Colony of Antigua and Barbuda | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1632-1981 | |||||||||||
 Coat of arms | |||||||||||
| Recognised national languages | English, Creole | ||||||||||
| Government | Colony of England later United Kingdom | ||||||||||
| Monarch | |||||||||||
• 1632-1649 | Charles I | ||||||||||
• 1953-1981 | Queen Elizabeth II | ||||||||||
| Governor | |||||||||||
• 1632-1635 | Thomas Warner | ||||||||||
• 1967-1981 | Wilfred Jacobs | ||||||||||
| Currency | pound sterling | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | Antigua and Barbuda | ||||||||||
the Colony of Antigua and Barbuda was a British colony in the caribbean.
England succeeded in colonising the islands in 1632, with Thomas Warner as the first governor. Settlers raised tobacco, indigo, ginger and sugarcane as cash crops. Sir Christopher Codrington established the first large sugar estate in Antigua in 1674, and leased Barbuda to raise provisions for his plantations. Barbuda's only town is named after him. In the fifty years after Codrington established his initial plantation, the sugar industry became so profitable that many farmers replaced other crops with sugar, making it the economic backbone of the islands.
Slavery was common in Barbuda in the 18th century and until 1834. [1] [2] The island was a source of slaves for other locations, too. [3] No new slaves had arrived on the island since the mid-1700s but their population grew naturally. [4] An estimate in 1977 by Lowenthal and Clark indicated that during 1779 to 1834 the number of slaves exported totalled 172; most were taken to Antigua but 37 went to the Leeward and Windward islands and some to the southern US. Several slave rebellions took place on the island, with the most serious in 1834–5. [5] Britain emancipated slaves in most of its colonies in 1834, but that did not include Barbuda, so the island then freed its own slaves. For some years thereafter, the freed slaves had little opportunity of survival on their own because of limited agricultural land and the lack of available credit to buy some. Hence, they continued to work on the plantations for nominal wages or lived in shantytowns and worked as occasional labourers.[ citation needed ] Sugar cane production remained the primary economy for over a century. [4]
During the 18th century, Antigua was used as the headquarters of the British Royal Navy Caribbean fleet. English Harbour Dockyard, as it came to be called, a sheltered and well-protected deepwater port, was the main base and facilities there were greatly expanded during the later 18th century. Admiral Horatio Nelson commanded the British fleet for much of this time, and made himself unpopular with local merchants by enforcing the Navigation Act, a British ruling that only British-registered ships could trade with British colonies. As the United States were no longer British colonies, the act posed a problem for merchants, who depended on trade with the fledgling country.
As the main cash crop changed over the years, the main cash crops/products grown between 1953 and 1956 were cotton, sugar, meat, cereals, and local fruits and vegetables. [6] Over time, the importance of crops and produce went into decline as other nations were able to sell goods at a price no longer feasible to sustain in the Antiguan economy. In more recent times, however, Antigua has developed a primarily service-based economy relying on tourism as their leading source of income. [7] Much like other islands and nations that rely on tourism, this can become problematic as their success depends on the willingness of others to travel and explore the area. Moreover, this has tendency to follow a seasonal pattern leaving the country vulnerable at certain times in the year.
In March 1831, a newly implemented law in Antigua prohibiting Sunday markets, to the fury of most of its enslaved inhabitants, sparked rioting and arson among many slaves. Martial law was declared on Antigua, with the colony requesting reinforcements from Barbados to bolster its own militia, although the unrest in Antigua never developed into a full scale revolt like the Baptist War that would break out in Jamaica later that year. [8] With all others in the British Empire, Antiguan slaves were emancipated in 1834, but remained economically dependent upon the plantation owners. Economic opportunities for the new freedmen were limited by a lack of surplus farming land, no access to credit and an economy built on agriculture rather than manufacturing. Poor labour conditions persisted until 1939 when a member of a royal commission urged the formation of a trade union movement. [4]
The Antigua Trades and Labour Union, formed shortly afterward, became the political vehicle for Sir Vere Cornwall Bird, who became the union's president in 1943. [9] The Antigua Labour Party (ALP), formed by Bird and other trade unionists, first ran candidates in the 1946 elections and became the majority party in 1951, beginning a long history of electoral victories. [10] [11] Voted out of office in the 1971 general elections that swept the progressive labour movement into power, Bird and the ALP returned to office in 1976. [12]
The development of social class of Antigua and Barbuda primarily occurred during the colonial era, where the immigration of British colonists (and subsequent importation of African slaves) created a strict hierarchy based both on race and class; Antigua and Barbuda has been described as "a classic case of the superimposition of race on class and vice versa." Both before and after the abolition of slavery in 1833, the two islands were dominated by a small minority of white plantation owners who constituted the colonial upper class. Beneath them were the Afro-Caribbean population, who "constituted the subordinate working class." In between these two groups were several middlemen minorities: free people of color, along with Portuguese and Syrian immigrants, who dominated the professions of law, medicine, and architecture "and the white-collar positions in banks, businesses, and the civil service." [9]
Between 1847 and 1852, 2,500 Portuguese immigrants from the island of Madeira emigrated to Antigua due to a severe famine. There, they established numerous small businesses and quickly joined the ranks of the colonial middle class, which up until then had been dominated by the island's mulatto population. As noted by historian Jo-Anne Ferreira, following "the abolition of slavery, post-abolition migration became a matter of economic survival for many plantation owners, because of the impending labor problems. There was an increasing interest in and desire for European labor, so the Portuguese, among others, were imported throughout the West Indies to increase the European population vis-à-vis the African population." [13] In contrast to the Portuguese, Syrian immigrants to Antigua and Barbuda did not start arriving until the 1950's, and "are primarily involved in the import business and have managed to establish themselves in academic professions." As of 2008, there were approximately 475 to 500 permanent residents of Antigua and Barbuda who are of Syrian descent. [14]
The Irish first came to Antigua either as indentured servants or merchants; Irish indentured servants were primarily transported to Antigua during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. As increasing numbers of African slaves were transported to Antigua, the island's Irish population began to leave in search of opportunities in the rest of the British West Indies or in Britain's North American colonies. Numerous Irish merchants in Antigua belonged to business families from County Galway, and several Irish-Antiguans formed relationships with Irish colonists in Montserrat. [15]
The Afro-Caribbean inhabitants of Antigua and Barbuda, who "account for about 91% of the country’s population", are primarily descended from African slaves who were transported from West and Central Africa during the slave trade, in regions such as the Bight of Biafra, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, the Gulf of Guinea, the Bight of Benin, and Senegambia. 4.4% of the Black Antiguan and Barbudan population are mixed-raced. [16]
