Barbados, once the British Empire's most important colony, is still, with its historic riches and great houses galore, a temperamentally English enclave. Some parts of this Caribbean country even look like Devon and Somerset. But, says Isabel Fonseca, there is definitely another side

George VI, facing war with Germany in 1940, must have had his courage redoubled on receipt of a cable from the distant colony of Barbados, signed by Grantley Adams, later to become the island's first premier: "Go on, England," it cheered. "Little England is behind you." This story, which crops up everywhere in the literature of Barbados, has supplied a lasting tag. Little England: a source of unexamined pride for many, a marketing tool for some, and an embarrassment for two generations of Barbadian intellectuals. The novelist Austin Clarke, who decamped to Canada in the 1950s, said, "It was a joke and, of course, anyone my age would be able to tell you, that cable caused Barbados to become [a] laughingstock." His 1980 memoir was called Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack.

I'm sure I grew somewhat smarter under the Union Jack—as an American student at Oxford and then as a young editor at the Times Literary Supplement in London. But my gratitude for those experiences does not cancel the bewildered disappointment I feel, twenty-five years on, at finding myself still living under this wrong flag. I married not a citizen but a subject, and, as in The Parent Trap, one of our daughters is as English as Sarah Crewe, while her sister—after a single summer of camp in Maine—elects to be entirely American. I am frequently reminded of these complexities during our December break in Barbados, a Caribbean island that was, like my children, "made in Britain."

So how has it gone in Little England? I think it's revealing that when Barbados became independent in 1966, it chose to be a realm and not a republic like Trinidad or Guyana. Elizabeth II is Queen of England but she is also Queen of Barbados. The British influence runs deep: The only imperial power, London ruled the island uninterrupted for nearly 350 years. Despite its small size, Barbados became the richest of the sugar-producing islands and the single most important colony in the British Empire. (In 1661, Charles II created thirteen baronetcies on the island in a single day.) For two centuries West African slaves produced the "white gold," aided, particularly in the early decades, by large numbers of so-called redlegs—indentured laborers from England, Scotland, and Ireland (110,000 to 135,000 from the British Isles emigrated to the Caribbean between 1610 and 1650). At the same time, the island attracted a range of seekers and refugees, from Sephardic Jews to English Puritans and royalists. The mixture, combined with an unusually site-tenacious plantation-owning class, made for an uncommon and comparatively stable Creole society.

In many respects, this legacy is not the worst. Unlike some Caribbean islands that were fought over (and over) by rival powers, Barbados is safe, secure, clean, and exceptionally efficient: The car is swiftly rented; the taxi arrives on time; the reservation is seamlessly changed. This efficiency supports a $1.2 billion tourism industry and also a significant second economy in offshore financial services—from insurance companies to call centers. Chay Davis of the Barbados Tourism Authority talked with pride about his country over lunch at the lively Waterfront Café in the port of Bridgetown, where he clearly cuts a swath. He's late, but I don't mind: I've got a cold Banks beer and a quayside seat, and I've just completed all my Christmas shopping for less than twenty dollars: fancy rum and cookies from Cave Shepherd—the jammed Broad Street department store where we're jollied along by blaring seasonal jingles—and masses of pearly shell bracelets that won't look as good on any of us as they do on the festive ladies who sell them, rain or shine, under bright-colored umbrellas at their stalls by the bridge. I'm so content that I don't need food, but Davis, when he comes, passionately wants me to sample his native fare: flying fish, cou-cou (grits with okra), and pepper pot, a slow-cooked spicy-sweet stew. Yet he was born in London and raised in Coventry by West Indian parents. It's a striking trend, and a telling one, this reverse immigration.