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The Barbados Land-ship is a cultural movement and organization, known for its entertaining parades, performances and dances. Members are said to mimic the British Navy, dressed in naval uniforms and marching and performing to the music of the Tuk band. However, it is a lot more than entertainment. The organization was started in the island of Barbados after Emancipation, by the earliest plantation workers of African Descent to help them develop socially and economically. The Barbados Land-ship Association is the umbrella body and is essentially a Friendly Society. Each community had a Land-ship. It is based on a cooperative system, operating within communities and providing common services to them. The Land-ship, as it is locally known, has been an oral tradition handed down from members to members from the time of its establishment in 1863. It is held among the ranks of Barbados' cultural symbols such as the "Mudda Sally" and the "Shaggy Bear", but in much more esteem as a "cultural icon unique to Barbados". It is thought that the Land-ship existed long before it became officially established and that the ways of the Land-ship were practised within the plantation communities of African slaves long before Emancipation Day. This would account for the interpretation of Land-ship maneuvers as re-enactments of the Middle Passage, an experience that would have been embedded into the minds of the first shipments of enslaved Africans to Barbados. During the latter part of slavery, slaves were bred and the plantations had very little need for imported slaves.