History of Antigua/Barbuda

Antigua/Barbuda was colonized specifically as a merchant searched for the resources for sugar production.  In 1632 a party of Englishmen under the leadership of Edward Warner set out from nearby St. Kitts, landed on the southern side of Antigua and claimed it for the English Crown.

They established a weak settlement and lived in a state of perpetual crisis. They were under attack from the Caribs and were caught up in the wars between the English, French and Dutch along with the feuds of the Restoration.

The early settlers cultivated cash crops such as tobacco, indigo, cotton and ginger for export and subsistence crops for themselves.  In succeeding years sugar came into prominence, its production shaped Antigua’s landscape, and its rain forest vegetation that prevailed before European entry, disappeared.  During the seventeenth century Antigua was one of the most heavily wooded islands in the Eastern Caribbean. It supplied seamen with timbers and spars for their ships.  

In 1674, a dramatic change in the island’s economy took place when the first large scale sugar plantation was established by Sir Christopher Codrington who came up from Barbados. His success encouraged others to turn to sugar production. Over 150 sugar mills dotted the countryside. 

In 1834 slavery was abolished In Antigua/Barbuda but it did not “free” the slaves as we understand freedom today, Antiguans continued to be scarred from the colonial experience. The first elections in Antigua took place in 1937 during which only 1,048 persons or 3.2% of the population voted.

The opening of U.S. Bases in 1941, placed the United States at the center of Antigua economic and social life but Sugar remained the dominant although the declining sector of the economy throughout the 1940’s and 50’s.  The Factory was decommissioned in 1980.

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