Published on and written by Cyril Jarnias
Long before resorts, marinas, and “one beach for every day of the year,” the archipelago known today as Antigua and Barbuda was a crossroads for Amerindian migrations, a brutal laboratory for the sugar-based slave system, and then a political testing ground in the British Caribbean. Tracing the country’s history in Antigua and Barbuda is a journey from dugout canoes to the British Royal Navy, from sugar windmills to luxury hotels, from slave revolts to the ballot box.
The archipelago experienced a succession of historical phases: Amerindian societies, European colonization, the rise and fall of plantations, emancipation without land redistribution, the rise of trade unionism, and finally independence achieved in 1981. A structural tension persists between Antigua, the dominant island, and Barbuda, more isolated and deeply attached to its system of communal land ownership.
From the First Inhabitants to Ceramic Societies
Long before the arrival of Europeans, the islands had been inhabited for millennia. The oldest remains on Antigua date to around 2900 BC, and those on Barbuda to approximately 3685 BC. These first occupants, referred to as “Archaic” or pre-agricultural peoples, lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering. They moved in small bands, using canoes to navigate between islands, and made their tools from stone and shell.
An Archaic site dated to just over 3100 BC in Antigua attests to the antiquity of human presence in the Lesser Antilles.
From the first millennium BC, a new wave originating from the Orinoco, in present-day Venezuela, transformed the human landscape: the Saladoids. These farming potters brought pottery, more structured villages, and organized agriculture. Their white-on-red decorated ceramics, adorned with fine geometric incisions, have been unearthed at sites like Indian Town Trail or Sufferers on Barbuda.
These populations belonged to the vast Arawak world, which left one of Antigua’s best-known legacies: the “Black Pineapple”, a prized local variety. The Arawaks — or Taínos — established villages, created slash-and-burn gardens, and perfected a way of life adapted to the tropical climate.
Waladli, Wa’omoni, and the Amerindian World
In the Arawak language, Antigua is called Waladli or Wadadli, a toponym that inhabitants still affectionately use today. Barbuda bears another indigenous name: Wa’omoni, generally interpreted as “Island of Herons” or in reference to the large seabirds that still nest in the lagoon.
The Arawaks practiced diversified agriculture including manioc, sweet potatoes, corn, peanuts, chili peppers, tobacco, cotton, and local fruits. They notably introduced the “Black Pineapple” to Antigua and also cultivated guava. Their diet, centered on manioc, was supplemented by fishing (fish, crabs, shellfish), hunting (birds, rodents like the agouti), and the preparation of fermented drinks like *wi’ku*.
Their spiritual world was based on a pantheon including Yocahu, the supreme deity, Atabeyra, the goddess of fertility, and Opiyel Wa’obiran, protector of the dead. Spirits (zemis) were materialized in objects made of cotton, coral, stone, or shell. Petroglyphs found in Indian Cave on Barbuda still testify to this cosmology, meant to ward off evil spirits.
Socially, villages were structured around circular houses that could reach seven to eight meters in height, organized around a central post. Inhabitants had distinct ornamental practices: wearing necklaces made of bone, shell, or transparent fish bone; using red or black body paint for ceremonies; and maintaining long, greased hair tended by women. 17th-century missionary accounts also mention their food preservation technique via the “pepper pot,” a perpetual stew regularly replenished.
Around the turn of the second millennium, the situation became tense. Some sources indicate that the majority of Arawaks had already left Antigua by the 11th century, while other traditions place their presence later, until the 12th–13th centuries. What is certain is that by the 15th–16th century, another people dominated: the Kalinago, or “Island Caribs”.
The Kalinago, Masters of the Sea
The Kalinago, often described by European chroniclers as formidable warriors, established themselves in the region from around 1500. Originating notably from Dominica and Saint Vincent, they carried out regular raids on Barbuda and neighboring islands. Their large war canoes could carry dozens of men, sometimes up to a hundred.
