Antigua

This article is about the island. For more detailed information on Antigua as a political entity, see Antigua and Barbuda. For other places named Antigua, see Antigua (disambiguation). For British Royal Navy ships, see HMS Antigua.
Antigua
Native name: Wadadli
Antigua parishes english.png
Map of Antigua
Geography
Caribbean - Antigua.PNG
Location Caribbean Sea
Archipelago Leeward Islands
Area 281 km2 (108 sq mi)
Coastline 87 km (54 mi)
Highest point Boggy Peak (402 m (1,320 ft))
Country
Flag of Antigua and Barbuda.svg Antigua and Barbuda
Largest city St. John's (31,000)
Demographics
Population 69,000 (as of 2006)
Density 245.55 people/km2
Ethnic groups 91% Black or Mulatto, 4.4% Other Mixed Race, 1.7% White, 2.9% Other
Turner Beach in Antigua

Antigua (pronounced /ænˈtiːgə/ an-TEE-gah) is an island in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region, the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua means ancient in Spanish and was named by Christopher Columbus after a church in Spain, Santa Maria La Antigua — St. Mary the Ancient. It is also known as Wadadli, which comes from the origninal Amerindian inhabitants, and means approximately "our own". The island's circumference is roughly 87 km (54 mi) and its area 281 km2 (108 sq mi). Its population is about 69,000 as of July 2006.[1] It is the largest of the Leeward Islands, and the most developed and prosperous due to its upscale tourism industry, offshore banking, internet gambling services and education services, including two medical schools.

Over 31,000 people live in the town of St. John's, at . The capital is situated in the northwest, near to VC Bird International Airport, and has a deep harbour which is able to accommodate large cruise ships. Other leading population settlements are All Saints (3,412) and Liberta (2,239), according to the 2001 census.

English Harbour on the southeastern coast is famed for its protected shelter during violent storms and as the site of a restored British colonial naval station called "Nelson's Dockyard". Captain Horatio Nelson, in correspondence made while stationed at the garrison, made it clear he would prefer to be facing the French. Today English Harbour and the neighbouring village of Falmouth are an internationally famous yachting and sailing destination and provisioning centre. At the end of April and beginning of May, Antigua Sailing Week, an annual world-class regatta started in 1967, brings many sailing vessels and sailors to the island to play sports.

Contents

Geography

Rocky shoreline near St. John's.

The high rocky coast is indented by many bays and arms of the sea, several of which form excellent harbours. The surface is comparatively flat, and there is no central range of mountains as in most other Caribbean islands, but among the hills in the southwest an elevation of 1,319 feet (402 m) feet is attained on Boggy Peak. Owing to the absence of rivers, the paucity of springs, and the almost complete deforestation, Antigua is subject to frequent droughts, and although the average rainfall is 1,158 mm (45.6 in), the variations from year to year are great. The problem is partly solved by desalination of sea water.

Economy

Antigua's economy is reliant upon tourism, and it markets itself as a luxury Caribbean escape. Many hotels and resorts are located around the coastline, and the island's single airport is serviced by several major airlines including Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, US Airways, American Airlines, Continental, Delta Air Lines, BWIA and Air Canada. The only regular service to Barbuda flies from VC Bird Airport. The United States Air Force maintains a small base near the airport mostly used for space missions and communications.

The University of Health Sciences Antigua (UHSA) and the American University of Antigua (AUA) College of Medicine teach aspiring doctors.

The country's official currency is the East Caribbean dollar. However, many prices in tourist-oriented businesses are shown in US dollars. The EC dollar is pegged to the US dollar at a fixed rate of $1 US = $2.67 EC. For more information, including GDP per capita, see https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ac.html

History

King's Harbour, 1745

The early Antiguans

Antigua history, rich in intrigue, is well-known among Maritime buffs and English scholars. Prior to European exploration, however, the first residents in Antigua history were the Ciboney Indians, who inhabited the island for several thousand years before mysteriously departing. Pastoral Arawak Indians settled here before being replaced by the war-like Caribs, the last group in Antigua history to inhabit the island before it was 'discovered' by Europeans. That occurred in 1493, when Christopher Columbus spotted Antigua on his second voyage. Antigua history did not change dramatically for nearly 150 years after, though, as the Caribs resisted any efforts to colonize.

