Antigua

Geographic position

17.0833° N, 61.8000° W

Sources

"Antigua and Barbuda." Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014. Web. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/28088/Antigua-and-Barbuda; "Antigua’s History and Culture." Antigua and Barbuda, 2014. Web. http://www.antigua-barbuda.org/aghis01.htm; Murphy, Reg. "Common Myths." Archaeology Antigua, 2015. Web. http://www.archaeologyantigua.org/index.php/archaeological-background/common-myths; Geo coordinates at https://www.google.com/#q=geographic+coordinates+of+antigua.

General note

Antigua is the largest island in the independent state of Antigua and Barbuda, which is located in the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean’s Lesser Antilles. The island’s original inhabitants were the Siboney, or stone-people, and then the Arawaks, whom the Caribs replaced as they expanded across the West Indies in the early 1100s. The Caribs called the island Waladli, but Christopher Columbus, who first spotted the island on his second voyage in 1493, called it Antigua for Santa Maria la Antigua, the saint of Seville. European settlement of Antigua was slow, due to its large Carib population and lack of fresh water, but in 1632, Englishmen from St. Kitts established a permanent settlement on the island. By 1700, the island was home to many thriving sugar plantations, which remained the basis of its colonial economy for many decades. Joseph Johnson, a Mohegan who studied at Moor’s, visited Antigua during his travels through the West Indies in the mid-1700s. Antigua remained a British colony until 1967, when it became an associated state of the Commonwealth with Barbuda and Redonda as dependencies. In 1981, Antigua and Barbuda gained its independence, becoming a sovereign state in the Commonwealth of Nations.