The Caribs were renowned for their warrior fervor and military superiority (weapons, organization, naval tactics), which frightened the colonists. European accounts, although biased, accused them of cannibalism against the Arawaks, while acknowledging their excellent mastery of navigation. Their culture included tattooing, body painting with red achiote, and wearing necklaces made of teeth and bones. Their way of life was partly semi-nomadic, exploiting several islands without always settling permanently.
On Barbuda, their incursions continued until the 18th century, to the point of requiring the intervention of the Royal Navy to protect the village of Codrington. By the time Europeans firmly established themselves in Antigua, the indigenous population of the region had already been dramatically reduced by a combination of factors: diseases from Europe and Africa, malnutrition, wars, enslavement, and also what some historians describe as a “psychological shock” linked to enslavement.
Today, the descendants of the Arawaks and Kalinago from Antigua and Barbuda live mainly in South America — in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia — but the place names Waladli and Wa’omoni and the petroglyphs of Indian Cave still recall their vanished world.
From “Discovered” Islands to Early Colonial Failures
When Christopher Columbus passed through the northern Caribbean on his second voyage in 1493, he noted the island he named Santa Maria de la Antigua, in homage to a sanctuary in Seville. The name “Antigua” — meaning “ancient” in Spanish — gradually became established in European cartography, while Barbuda retained a name of uncertain origin, sometimes spelled “Barbado” in letters patent.
Spanish attempts at colonization, notably around 1520, quickly aborted. The harsh climate, lack of reliable fresh water sources, and resistance from the indigenous Kalinago population discouraged settlers from establishing themselves permanently. A permanent European settlement would only be established following the English initiative in the 17th century.
The first English projects for Barbuda date from the patent granted to the Earl of Carlisle in 1625. From St. Kitts, Captain Smith and John Littleton attempted in 1628 to create a colony on this island, then renamed “Barbado,” but Carib attacks defeated this first attempt. Meanwhile, Antigua attracted more attention: its larger size, strategic position, and potential for developing cash crops appealed to planters.
English Colonization and the Rise of Sugar
In 1632, England finally succeeded in permanently settling colonists on Antigua. Thomas Warner was governor, while his son Edward led the first settlement. Parham became one of the first administrative centers, where the colonial assembly met as early as the 1660s. France attempted an incursion and briefly occupied the island in 1666, but the Treaty of Breda a year later confirmed Antigua’s return to the British crown.
The first settlers cultivated tobacco, indigo, ginger, and local foodstuffs. But from the 1660s–1670s, the sugar revolution coming from Barbados reached Antigua. Sir Christopher Codrington played a key role: around 1674, he founded Betty’s Hope, the island’s first major sugar plantation, importing technology and know-how from Barbados. Quickly, sugarcane became the pillar of the economy. It is estimated that by the early 1670s, about 40,000 acres in Antigua were already planted with cane.
The shift to sugar monoculture fully integrated the archipelago into the Atlantic slave trade system. Plantations transformed into vast semi-industrial complexes, including mills, boiling houses, distilleries, and housing for staff. Working conditions were extremely harsh and dangerous, with risks of serious injury from machinery and workdays that could last 24 hours during the harvest period.
At its peak in the 18th century, Antigua was one of the main sugar producers in the Leeward Islands. There were more than 150 mills on the island, whose over 200 stone bases still mark the landscape today. Production probably reached between 20,000 and 30,000 hogsheads per year in the 1770s.
The Special Case of Barbuda and the Codrington Stranglehold
Barbuda, drier and less endowed with sugar lands, followed a different trajectory. In 1685, the crown leased the island for fifty years to brothers John and Christopher Codrington. The symbolic rent — “one fat sheep per year, if demanded” — illustrates the utilitarian vision of this territory: a “supply camp” meant to provision the Codrington plantations in Antigua and Barbados.
Total number of livestock present on the island in the 1780s, including sheep, goats, horses, and cattle.
