thumb|Turner Beach in Antigua
Antigua is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the most populous island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Barbuda became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on 1 November 1981.
The island's perimeter is roughly and its area . Its population was 83,191 (at the 2011 Census). The economy is mainly reliant on tourism, with the agricultural sector serving the domestic market.
More than 22,000 people live in the main city, St. John's. The city is situated in the north-west and has a deep harbour which is able to accommodate large cruise ships. Most of the population lives in the island's Central Plain. Other leading population settlements are All Saints (3,412) and Liberta (2,239), according to the 2001 census.
English Harbour on the south-eastern coast provides one of the largest deep water, protected harbors in the Eastern Caribbean. It is the site of UNESCO World Heritage Site Nelson's Dockyard, a restored British colonial naval station named after Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson. English Harbour and the neighbouring village of Falmouth are yachting and sailing destinations and provisioning centres. During Antigua Sailing Week, at the end of April and beginning of May, an annual regatta brings a number of sailing vessels and sailors to the island to take part in sporting events. Every December for the past 60 years, Antigua has been home to one of the largest charter yacht shows, welcoming super-yachts from around the world.
Etymology
Antigua means "ancient" or "old" in Spanish. In 1493, Christopher Columbus, sailing for Spain, named the island . Some sources say Columbus named the island after a church in Seville called Santa María de la Antigua. However, there is no church by that name in Seville. Columbus may have actually named the island in honor of the Santa María de la Antigua chapel in Seville Cathedral, or more specifically in honor of the iconic mural Virgen de la Antigua (or Santa María de la Antigua) in Seville Cathedral.
The name Waladli<!--NOT Wadadli--> comes from the island's Indigenous inhabitants and means approximately "our own". is the Creole approximation of the original name.
History
thumb|Rocky shoreline near St. John's
thumb|Dickenson Bay beach, Antigua
Early Antiguans
The first inhabitants were the Guanahatabey people. Eventually, the Arawak migrated from the mainland, followed by the Carib. Prior to European colonization, Christopher Columbus was the first European to visit Antigua, in 1493.
The Arawak were the first well-documented group of indigenous people to settle Antigua. They paddled to the island by canoe (piragua) from present-day Venezuela, pushed out by the Carib, another indigenous people. The Arawak introduced agriculture to Antigua and Barbuda. Among other crops, they cultivated the Antiguan "black" pineapple. They also grew corn, sweet potatoes (white with firmer flesh than the bright orange "sweet potato" grown in the United States), chili peppers, cassava, guava, tobacco, and cotton.
Some of the vegetables listed, such as corn and sweet potatoes, continue to be staples of Antiguan cuisine. Colonists took them to Europe, and from there, they spread around the world. For example, a popular Antiguan dish, dukuna (), is a sweet, steamed dumpling made from grated sweet potatoes, flour and spices. Another staple, fungi (), is a cooked paste made of cornmeal and water.
Most of the Arawak left Antigua about A.D. 1100. Those who remained were raided by the Carib coming from Venezuela. According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, the Caribs' superior weapons and seafaring prowess allowed them to defeat most Arawak nations in the West Indies. They enslaved some and cannibalised others. Watson points out that the Caribs had a much more warlike culture than the Arawak.
English and British Colonisation
thumb|Aerial view of [[Jolly Harbour on the western coast of Antigua]]
Christopher Columbus named the island "Antigua" in 1493 in honour of the "Virgin of the Old Cathedral" () found in Seville Cathedral in southern Spain. On his 1493 voyage, honouring a vow, he named many islands after different aspects of St. Mary, including Montserrat and Guadeloupe.
In 1632, a group of English colonists left St. Kitts to settle on Antigua. Christopher Codrington, an Englishman, established the first permanent English settlement on the island. Sugar mills and boiling houses were two of the most dangerous places for slaves to work on sugar plantations. In mills wooden or metal rollers were used to crush cane plants and extract the juices. Slaves were at risk of getting their limbs stuck and ripped off in the machines. The slaves lived in wretched and overcrowded conditions and could be mistreated or even killed by their owners with impunity. The Slave Act of 1723 made arbitrary murder of slaves a crime, but did not do much to ease their lives.
