History of Antigua and Barbuda

The history of Antigua and Barbuda spans Indigenous settlement, European colonization, plantation slavery, emancipation, and the islands’ independence as a sovereign state in 1981.

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Saladoid culture: An Indigenous Caribbean archaeological culture associated with ceramic-making communities that migrated from northeastern South America. Saladoid communities were among the early Indigenous settlers of Antigua.
British colonization of the Caribbean: The expansion of British control and settlement across Caribbean islands from the seventeenth century onward. Antigua’s English settlement became part of Britain’s wider Caribbean empire.
Vere Cornwall Bird: Antiguan trade unionist and politician who became the country’s first prime minister. Bird led the labor movement and the political campaign that culminated in independence.
Antigua Labour Riots of 1939: A wave of labor unrest in Antigua in 1939 that exposed harsh working conditions and fueled organized political activism. The riots strengthened demands for labor rights and helped mobilize the movement led by Vere Cornwall Bird.
Arawakan languages: A language family spoken by Indigenous peoples across parts of South America and the Caribbean. Arawakan-speaking peoples shaped the Indigenous history of the Lesser Antilles.
Sugar plantations in the Caribbean: Large agricultural estates that produced sugar using enslaved labor across the Caribbean. Sugar production became the central economic system of colonial Antigua.
Antigua Trades and Labour Union: A labor organization founded in Antigua in 1939 that became a major political force. The union gave organized workers a platform against colonial-era labor conditions.
West Indies Federation: A short-lived political federation of British Caribbean territories that existed from 1958 to 1962. Antigua participated in the federation before its collapse redirected constitutional debates.
Carib people: An Indigenous people of the Caribbean, historically associated with the Lesser Antilles and northern South America. European accounts described Kalinago presence in the region around Antigua.
Atlantic slave trade: The forced transportation of Africans across the Atlantic to labor in the Americas from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Enslaved Africans were brought to Antigua to work on sugar plantations.