The idea, once considered, of making it a “slave nursery” to supply the region never fully materialized. Nevertheless, the enslaved population grew from 172 people in 1746 to over 500 at the time of abolition. Lacking massive imports after the mid-18th century, this population grew mainly through natural increase. It is known to have originated largely from West African peoples — Ibo, Yoruba, Ejo from Nigeria, as well as from Ghana, Gambia, and Sierra Leone.
A 1719 survey mentions 87 Africans and 23 white servants on the island, overseeing livestock numbering in the hundreds. Quickly, Barbudans acquired a solid reputation for versatility: ship carpenters, hunters, saddlers, tanners, shoemakers, coopers, carters, etc.
Slavery, Violence, and Resistance
The rise of sugar rested entirely on mass slavery. In Antigua, the number of enslaved people rose from a few hundred in the 1670s to nearly 40,000 by the mid-18th century, about ten times the white population. An early statistic for 1678 records 2,172 enslaved persons versus 2,308 Whites; a century later, the demographic imbalance was total.
The regime was one of extreme brutality. Physical punishments, grueling labor, high mortality, and family separations were the daily rhythm. Plantation records like those of Parham Lodge recorded births, deaths, and sales of human beings alongside livestock. Colonial legislators attempted to regulate the most flagrant excesses: a 1723 law made the arbitrary murder of an enslaved person a crime, but abuses remained considerable.
Faced with this oppression, resistance took multiple forms: work slowdowns, feigning illness, destroying tools, suicide, infanticide, and, on several occasions, organized revolts. Antigua experienced attempted uprisings in 1701 and 1729, but it was the 1736 conspiracy that left a lasting mark.
Forms of resistance to oppression on the island of Antigua
A man known as Prince Klaas, or Court, then conceived an ambitious plan: to overthrow the colonial order, proclaim Antigua’s independence, and, according to some accounts, have himself crowned king during a ceremony disguised as a feast. The plot was discovered before its execution; Klaas and the other leaders were executed with exemplary cruelty. The location of these executions corresponds to the present-day Antigua Recreation Ground. Strikingly, this same Prince Klaas is said to have already advocated for the island’s independence in 1728 — long before the era of Caribbean nationalisms.
Barbuda was not exempt. The brutal management by the Codrington agents provoked a series of revolts in the 18th century. In 1741, the abuses inflicted by Thomas Beach triggered what would later be called the “Beach rebellion”: slaughtering livestock, destroying property, enslaved people fleeing. In 1746, a local governor, Macknight, was assassinated during an uprising; other rebellions broke out in 1774 and under successive managers, up to a major insurrection in 1834–1835, when there was an attempt to forcibly deport the entire enslaved population of Barbuda to Antigua’s plantations. On several occasions, the militia or troops from Antigua had to intervene, and exemplary executions — including burnings at the stake — were ordered.
These resistances, even when crushed, profoundly marked the islands’ political culture. They nourished a memory of struggle that would resurface later in trade union and nationalist battles.
In the 18th century, as West Indian sugar enriched the metropolis, Antigua became a major military pivot of the British Empire in the region. The Royal Navy established its main Caribbean base there. English Harbour, on Antigua’s south coast, offered a deep anchorage, well-protected from hurricanes. The experience of a 1723 hurricane, which destroyed 35 ships in other ports on the island while two vessels anchored at English Harbour emerged unscathed, definitively convinced the Admiralty.
Over three-quarters of the workers who built Nelson’s Dockyard were enslaved Africans.
Between the 1740s and 1820s, the site was equipped with all the infrastructure of a major naval yard: a capstan house, rope and sail stores, a naval hospital, cisterns, stone quays, officers’ quarters. At the same time, the surrounding hills were fortified: Fort Berkeley at the harbor entrance, Fort George on Monk’s Hill above Falmouth, and especially Shirley Heights, a complex of barracks and batteries dominating English Harbour and Falmouth Harbour from nearly 150 meters.
Shirley Heights, named after Governor Sir Thomas Shirley, was a key part of the defensive system through a network of signals (flags by day, cannons by night). During the Napoleonic period, over fifty military structures were built there, occupied by British regiments and partly by soldiers from the West India Regiments. Construction work and logistics relied on the exploitation of enslaved labor.