Unrest against enslavement among the island's enslaved population became increasingly common. In 1729, a man named Hercules was hanged, drawn and quartered and three others were burnt alive, for conspiring to kill the slave owner Nathaniel Crump and his family. In 1736, an enslaved man called "Prince Klaas" (whose slave name was Court) allegedly planned to incite a slave rebellion on the island. Court was crowned "King of the Coromantees" in a pasture outside the capital of St. John's. The coronation appeared to be just a colourful spectacle but was, for the enslaved people, a ritual declaration of war on the colonists. From information obtained from other slaves, the colonists discovered the plot and implemented a brutal crackdown on suspected rebels. Prince Klaas and four accomplices were caught and executed on the breaking wheel. (However, some doubts exist about Court's guilt.)
The American War of Independence in the late 18th century disrupted the Caribbean sugar trade. At the same time, public opinion in Great Britain gradually turned against slavery. "Traveling ... at slavery's end, [Joseph] Sturge and [Thomas] Harvey (1838 ...) found few married slaves residing together or even on the same estate. Slaveholders often counted as 'married' only those slaves with mates on the estate." Great Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, and all existing slaves were emancipated in 1834.
<blockquote>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.
Independence
In 1967, with Barbuda and the tiny island of Redonda, Antigua became an associated state of the Commonwealth, and in November 1981 it was disassociated from Britain.
U.S. government presence
Commissioned 9 August 1956, the Naval Facility (NAVFAC) Antigua was one of the shore terminal stations that were part of the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) and the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS), which were used to track Soviet submarines. NAVFAC Antigua was decommissioned 4 February 1984.
From 1958 through 1960 the United States installed the Missile Impact Location System (MILS) in the Atlantic Missile Range, later the Eastern Range, to localize the splashdowns of test missile nose cones. MILS was developed and installed by the same entities that had completed the first phase of the Atlantic SOSUS system. A MILS installation consisting of both a target array for precision location and a broad ocean area system for good positions outside the target area was installed at Antigua, downrange. The island was the second downrange MILS installation with the furthest being downrange at Ascension Island.
Until 7 July 2015, the United States Air Force maintained a small base near the airport, designated Detachment 1, 45th Operations Group, 45th Space Wing (known as Antigua Air Station). The mission provided high rate telemetry data for the Eastern Range and its space launches. The unit was deactivated due to US government budget cuts and the property given to the Antiguan Government.
Demographics
Census data
These figures do not include the island of Barbuda.
Source: The highest elevation on the island is .
Various natural points, capes, and beaches around the island include: Boon Point, Beggars Point, Parham, Willikies, Hudson Point, English Harbour Town, Old Road Cape, Johnson's Point, Ffryes Point, Jennings, Five Islands, and Yepton Beach, and Runaway Beach.
Several natural harbours are formed by these points and capes, including: Fitches Creek Bay, between Beggars Point and Parham; Nonsuch Bay between Hudson Point and Willikies; Willoughby Bay, between Hudson Point and English Harbour Town; English Harbour leading into English Harbour Town; Falmouth Harbour recessing into Falmouth; Rendezvous Bay between Falmouth and Old Road Cape; Five Islands Harbour, between Jennings and Five Islands; and Green Bay, the main harbour at St. John's, between Yepton Beach and Runaway Beach.
Fauna
The Antiguan racer is among the rarest snakes in the world. The Lesser Antilles are home to four species of racers. All four have undergone severe range reductions; at least two subspecies are extinct and another, Alsophis antiguae, now occupies only 0.1 per cent of its historical range.
Griswold's ameiva (Ameiva griswoldi) is a species of lizard in the genus Ameiva. It is endemic to Antigua and Barbuda. It is found on both islands.
Administrative divisions
The island is divided into six civil parishes: St. George, Saint Peter, Saint Philip, Saint Paul, Saint Mary, and Saint John. The parishes have no type of local government.
