Barry William Higman (born 30 September 1943) is a retired Australian historian of Caribbean studies who primarily taught at the University of the West Indies from 1971 to 1996. During his career, Higman wrote multiple books including the 1977 Bancroft Prize winning work Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834 before his retirement from academics in 2014. Higman was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987 and the Musgrave Medal in 1992.