Barbados is ready to ditch Britain's Queen. For many in the country, the move has been a long time coming - CNN

A royal source told CNN last year the decision was a matter for the government and people of Barbados, adding that it was not "out of the blue" and had been "mooted and publicly talked" about many times.

Colonial past

The changeover comes nearly 400 years since the first English ship arrived on the most easterly of the Caribbean islands.

"At the same time, Barbados also provided an important source of private wealth in 17th and 18th-century England," he said, adding that many made substantial family fortunes from sugar and slavery.

"It is in Barbados that the English first pass laws, which distinguish the rights of people who they call 'Negroes,' from those who are not, and it is the precedence set in Barbados in terms of economy and law, which then come to be transferred to Jamaica, and the Carolinas and the rest of the Caribbean, along with institutions of that colony."

A decades-old debate

The writing has long been on the wall for a break-up between Barbados and Britain, with many calling for the removal of the Queen's status over the years, according to Cynthia Barrow-Giles, a professor of constitutional governance and politics at The University of the West Indies (UWI) at Cave Hill, Barbados.

Hewitt believes Mottley's government wanted to act quickly to "try to take attention off of what is a very difficult time in Barbados."

"The world suffers and struggles against the Covid-19 pandemic, but for Barbados, as a tourist-based economy, it has been particularly difficult," he said.

But the people of Barbados have not been part of this journey."

He added: "What we are dealing with now is just the ceremonial, cosmetic changes and I feel that if we were really going to republic, it should have been a meaningful journey, where the people of Barbados were engaged in the entire process of conceptualization to actually bringing it to fruition," he added.

It's a sentiment shared by Ronnie Yearwood, an activist and lecturer of law at the UWI Cave Hill campus in Barbados.

While he too supports the declaration of a republic, he also feels "robbed of an opportunity to have my beautiful moment."

"The process was so badly managed, the government made a decision on the type of republic that we were going to become, without asking me the voter, me the citizen, what form of republic do you want?"

The Barbadian government "focused on the endgame" rather than the process of transition, a move Yearwood described as "backward."

Yearwood said he and many others felt that the government should have held a public referendum and engaged in a longer period of public consultation before making the switch.