Economy
The country's official currency is the East Caribbean dollar. Given the dominance of tourism, many prices in tourist-oriented businesses are shown in US dollars. The EC dollar is pegged to the US dollar at a varied rate and averages about US$1 = EC$2.7.
Tourism
Antigua's economy relies largely on tourism, and the island is promoted as a luxury Caribbean escape. Many hotels and resorts are located around the coastline. The island's single airport, VC Bird Airport, is served by several major airlines, including Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Caribbean Airlines, Air Canada, WestJet, and JetBlue. There is regular air service to Barbuda.
Education
Antigua has two international primary/secondary schools: CCSET International, which offers the Ontario Secondary School Diploma, and Island Academy, which offers the International Baccalaureate. There are also many other private schools but these institutions tend to follow the same local curriculum (CXCs) as government schools.
The island of Antigua currently has two foreign-owned for-profit offshore medical schools, the American University of Antigua (AUA), founded in 2004, and The University of Health Sciences Antigua (UHSA), founded in 1982. The island's medical schools cater mostly to foreign students but contribute to the local economy and health care.
Online gambling
Antigua was one of the first nations to legalize, license, and regulate online gambling and is a primary location for incorporation of online gambling companies. In 2003, Antigua and Barbuda initiated a WTO dispute settlement process with the United States, arguing that although some forms of Internet gambling, such as betting on horse races, are legal in the United States, the Wire Act, the Travel Act and the Illegal Gambling Business Act criminalize all cross-border gambling, constituting a discriminatory measure prohibited under the GATS. In 2004, a panel of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body found that the United States failed to
accord services and service suppliers of Antigua treatment no less favorable than
that accorded to its own services and service suppliers.
In 2006, the United States Congress voted to approve the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act which criminalized the operations of offshore gambling operators which take wagers from American-based gamblers. This was a prima facie violation of the GATS treaty obligations enforced by the WTO, resulting in a series of rulings unfavourable to the US.
On 21 December 2007, an Article 22 arbitration panel ruled that the United States' failure to comply with WTO rules would attract a US$21 million sanction.
The WTO ruling was notable in two respects:
First, although technically a victory for Antigua, the $21 million was far less than the US$3.5 billion which had been sought; one of the three arbitrators was sufficiently bothered by the propriety of this that he issued a dissenting opinion.
Second, a rider to the arbitration ruling affirmed the right of Antigua to take retaliatory steps in view of the prior failure of the US to comply with GATS. These included the rare, but not unprecedented, right to disregard intellectual property obligations to the US.
Antigua's obligations to the US in respect of patents, copyright, and trademarks are affected. In particular, Berne Convention copyright is in question, and also material not covered by the Berne convention, including TRIPS accord obligations to the US. Antigua may thus disregard the WIPO treaty on intellectual property rights, and therefore the US implementation of that treaty (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA)—at least up to the limit of compensation.
Since there is no appeal to the WTO from an Arbitration panel of this kind, it represents the last legal word from the WTO on the matter. Antigua is therefore able to recoup some of the claimed loss of trade by hosting (and taxing) companies whose business model depends on immunity from TRIPS provisions.
Software company SlySoft was 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.
On 3 June 2024, US Ambassador to Antigua and Barbuda Roger Nyhus stated that the US might offer Antigua and Barbuda concessions to resolve the longstanding dispute over the $21 million compensatory amount.
Banking
Swiss American Bank Ltd, later renamed Global Bank of Commerce, Ltd, was formed in April 1983 and became the first offshore international financial institution governed by the International Business Corporations, Act of 1982 to become a licensed bank in Antigua. The bank was later sued by the United States for failure to release forfeited funds from one of its account holders. Swiss American Bank was founded by Bruce Rappaport.
Established in June 1994 as the East European International Bank, the European Union Bank (EUB) (), which was Antigua's first internet bank and was associated with Alex Konanykhin, who had business interests with numerous senior KGB officials, was shut down in 1996 by Antiguan authorities because the bank had failed to file its 1994 audit and was placed in receivership on 8 August 1997 with two Russians listed as bank directors, Vitali Papsuev () and Sergei Ushakov ().