History of Antigua

 

2400 BC:

Antigua was inhabited by The Siboney (an Arawak word meaning ‘stone-people’) - peripatetic Meso-Indians whose beautifully crafted shell and stone tools have been found at dozens of sites around the island.

 

35-100 AD:

Antigua was settled by the pastoral, agricultural Arawaks – who were then displaced by the Caribs, an aggressive people who ranged all over the Caribbean.

 

1493:

Earliest European contact with the island – Christopher Columbus sighted it during his second Caribbean voyage and named it Santa Maria la Antigua, the miracle-working saint of Seville.

 

1632:

A group of Englishmen from St Kitts established a successful settlement, despite determined Carib resistance. 

 

1684:

Sir Christopher Codrington arrived in Antigua to find out if the island would support the sort of large-scale sugar cultivation that already flourished elsewhere in the Caribbean.  This heralded the start of Antigua’s sugar era and the onset of the slave trade, as men and women were brought from Africa to labour in the sugar cane fields.

 

1750:

Up to 150 cane-processing windmills had been built all over the island.
 
1750-1800:

Antigua became known as the ‘gateway to the Caribbean’; an important strategic port as well as a valuable commercial colony.

 

1784:

Horatio Nelson arrived in Antigua at the head of the Squadron of the Leeward Islands to develop the British naval facilities at English Harbour.  This resulted in the construction of Nelson’s Dockyard, one of Antigua’s finest physical assets.  High above English Harbour, Shirley Heights provided an excellent colonial observation post in the efforts to defend the island against attack. 

 

1834:

During King William IV’s reign (1765-1837), Britain abolished slavery in the empire and Antigua instituted immediate full emancipation.

 

1967:

With Barbuda and the tiny island of Redonda as dependencies, Antigua became an associated state of the Commonwealth.

 

1981:

Antigua achieved full independent status.

 

Today:

Antigua’s Carnival festivities commemorate the earliest abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean.