Samuel Jackman Prescod
Barbadian politician
Samuel Jackman Prescod (c. 1806 – 26 September 1871) became the first person of African descent to be elected to the Parliament of Barbados, in 1843. He also helped found the Liberal Party, whose following included small landowners, businessmen, and coloured clerks. The Parliament of Barbados has enacted that he should be styled as "The Right Excellent" and that his life be celebrated on National Heroes Day (28 April) in Barbados.
Biography
Prescod was born as the son of a free woman of colour, Lidia Smith, and a wealthy white father, William Prescod. He was given his forenames for Samuel Jackman, a local white planter.
Prescod was excluded from politics in Barbados. A law of 1697 required that all voters should be white, own 10 acres (40,000 m2) of land and be of the Christian religion. In fact it was not until 1721 that non-whites testimony was accepted in a court in Barbados.
Prescod began his political work in 1829 and it was on 9 June 1831 a major change took place that allowed people of colour the same rights to vote as white people.
“Samuel Jackman Prescod” enters the record as barbadian politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Samuel, Jackman and Prescod can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7411818. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1806, 1871, 1843 and 1697.
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This entry incorporates text from “Samuel Jackman Prescod” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.