Overview
The twin-island nation of Antigua & Barbuda, the largest and most developed tourist destination in the Leeward Islands chain, has much to offer visitors of many stripes.
Home to most of the nation's better-known hotels, Antigua is the larger of the two islands at about 108 square miles. From its upscale resorts for the very rich to comfy hideaways favored by sailors, Antigua's hotel choices are varied, although they lack the presence of a U.S.-based chain.
Islanders claim their home boasts 365 beaches, and while the count is questionable, the beaches are beautiful. Topography is varied as well, with rugged mountain peaks ideal for island overviews, undulating fields of grass once used to grow sugar cane, winding roads lined by pineapple fields, with desert-like conditions rounding out the scenery.
The long reach of the British Empire is still evident in both the formal demeanor of the local population and in the fascinating, must-see historical site called Nelson's Dockyard. Another place that's popular with visitors is Shirley Heights. Once used by the British Navy as a lookout post, the site offers panoramic views, and is the home of a twice-weekly party and barbecue for sunset-watchers. Although it's mobbed with tourists and the food is overpriced, the atmosphere is pure fun and local bands play infectious dance music.
Barbuda, the smaller sister island, is wild, woolly and barely inhabited. Most visitors arrive by propeller plane from Antigua at tiny Codrington Airstrip, which consists of one tiny cement block structure - the alleged terminal building - and a short runway.
About 1,000 inhabitants reside in Codrington, and beyond town are beautiful stretches of uninhabited beach accessed by rutted roads surrounded by scrub brush and cacti.
The most popular attraction here is actually offshore - the Frigate Bird Sanctuary. Bereft of visitor-friendly signs and amenities, this mangrove swamp is accessed by boat and is aflutter with majestic frigate birds.
Among but a handful of hotels, the island's best-known resort is the tony K-Club, a very private redoubt that serves the rich and famous. Most visitors, though, are day-trippers, who can arrange a one-day tour with lunch while staying on Antigua.
History
One fateful day in 1684, of Sir Christopher Codrington arrived on Antigua. An enterprising man, Codrington had come to Antigua to find out if the island would support the sort of large-scale sugar cultivation that already flourished elsewhere in the Caribbean. His initial efforts proved to be quite successful, and over the next fifty years sugar cultivation on Antigua exploded. By the middle of the 18th century the island was dotted with more than 150 cane-processing windmills--each the focal point of a sizeable plantation. Today almost 100 of these picturesque stone towers remain, although they now serve as houses, bars, restaurants and shops. At Betty's Hope, Codrington's original sugar estate, visitors can see a fully-restored sugar mill.
Most Antiguans are of African lineage, descendants of slaves brought to the island centuries ago to labor in the sugarcane fields. However, Antigua's history of habitation extends as far back as two and a half millenia before Christ. The first settlements, dating from about 2400 B.C., were those of 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. Long after the Siboney had moved on, Antigua was settled by the pastoral, agricultural Arawaks (35-1100 A.D.), who were then displaced by the Caribs--an aggressive people who ranged all over the Caribbean. The earliest European contact with the island was made by Christopher Columbus during his second Caribbean voyage (1493), who sighted the island in passing and named it after Santa Maria la Antigua, the miracle-working saint of Seville. European settlement, however, didn't occur for over a century, largely because of Antigua's dearth of fresh water and abundance of determined Carib resistance. Finally, in 1632, a group of Englishmen from St. Kitts established a successful settlement, and in 1684, with Codrington's arrival, the island entered the sugar era.
By the end of the eighteenth century Antigua had become an important strategic port as well as a valuable commercial colony. Known as the "gateway to the Caribbean," it was situated in a position that offered control over the major sailing routes to and from the region's rich island colonies. Most of the island's historical sites, from its many ruined fortifications to the impeccably-restored architecture of English Harbourtown, are reminders of colonial efforts to ensure its safety from invasion.
Horatio Nelson arrived in 1784 at the head of the Squadron of the Leeward Islands to develop the British naval facilities at English Harbour and to enforce stringent commercial shipping laws. The first of these two tasks resulted in construction of Nelson's Dockyard, one of Antigua's finest physical assets; the second resulted in a rather hostile attitude toward the young captain. Nelson spent almost all of his time in the cramped quarters of his ship, declaring the island to be a "vile place" and a "dreadful hole." Serving under Nelson at the time was the future King William IV, for whom the altogether more pleasant accommodation of Clarence House was built.
It was during William's reign, in 1834, that Britain abolished slavery in the empire. Alone among the British Caribbean colonies, Antigua instituted immediate full emancipation rather than a four-year 'apprenticeship,' or waiting period; today, Antigua's Carnival festivities commemorate the earliest abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean.
Emancipation actually improved the island's economy, but the sugar industry of the British islands was already beginning to wane. Until the development of tourism in the past few decades, Antiguans struggled for prosperity. The rise of a strong labor movement in the 1940s, under the leadership of V.C. Bird, provided the impetus for independence. 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 full independent status. V.C. Bird is now deceased; his son, Lester B. Bird, was elected to succeed him as prime minister.
close
Long Bay Hotel
Hawksbill by Rex Resorts
Caribbean 