The Arawaks were the first well-documented group of Antiguans. This group paddled to the island by canoe (piragua) from Venezuela, ejected by the Caribs — another people indigenous to the area. Arawaks introduced agriculture to Antigua and Barbuda, raising, among other crops, the famous Antiguan "Black" pineapple. They also cultivated various other foods including:

Some of the vegetables listed, such as corn and sweet potatoes, still play an important role in Antiguan cuisine. For example, a popular Antiguan dish, dukuna (DOO-koo-NAH) is a sweet, steamed dumpling made from grated sweet potatoes, flour and spices. In addition, one of the Antiguan staple foods, fungi (FOON-ji), is a cooked paste made of cornmeal and water.

The bulk of the Arawaks left Antigua about A.D. 1100. Those who remained were subsequently raided by the Caribs. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Carib's superior weapons and seafaring prowess allowed them to defeat most Arawak nations in the West Indies — enslaving some, and cannibalizing others.

The Catholic Encyclopedia does make it clear that the European invaders had some difficulty identifying and differentiating between the various native peoples they encountered. As a result, the number and types of ethnic/tribal/national groups in existence at the time may be much more varied and numerous than the two mentioned in this Article.

Finally, in 1632, the first permanent European settlement was established by an Englishman, Sir Christopher Codrington. Antigua history from that point on took a dramatic and profound turn, seeing the island become a profitable sugar colony under the guidance of Codrington. For a large portion of Antigua history after this time the island was considered Britain's "Gateway to the Caribbean", poised along the major sailing routes that twisted and turned among the region's resource-rich colonies. A major figure in Antigua history, Lord Horatio Nelson, arrived in the late 18th century to preserve the island's commercial shipping prowess.

According to A Brief History of the Caribbean, European and African diseases, malnutrition and slavery eventually destroyed the vast majority of the Caribbean's native population. No researcher has conclusively proven any of these causes as the real reason for the destruction of West Indian natives. In fact, some historians believe that the psychological stress of slavery may also have played a part in the massive number of native deaths while in servitude. Others believe that the reportedly abundant, but starchy, low-protein diet may have contributed to severe malnutrition of the "Indians" who were used to a diet fortified with protein from sea-life.

The indigenous West Indians made excellent sea vessels that they used to sail the Atlantic and Caribbean. As a result, Caribs and Arawaks populated much of South American and the Caribbean Islands. Relatives of the Antiguan Arawaks and Caribs still live in various countries in South America, notably Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia. The smaller remaining native populations in the West Indies maintain a pride in their heritage.

Europeans

According to the AntiguaNice web site, Christopher Columbus supposedly named the island "Antigua" in 1493 in honor of the Santa Maria La Antigua Cathedral in Seville. Unfortunately, this data seems to be inaccurate since this cathedral actually exists in Castilla y León, Spain. A common practice for Spanish explorers was to name newly "discovered" areas after Catholic saints. San Juan in Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo in Hispaniola, Santa Barbara in the United States and others follow the same trend.

In 1632, a group of English colonists left St. Kitts to settle in Antigua. Under Edward Warner, their leader, they grew cash crops of tobacco, ginger, indigo and sugar.

Slavery

Sugar became Antigua's main crop from about 1674, when Christopher Codrington settled at Betty's Hope Estate. He came from Barbados, bringing the latest sugar technology with him. Betty's Hope, Antigua's first full-scale sugar plantation, was so successful that other planters turned from tobacco to sugar. This resulted in a huge increase of slaves, as sugar requires so much labor.

According to A Brief History of the Caribbean, many West Indian colonists initially tried to use Indians and whites as slaves. Unfortunately, these groups succumbed very easily to disease and/or malnutrition, and died by the thousands. The African slaves had the misfortune of adapting well to the new environment; and thus became the number one choice of "unpaid labor." In fact, the slaves thrived physically and also provided medical services, and skilled labor, such as carpentry for their slave masters.

Today, collectors prize the uniquely designed "colonial" furniture created by West Indian slaves. Many of these works feature what are now "traditional" motifs in slave-made West Indian furniture. These details include pineapples, fish and stylized serpents. The popular decorating magazine, Veranda, features a fascinating article on this subject; peppered with interesting photographs of the uniquely West Indian furnishings.

