, partnership, and opportunity.”

Professor Dr Caree Banton, a TABHI board member and author of More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of an African Republic, said descendants were now building on the historic relationship forged more than 160 years ago.

“In 1865, a courageous voyage linked Barbados to Liberia. Today, their descendants are bridging that same ocean through cooperation, commerce, and community,” Banton said.

Barbados’ Ambassador to CARICOM David Comissiong also linked the initiative to what he described as a deepening relationship between Barbados and Africa, referencing the recent launch of direct Air Peace flights between Nigeria and Barbados and the establishment of the African Export-Import Bank’s Caribbean headquarters in Bridgetown.

“Without a doubt, it is fair to assert that a profound deepening and extension of the relationship between the Republic of Barbados and its ‘mother continent’ of Africa is well and truly underway,” Comissiong said.

Through the new website, TABHI said it plans to share historical resources, updates on initiatives and opportunities for descendants, researchers and institutions to engage with its work.

(SM)