Antigua and Barbuda

A country in the Caribbean, Antigua and Barbuda consists of two major inhabited islands: Antigua, the larger of the two and location of the capital, St. John’s; and Barbuda. It is also comprised of a number of smaller islands. It has a population of 81,799 (2011), of whom the overwhelming majority live on the island of Antigua (with around 24,000 in St. John’s), with only 1,638 living on Barbuda (2011). Both Antigua and Barbuda were British colonial possessions until independence, which was achieved on November 1, 1981. Under the British, who occupied Antigua from 1632, the island’s economy quickly became dominated by sugar plantations maintained by slave labor with the help of indentured white laborers. Both these white laborers and the slaves lived in poor ...