According to "A history of Antigua" by Bran Dyde, the number of slaves had, by the mid 1770s, increased to 37,500 from 12,500 in 1713, whereas the white population had fallen from 5000 to below 3000. The slaves lived in wretched and overcrowded conditions, and could be mistreated or even killed by their owners with impunity. Despite the arbitrary murder of slaves being made illegal by the Slave Act of 1723, unrest among the slaves became increasingly common. In 1729, a slave named Hercules was hung, drawn and quartered, and three others burnt alive, for conspiring to kill a slave owner named Crump and his family. In 1736, a slave called "Prince Klaas" (whose real name was Court) planned an uprising in which the whites would be massacred. In a pasture outside the capital, St. John's, in what white observers thought was merely a colourful spectacle, but which was in reality a ritual declaration of war on the whites, Court was crowned "King of the Coromantees". Due to information obtained from other slaves, the plot was discovered and put down. Prince Klaas and four other accomplices were caught and executed by the breaking wheel. Six other slaves were hung in chains and starved to death, and another fifty-eight were burned at the stake. Ironically, the location of this torture and execution is now the Antiguan Recreation Ground.[2]

The American War of Independence in the late eighteenth century led to a decline in the sugar industry, and at the same time public opinion in Britain gradually turned against slavery. The slave trade was finally abolished in 1808, and all existing slaves emancipated in 1834.

Lord Horatio Nelson

Nelson's dockyard was started in 1725, to provide a base for a squadron of British ships whose main function was to patrol West Indies and thus maintain Britain's sea power.

Lord Nelson was Senior Naval Officer of the Leeward Islands from 1784 to 1787 on H.M.S. Boreas. During his tenure, he tried to enforce the Navigation Acts. These acts prohibited trade with the newly formed United States of America. Most of the merchants in Antigua depended upon American trade, so many of them despised Lord Nelson. As a result, he was unable to get a promotion for some time after his stint on the island.

Conversely, the British considered Nelson a hero. The following quote from The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson by Robert Southey sums up his views about the controversial Navigation Acts:

The Americans were at this time trading with our islands, taking advantage of the register of their ships, which had been issued while they were British subjects. Nelson knew that, by the Navigation Act, no foreigners, directly or indirectly, are permitted to carry on any trade with these possessions. He knew, also, that the Americans had made themselves foreigners with regard to England; they had disregarded the ties of blood and language when they acquired the independence which they had been led on to claim, unhappily for themselves before they were fit for it; and he was resolved that they should derive no profit from those ties now. Foreigners they had made themselves, and as foreigners they were to be treated.

Southey then quotes Nelson as saying that "[The Antiguan Colonists] are as great rebels as ever were in America, had they the power to show it."

Political status

In 1967, with Barbuda and the tiny island of Redonda as dependencies, Antigua became an associated state of the Commonwealth, and in 1981 it achieved administrative independence from Britain. The country was then led by what many describe as an elected family dynasty, with Vere C. Bird, the first prime minister, having been succeeded in 1993 by Lester B. Bird, his son, who retained the post until 2004.

Demographics

St. John's Cathedral
Main article: Demographics of Antigua and Barbuda

The ethnic distribution consist of 91% Black or Mulatto, 4.4% Other Mixed Race, 1.7% White, 2.9% Other. The majority of the white population is ethnically Irish and British, and Portuguese. There are also Christian Levantine Arabs (primarily of Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian descent) and a small population of Asians and Sephardic Jews.

Behind the late twentieth century reviving and re-specifying of the place of Afro-Antiguans and Barbudans in the cultural life of the society, is a history of race/ethnic relations that systematically excluded them. Within the colonial framework established by the British soon after their initial settlement of Antigua in 1623, five distinct and carefully ranked race/ethnic groups emerged. At the top of this hierarchy were the British, who justified their hegemony with arguments of white supremacy and civilizing missions. Among themselves, there were divisions between British Antiguans and noncreolized Britons, with the latter coming out on top. In short, this was a race/ethnic hierarchy that gave maximum recognition to Anglicized persons and cultural practices.

Immediately below the British were the mulattoes, a mixed race group that resulted from unions between black Africans and white Europeans. Mulattoes were lighter in shade than the masses of black Africans, and on that basis distinguished themselves from the latter. They developed complex ideologies of shade to legitimate their claims to higher status. These ideologies of shade paralleled in many ways British ideologies of white supremacy.

Next in this hierarchy were the Portuguese— twenty-five hundred of whom migrated as workers from Madeira between 1847 and 1852 because of a severe famine. Many established small businesses and joined the ranks of the mulatto middle class. The British never really considered Portuguese as whites and so they were not allowed into their ranks. Among Portuguese Antiguans and Barbudans, status differences move along a continuum of varying degrees of assimilation into the Anglicized practices of the dominant group.