The dockyard’s fame is also linked to one man: Horatio Nelson. Between 1784 and 1787, the future victor of Trafalgar served there as a ship captain and second-in-command of the Leeward Islands station, aboard HMS Boreas. His mission: to protect the British “sugar islands” and enforce the Navigation Acts, which prohibited direct trade with the newly independent United States. This rigor made him deeply unpopular with Antigua’s great planters, accustomed to lucrative trade with the American colonies. Accused of ruining their business, prosecuted for “illegal” seizures, Nelson had to confine himself aboard his ship for months to avoid arrest by the colonial authorities before finally being exonerated.
He did not retain a fond memory: he called English Harbour “that hellish hole” and admitted detesting the sight of the place. Yet, the Antigua base, at the heart of a network of forts, became a major asset for the British Navy in wars against France and its allies.
Table – Major Military Infrastructure in Antigua
| Historic Site | Main Function | Key Period of Use |
|---|---|---|
| Nelson’s Dockyard | Royal Navy dockyard and naval base | 18th – late 19th century |
| Shirley Heights | Barracks, batteries, signal station | Late 18th – mid-19th century |
| Fort Berkeley | Defense of English Harbour entrance | 18th – 19th century |
| Fort George (Monk’s Hill) | Refuge fort, internal defense | Late 17th – 18th century |
| Martello Tower (Barbuda) | Watchtower and coastal defense | 19th century |
Abolition and Post-Emancipation: Freedom Without Land
The abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807 and then of slavery in the British Empire in 1833 profoundly transformed colonial societies. In Antigua, emancipation took effect on August 1, 1834, without a period of “apprenticeship” as in most other colonies. The island is often presented as a pioneering case of immediate abolition, resulting from a compromise between planters and religious authorities.
After abolition, former slaves gained the status of free workers, but their access to land ownership remained very limited, with large plantations remaining in the hands of the white elite. In the absence of land reform and rural credit, a large part of the population continued to work on plantations for modest wages or in seasonal jobs. The economy remained centered on sugar monoculture for over a century, despite climatic hazards (earthquakes, hurricanes) and competition from European beet sugar in the late 19th century.
Barbuda followed a different trajectory. Overlooked in the initial implementation of the emancipation law, the island eventually freed its roughly 500 enslaved people itself. A major singularity then appeared: with the entire island covered by a single private concession, the Codrington barony, post-abolition took the form of a collective land use system. Without a system of individual plots or a classic land registry, a practice of communal ownership emerged: all Barbudans collectively enjoyed the land, which they cultivated or used for livestock, hunting, and fishing.
Barbuda’s system of communal land, never privatized for nearly two centuries, became an identity marker. It protected the island from sale to outside interests and speculation, unlike Antigua. This system is also at the heart of major political tensions in the contemporary era.
In 1860, a colonial act formally attached Barbuda to Antigua as a “dependency,” integrating the island into the same legal entity while maintaining its distinct land and social particularities.
Table – Slavery and Population (indicative data)
| Territory | Period | Approximate Enslaved Population | Abolition Particularities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antigua | Mid-18th century | ~40,000 enslaved | Immediate emancipation in 1834 |
| Barbuda | 1831 (pre-abolition) | ~503 enslaved | Not explicitly included in initial law; local liberation, maintenance of communal lands |
Immigration, Racial Hierarchies, and Late Colonial Society
After abolition, the social order inherited from slavery continued in other forms. A white oligarchy of planters and merchants retained political and economic power. At the bottom of the ladder, the vast Afro-Caribbean majority – still about 90% of the population today – provided agricultural, domestic, and later progressively service labor.
Between these two blocs, “intermediate minorities” formed. In the second half of the 19th century, a famine pushed about 2,500 Portuguese from Madeira to emigrate to Antigua between 1847 and 1852. They opened shops, entered retail trade, and eventually integrated into a small urban middle class.
