Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0014/00146.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 29KB | 475 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00146}
$Pretitle{233A}
$Title{Antigua and Barbuda
Chapter 2A.   General Information}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Karen Sturges-Vera}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{antigua
barbuda
percent
industry
island
islands
government
sugar
tourism
local}
$Date{1987}
$Log{Tower*0014601.scf
Figure 14.*0014602.scf
Tourist Views*0014603.scf
Table A.*0014601.tab
}
Country:     Antigua and Barbuda
Book:        Caribbean Commonwealth, An Area Study: Antigua and Barbuda
Author:      Karen Sturges-Vera
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 2A.   General Information

[See Tower: Courtesy Embassy of Antigua and Barbuda, Washingon DC.]


[See Table A.: Country Profile]

    The islands of Antigua and Barbuda form a small nation whose strategic
importance is greater than its size. Located at the outer curve of the Leeward
Islands, Antigua and Barbuda are well placed for strategic defense of the
Caribbean against outside forces. The natural harbors along Antigua's indented
coast also offer havens for naval forces (see Current Strategic
Considerations, ch. 7).

     By the eighteenth century B.C., Antigua and Barbuda had been settled by
their first inhabitants, the Ciboney (or Guanahuatebey) Indians. They were
followed by the Arawaks, a peaceful Indian tribe that migrated from northern
South America through the Caribbean islands and arrived on Antigua around A.D.
35. They began slash-and-burn cultivation of the island and introduced such
crops as corn, sweet potatoes, beans, pineapples, indigo, and cotton. The
Arawaks were uprooted by the Carib Indians around A.D. 1200; however, the
Caribs did not settle on Antigua but used it as a base for gathering
provisions (see The Pre-European Population, ch. 1).

     In 1493, on his second voyage, Christopher Columbus sighted the island of
Antigua and named it after Santa Maria de la Antigua. Early settlement,
however, was discouraged by insufficient water on the island and by Carib
raids. Europeans did not establish settlements on Antigua until the English
claimed the island in 1632. Antigua fell into French hands in 1666 but was
returned to the English the following year under the Treaty of Breda. Antigua
remained under British control from 1667 until independence was granted in
1981.

     From the start, Antigua was used as a colony for producing agricultural
exports. The first of these were tobacco, indigo, and ginger. The island was
dramatically transformed in 1674 with the establishment by Sir Christopher
Codrington of the first sugar plantation. Only four years later, half of
Antigua's population consisted of black slaves imported from the west coast of
Africa to work on the sugar plantations. Antigua became one of the most
profitable of Britain's colonies in the Caribbean (see The Sugar Revolutions
and Slavery, ch. 1).

     In 1685 the Codrington family leased the island of Barbuda from the
English crown for the nominal price of "one fat pig per year if asked." The
Codringtons used Barbuda as a source of supplies--such as timber, fish,
livestock, and slaves--for their sugar plantations and other real estate on
Antigua. This lease continued in the Codrington family until 1870. Barbuda
legally became part of Antigua in 1860.

     Although the British Parliament enacted legislation in 1834 abolishing
slavery throughout the empire, it mandated that former slaves remain on their
plantations for six years (see The Post-Emancipation Societies, ch. 1).
Choosing not to wait until 1840, the government on Antigua freed its slaves in
August 1834. This was done more for economic than for humanitarian reasons, as
the plantation owners realized that it cost less to pay emancipated laborers
low wages than to provide slaves with food, shelter, and other essentials. The
plantation owners continued to exploit their workers in this way into the
twentieth century. The workers perceived little opportunity to change the
situation, and sugar's dominance precluded other opportunities for employment
on the island.

     The Antigua sugar industry was severely jolted in the 1930s, as the
dramatic decline in the price of sugar that resulted from the Great Depression
coincided with a severe drought that badly damaged the island's sugar crop.
Social conditions on Antigua, already bad, became even worse, and the lower
and working classes began to protest to the point that law and order were
threatened. The Moyne Commission was established in 1938 to investigate the
causes of the social unrest in Antigua and elsewhere in the Caribbean (see
Labor Organizations, ch. 1). In 1940, in response to the situation, the
president of the British Trades Union Congress recommended that the workers on
Antigua form a trade union. Two weeks later, the Antigua Trades and Labour
Union (ATLU) was created. The union soon began to win a series of victories in
the struggle for workers' rights.

     Despite these victories, the ATLU recognized the need to participate in
the political life of the island, as the plantation owners still held all
political power. Thus, in 1946, the union established a political arm, the
Antigua Labour Party (ALP), and ran five parliamentary candidates who met the
qualification of being property owners. All were elected; in addition, one of
the five, Vere Cornwall Bird, Sr., was selected to serve on the government's
Executive Council. Bird and the ATLU continued to push for constitutional
reforms that would give the lower and working classes more rights. Largely
because of these efforts, Antigua had full adult suffrage by 1951,
unrestricted by minimum income or literacy requirements. With each general
election, the union and the ALP put forth more candidates and won more seats
in the Antiguan Parliament. In 1961 Bird was appointed to fill the newly
created position of chief minister. Five years later, he led a delegation to
London to consider the issue of Antiguan independence. Following a
constitutional conference, Antigua became an associated state (see Glossary)
in February 1967, with Barbuda and the tiny island of Redonda as dependencies.
Antigua was internally independent, but its foreign affairs and defense still
were controlled by Britain.

     During the period of associated statehood (1967-81), Antigua saw the rise
of a second labor union and its affiliated political party and the beginnings
of a secessionist movement in Barbuda, as well as the replacement of sugar by
tourism as the dominant force in the economy. In 1978 Deputy Prime Minister
Lester Bird (younger son of Vere Cornwall Bird, Sr.) and other like-minded
political leaders called for full independence. Following their return to
office in the 1980 general election, which was regarded as a popular mandate
on independence, another constitutional conference was held in London in
December 1980. An obstacle to achieving independence was the issue of Barbudan
secession; this barrier was overcome when a compromise was reached that made
Barbuda relatively autonomous internally. Complete independence was granted to
the new nation of Antigua and Barbuda in 1981.

Geography

[See Figure 14.: Antigua and Barbuda, 1987]

[See Tourist Views: Courtesy Embassy of Antigua and Barbuda, Washingon DC.]

     Antigua and Barbuda lies in the eastern arc of the Leeward Islands of the
Lesser Antilles, separating the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean Sea. Antigua
is 650 kilometers southeast of Puerto Rico. Barbuda lies forty-eight
kilometers due north of Antigua, and the uninhabited island of Redonda is
fifty-six kilometers southwest of Antigua (see fig. 14). The largest island,
Antigua, is 21 kilometers across and 281 square kilometers in area, or about
two-thirds the size of New York City. Barbuda covers 161 square kilometers,
while Redonda encompasses a mere 2.6 square kilometers. The capital of Antigua
and Barbuda is St. John's, located at St. John's Harbour on the northwest
coast of Antigua. The principal city of Barbuda is Codrington, located on
Codrington Lagoon.

     Antigua an