Barbados Coat Of Arms

Barbados Coat of Arms

One of the distinguishing symbols of a country is the coat of arms. This long time tradition of using coat of arms predominantly originated from Scotland and England. Among the Scots the use of coat of arms are for legal purposes while civil purposes for the Englishmen. A family in both countries is never without a coat of arms assigned to them. Even in a family each of the son child cannot use the arms in its entirety. There has to be a differentiating mark from the original design.

Other countries in Europe followed suit in the use of coat of arms. Today all countries, aside from their national emblem has a coat of arms. For the European colonizers like the English, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and the Spanish have designed and assigned coat of arms to the countries that they settled in. The design of the coat of arms are inspired from the colonizing country's own coat of arms.

The British founded Barbados, way after the Portuguese did, sometime in 1620, and decided to settle in the island probably because of its geographic location for trade and the rich natural resources of the country. When the country sought independence it adopted its own Barbados coat of arms in 1966.

The Barbados coat of arms is largely influenced from the English way of designing. One of the most distinguishing marks that is largely of an English origin is the placement of the motto of the country in the lower part of the coat of arms. Also in Barbados coat of arms, the use of the helmet is obviously patterned that of the British, which is uniformly followed among the many countries that were once British colonies or territories.

Because Africans now predominantly inhabit the country and largely dependent on sugarcane production, in the Barbados coat of arms, one can see a dark colored arms holding two sugarcane sticks in the form of a cross. These two identifying marks were highly emphasized. The cross formation of the sugarcane sticks is in reference to the Cross of St. Andrew, in which the country celebrates its independence day in the same day that they pay tribute to the feast of St. Andrew.

The single-bearded fig tree together with the national flower better know as the "Pride of Barbados are depicted in the Barbados coat of arms. The fig tree, according to oral tradition on the island is one of the three origins from which the name Barbados was taken, because Barbados means bearded. The dolphin together with the pelican in the Barbados coat of arms signifies the fishing trade in the Pelican Island, which is off the west coast of Bridgetown, Barbados.

The people of the Barbados, who preferred to be called as Bajans must be one of the most hardworking people and are proud of their country. A look in their motto in their coat of arms can tell you why.