Estimated number of permanent residents of Syrian origin in Antigua in 2008.
Society remained strictly stratified by skin color, origin, and wealth. These fault lines fueled social discontent when, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, economic crises followed one another: collapse of sugar prices, droughts, cane diseases, international competition.
The Birth of the Labor Movement and the Rise of V.C. Bird
It would take until 1939 for a decisive turning point to occur. That year, a member of a British royal commission (the Moyne Commission), Sir Walter Citrine, recommended the creation of real trade unions in the West Indian colonies to channel discontent. In Antigua, this impulse gave birth to the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (ATLU), the first structurally organized trade union in the British Leeward Islands.
At the heart of this story emerged a figure: Vere Cornwall Bird. Born in a poor neighborhood of St. John’s to a washerwoman mother, he received little formal education and worked in the cane fields. After a stint as a Salvation Army officer, he definitively committed to the trade union struggle. A founding member of the ATLU, he became its president in 1943, succeeding Reginald St. Clair Stevens. Under his leadership, the union launched its newspaper The Workers Voice, negotiated the principle of severance pay, and waged fierce battles for wages.
In January 1951, before agricultural workers, he declared: ‘The workers will eat cockles, widdy-widdy bush, and drink water from ponds if necessary,’ threatening a general strike to obtain a wage increase. The strike held and resulted in a 25% increase in January 1952.
Vere Cornwall Bird, trade union leader and future Prime Minister
The ATLU quickly developed a political wing: the Antigua Labour Party (ALP), founded in 1946. With the introduction of universal suffrage in 1951, the union/party tandem swept everything in its path: the ALP won all eight elected seats in the assembly that year, a success repeated in every election until 1967. Bird entered the Executive Council, became Chief Minister in 1960, and then Premier in 1967, when the status of Associated State with the United Kingdom granted Antigua and Barbuda internal self-government.
Table – Some Political Milestones Before Independence
| Year | Key Political Event |
|---|---|
| 1939 | Creation of the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (ATLU) |
| 1946 | Foundation of the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) |
| 1951 | Universal suffrage; total ALP victory |
| 1960 | Vere Bird becomes Chief Minister |
| 1967 | Associated State status, Bird becomes Premier |
Simultaneously, Bird pushed through social reforms: a small farmers program (Peasant Development Scheme) with access to land and credit, housing construction via self-help projects, improvement of water and electricity networks, expansion of secondary education (creation of Princess Margaret School in 1955). In the 1960s, as sugar was dying, he encouraged the development of hotels and tourism, benefiting from a period of exceptional growth (estimated at 8.5% per year between 1960 and 1968).
Vere Bird actively supported regional unity, first by backing the West Indies Federation (1958-1962). After its failure, he advocated for a federation of the “Little Eight.” In 1965, with Errol Barrow of Barbados and Forbes Burnham of Guyana, he contributed to the creation of CARIFTA at Dickenson Bay, a preliminary step to CARICOM. For his commitment, he received CARICOM’s highest honor, the Order of the Caribbean Community.
From Associated State to Antigua and Barbuda’s Independence
February 27, 1967 marked an institutional turning point: Antigua and Barbuda became an Associated State with the United Kingdom, with full internal control but London retaining authority over defense and foreign affairs. Barbuda, already granted a local council in 1976 by the Barbuda Local Government Act, had limited autonomy to manage public works, agriculture, and local finances. The question of its status vis-à-vis Antigua, however, remained sensitive.
In the 1970s, the hegemony of the Bird clan and the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) was challenged. A split within the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (ATLU) led to the creation of the Antigua Workers Union (AWU), which sponsored the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM). In 1971, the PLM, led by George Walter, won the elections, ending Vere Bird’s 25-year parliamentary presence. The ALP only returned to power in 1976, when Bird became Prime Minister again after a five-year hiatus.
Regarding independence, his position evolved. Skeptical in 1976, believing society was “not psychologically ready,” he made sovereignty a campaign platform in 1980. Negotiations were held in London, while on Barbuda, some leaders — worried about increased domination by Antigua — expressed a wish to separate.
