Redlegs was a term used to refer to the class of poor whites that lived on colonial Barbados. Many were English, Irish, or Scottish, and had originally arrived on the island as indentured servants, or as transported prisioners, notably from Oliver Cromwell's wars and the Monmouth Rebellion. Many were described as "white slaves". The name is derived from the effects of the tropical sun on their fair-skinned legs.
Because little existed on Barbados outside of the sugar plantation, and African slaves were trained in all needed trades, there was no demand for paid white labor. The Redlegs, in turn, were unwilling to work alongside the freed slave population on the plantations. Therefore, most of the white population that chose to stay eked out, at best, a subsistence living. Because of the deplorable conditions under which the Redlegs lived, a campaign was initiated in the mid-19th century to relocate portions of the population to other islands which would be more economically hospitable. Through no fault of the local Barbadian government, that relocation process succeeded, and a distinct community of Redleg descendants live in the Dorsetshire Hill district on Saint Vincent.
