slaves brought to the island centuries ago to work in the sugarcane fields.
Ancient history reveals that Antigua started witnessing habitation as early as two and a half millennia before Christ. The Siboney were the first ones to settle here. Also known as Stone-people, they were very good at making shell and stone tools. Later in 1632, a group of Englishmen from St. Kitts established a successful settlement. In the year 1684, Sir Christopher Codrington spotted Antigua and realized its potential in large-scale sugar cultivation. The following years saw sugar cultivation flourish massively in Antigua. By the middle of the 18th century, the island was dotted with more than 150 cane-processing windmills, which today serve as houses, bars, restaurants and shops.
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. Later in 1834, under the reign of King William IV, slavery was abolished but this hurt the sugarcane industry, which soon began to wane. The country struggled for prosperity until tourism developed in full form few decades ago, putting Antigua back on tracks.
The year 1940 saw strong labour movement under the leadership of V.C. Bird which finally achieved independence for the country. In 1967, with Barbuda and the tiny island of Redonda as dependencies, Antigua became an associated state of the Commonwealth, and in 1981 it finally gained entire independence.