On November 1, 1981, the islands nevertheless attained independence together, within the Commonwealth: the sovereign state of Antigua and Barbuda was born. Vere Cornwall Bird became its first Prime Minister; Sir Wilfred Jacobs was appointed the first Governor-General, representing Queen Elizabeth II, who remained constitutional head of state.
An Independent State Between Continuities and Scandals
The first years of independence largely continued the political practices forged in the late colonial era: strong personalization of power, blurring of lines between party, union, and state, clientelism. The ALP dominated Parliament: 16 out of 17 seats in 1984, 15 in 1989. The only dissenting voice regularly came from Barbuda, where the Barbuda People’s Movement (BPM) established itself as the local political force.
Critics — including writer Jamaica Kincaid in *A Small Place* — denounced a family-dominated regime led by the Birds, where private interests mingled with public funds.
Writer Jamaica Kincaid
In 1994, aged over 80, Vere Bird officially retired from political life. His son Lester succeeded him as head of the party and government, extending the dynasty. The ALP still won the 1994 and 1999 elections, but the wear and tear of power, accusations of corruption — notably surrounding the Medical Benefits Scheme, where 120 million Eastern Caribbean dollars were found to be missing — and opposition pressure pushed for electoral reforms. An independent electoral commission was created in 2001.
Number of seats won by the United Progressive Party (UPP) in 2004, out of a total of 17, ending half a century of political supremacy.
Table – Political Alternation After Independence
| Period | Prime Minister | Governing Party |
|---|---|---|
| 1981–1994 | Vere Cornwall Bird | Antigua Labour Party (ALP) |
| 1994–2004 | Lester Bird | ALP |
| 2004–2014 | Baldwin Spencer | United Progressive Party (UPP) |
| Since 2014 | Gaston Browne | Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) |
In 2014, the ALP, renamed the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP), returned to power under a new leader, Gaston Browne, who defeated Lester Bird in an internal congress in 2012. Browne then won the 2014 elections, followed by early legislative elections in 2018, and retained a reduced majority in 2023. Under his government, the country officially embraces a liberal economic orientation, while maintaining a significant public sector.
Barbuda: Common Land, Hurricane, and “Land Grab”
While political alternations succeed each other in Antigua, Barbuda cultivates its difference. In 1976, the Barbuda Local Government Act established the existence of the Barbuda Council, an autonomous body responsible for many local domains. In 2007, the Barbuda Land Act further reinforced this specificity by enshrining in law the principle of common land use by Barbudans. A land registry, a planning commission, and a national parks authority were created under the Council’s purview.
The balance was fragile but generally respected until 2017. That year, Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm, struck Barbuda head-on. Over 90% of buildings were damaged or destroyed, a two-year-old child died, and the Prime Minister ordered the total evacuation of the island, threatened by a second cyclone. For several weeks, Barbuda was uninhabited, a first in centuries.
The estimated reconstruction needs for Barbuda following Hurricane Irma amount to approximately 222 million US dollars.
For many Barbudans, this was the start of a “land grab,” a land rush allowing foreign investors to appropriate beaches, lagoons, and land that were previously protected. Gigantic projects emerged, like the Barbuda Ocean Club and its golf course in a protected wetland, financed by the Peace, Love and Happiness (PLH) project, or a new airport whose route damaged archaeological sites and traditional hunting and cultivation areas before having to be abandoned in 2019 due to karst collapses.
Post-hurricane reconstruction has progressed slowly, with only 91 houses built out of 150 planned using a European grant. Local contractors report unpaid bills, and a philanthropic donation of one million dollars for Barbuda became unreachable. An investigation into post-disaster fund management was opened in 2024.
The Barbuda People’s Movement, which controls the island’s parliamentary seat and the local Council, positions itself as the defender of common land. On August 1, 2023, the symbolic date of emancipation, the BPM announced its intention to overturn any law ending collective ownership. For Barbuda, the colonial history — that of an island granted to an English family, exploited for its livestock and enslaved people — makes the issue of territorial control all the more crucial.
