However neither Spain nor Portugal settled here. Later, Spanish conquistadors seized many Caribs on Barbados to use as slaves, and many other Caribs fled from the island. In 1536 the Portuguese explorer Pedro Campos called the island "Os Barbados" ("The Bearded Ones") because the long hanging aerial roots of the island's fig trees resembled beards. For the next few centuries, they lived in isolation here. In the 13th century, the Caribs arrived from South America and displaced the previous populations. Next were the Arawaks, arriving from South America around 800 AD they called the place Ichirouganaim meaning "teeth", referring to the island's reefs. Better evidenced are the Saladoid-Barrancoid people who arrived by canoe from Venezuela's Orinoco Valley around 350 AD. The first inhabitation of Barbados was probably about 1600 BC but little is known of those people. Around that rim formed a shallow sea with a build-up of corals: one million years ago this was uplifted to become the present island, a slab of limestone. The main chain of Caribbean islands are along the rim of a tectonic plate that is migrating east, throwing up a line of volcanoes.
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