Below the Portuguese were the Middle Easterners, who began migrating to Antigua and Barbuda around the turn of the twentieth century. Starting as itinerant traders, they soon worked their way into the middle strata of the society. Although Middle Easterners came from a variety of areas in the Middle East, as a group they are usually referred to as Syrians.

Fifth and finally were the Afro-Antiguans and Barbudans who were located at the bottom of this hierarchy. Forced to "emigrate" as slaves, Africans started arriving in Antigua and Barbuda in large numbers during the 1670s. Very quickly they came to constitute the majority of the population. As they entered this hierarchy, Africans were profoundly racialized. They ceased being Yoruba, Igbo, or Akan and became Negroes or Blacks.

In the 20th century, the colonial hierarchy gradually began to be subversed as a result of universal education and better economic opportunity. This process gave rise to blacks reaching the highest strata of society and government.

In the last decade, Spanish-speaking immigrants from the Dominican Republic and Afro-Caribbean immigrants from Guyana and Dominica have been added to this ethnic mosaic. They have entered at the bottom of the hierarchy and it is still too early to predict what their patterns of assimilation and social mobility will be.

Today, an increasingly large percent of the population live abroad, most notably in the United Kingdom (Antiguan Britons), United States and Canada. A minority of the Antiguan residents are immigrants from other countries, particularly Dominica, Guyana and Jamaica with an increasing number of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Nigeria. There is also a significant population of American citizens estimated at 4500 people which would make it one of the largest American citizen populations in the English speaking Eastern Caribbean.[3]

Almost all Antiguans are Christians (74%[4]), with the Anglican Church (about 44%) being the largest denomination. Catholicism is the other significant denomination, with the remainder being other Protestants: including Methodists, Moravians, Pentecostals and Seventh-Day Adventists. There are also Jehovah's Witnesses. Non-Christian religions practiced on the islands include Rastafari, Islam, Judaism, and Baha'i.

Sport

The major Antiguan sport is cricket. Antigua was the location of a 2007 Cricket World Cup site, on a new Recreation Ground constructed on an old cane field in the north of the island. Sir Vivian ("Viv") Richards is one of the most famous Antiguans, who played for, and captained, the West Indies team. Both soccer and basketball are becoming popular among the island youth. Viv Richards is from Antigua and scored the fastest Test Century also Brian Lara twice scored the World Test Record at Antigua Recreation Ground.

Internet hosting and gaming

Antigua is a recognized centre for online gambling companies. Antigua was one of the first nations to legalize, license and regulate online gaming. Some countries, most notably the United States, argue that because the gaming transaction is initiated in their jurisdictions that the act of online wagering is illegal. This argument has been repudiated by the World Trade Organization.[5] However in 2006 the United States Congress voted to approve the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act which criminalizes the operations of offshore gaming operators which take wagers from American-based gamblers. Software company SlySoft is based in Antigua, allowing it to avoid nations with laws that are tough on anti-circumvention of technological copyright measures, in particular the DMCA in the United States.

Gallery

Notable residents

Notes

  1. ↑ Nation by Nation population estimate
  2. ↑ Brian Dyde, "A History of Antigua", Macmillan Education, London and Oxford, 2000. 
  3. ↑ "Background Note: Antigua and Barbuda". Retrieved on 2007-08-23.
  4. ↑ "Antigua and Barbuda: International Religious Freedom Report 2006" (2006-09-15). Retrieved on 2007-08-23.
  5. ↑ World Trade Organization: United States — Measures Affecting the Cross-Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services
  6. ↑ "BBC SPORT". Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
  7. ↑ Akeem Lasisi (2008-08-18). "Chimamanda in town for Fidelity Creative Workshop". Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Antigua and Barbuda: Murder rate higher than in New York - Scotsman.com News" (2008-07-29). Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
  9. ↑ "Eric Clapton to auction guitars to benefit drug recovery cente - Aggielife" (2004-06-24). Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
  10. ↑ Tahna Weston (2006-01-07). "SUN Weekend". Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
  11. ↑ "BIG MONEY! - JAMAICAOBSERVER.COM" (2005-10-04). Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
  12. ↑ Charles D. Sherman (2002-02-19). "U.S. probes Cuban dolphin deals / The Miami Herald - Cuba News / Noticias - CubaNet News". Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Kevin Brass (2006-09-12). "Antigua recaptures its reputation for chic - International Herald Tribune". Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
  14. ↑ Laura Dowrich-Phillips (2006-03-11). "SUN Weekend". Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
  15. ↑ "CaribbeanCricket.com - The Independent Voice of West Indies Cricket" (2004-02-15). Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.

References

External links