Table – Barbuda: Key Figures
| Indicator | Approximate Value |
|---|---|
| Area | 160.56 km² |
| Population (2011) | 1,634 inhabitants |
| Population of Codrington (2011) | ~1,300 |
| Share of people of African descent | ~95 % |
| Buildings damaged by Irma | > 90 % |
| Estimated financial needs (post-Irma) | ~222.2 million USD |
A Living Historical Heritage
The country’s history in Antigua and Barbuda is not only read in archives; it is inscribed in the stone of sugar windmills, plantation ruins, forts, and military ports. Betty’s Hope, near Pares, today features two of its restored mills and an interpretive center on the slave system. On Barbuda, the ruins of Highland House or the animal pens recall the livestock economy designed to serve the Codringtons.
Nelson’s Dockyard and Shirley Heights, restored since the 1950s, are now living sites with marinas, hotels, restaurants, and museums. Every Sunday evening, Shirley Heights transforms into a major party with barbecues, steel bands, and reggae, offering a unique blend of military heritage and popular Caribbean culture.
Amerindian sites, from Jolly Beach in Antigua to the caves of Barbuda (Indian Cave, Dark Cave, Darby Sinkhole), bear witness to a history still under study. Universities and research centers, like the Barbuda Research Centre in partnership with the City University of New York, conduct excavations that have already uncovered Arawak skeletons, ceremonial artifacts like the stone “dog inhaler,” or even a fossilized Great White Shark tooth in Darby Cave.
For today’s visitor, there are thus several levels of reading: that of beaches and resorts, that of forts and dockyards, and the more discreet one of caves, shell middens, and old plantations, where one glimpses what the construction of these tourist paradises truly entailed.
A Contemporary Society Shaped by Its Past
Twenty-first-century independent Antigua and Barbuda is a small state of some 100,000 inhabitants, largely urban around St. John’s, where official English coexists with the local Creole. The economy relies mostly on services, particularly tourism, which took over from sugar since the 1960s. Festivals like Antigua’s Carnival — first organized in 1957, in the summer, to commemorate the 1834 emancipation and attract visitors — reinterpret the history of slavery and freedom through music, costumes, and street parties.
Despite its assets, the archipelago still faces persistent inequalities and a heavy dependence on tourism, making it vulnerable to economic and climatic shocks. Internal tensions, such as land issues between Antigua and Barbuda, as well as governance problems (corruption, financial scandals like that of Allen Stanford in 2009) mark the political landscape. Finally, the nation is still negotiating its colonial heritage with its sovereign ambitions, as evidenced by debates on a republican transition after the death of Elizabeth II.
From Plantation to Republic? A History Still Being Written
From a historical perspective, three dominant traits emerge. First, a geographical continuity: Antigua and Barbuda have always been at the crossroads of flows — Amerindian migrations, the Atlantic slave trade, British naval routes, globalized tourism. Next, a deep legacy of the plantation and slavery, perceptible in social structure, land distribution, culture, and even music. Finally, a culture of resistance — from slave plots to trade union strikes, from Barbudan claims to current debates on constitutional reform.
In 2022, he expressed his intention to consult the population via referendum on the possible transformation of the country into a Republic, thus breaking the last formal link with the British monarchy.
Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda
The country’s history in Antigua and Barbuda therefore remains unfinished. Between Waladli and Wa’omoni, between Betty’s Hope and Nelson’s Dockyard, between ruined windmills and five-star resorts, the same trajectory can be read: that of an archipelago that moved from Amerindian canoes to megayachts, from servitude to sovereignty, while still wondering who truly controls the land, the sea, and the memory of these islands.
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Cyril Jarnias is an independent expert in international wealth management with over 20 years of experience. As an expatriate himself, he is dedicated to helping individuals and business leaders build, protect, and pass on their wealth with complete peace of mind.
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