Island Hopping Barbuda History

ISLAND HPPING

The first visitors to Barbuda were the Ciboney Indians who passed by in search of food, but it was the Arawaks who first settled on the island around 500 AD. Around 1200 AD the Caribs followed the Arawaks on their way northward to Puerto Rico. When the European settlers arrived some three centuries later they found a hostile climate, dry and arid with little water, and a hostile foe, the fierce Caribs. Due to the climate and soil conditions cotton and sugar cane plantations were not feasible and the few settlers that took to Barbuda eked out a living by supplying Antigua with livestock and ground provisions. Today there are many Amerindian sites where evidence of early settlements are to be found on Barbuda. The locals usually have a good knowledge of the area and the history and will show visitors where to look and for what.

In 1690, William III gave General Christopher Codrington, then Governor of the Leeward Islands, a lease for all of Barbuda for the price of “…one fat sheep a year”. The lease also included the responsibility of overseeing the island’s needs including the needs of her 800 inhabitants, most of whom were slaves. For over 150 years the Codrington family, who hailed from Cheltenham, England, and who owned several other plantations in the Caribbean, used Barbuda as a stock farm for the Codrington Estate on Antigua and as a private hunting reserve. The Codringtons introduced deer onto the island and it is said that small deer can still be seen in the thick underbrush in the interior of Barbuda.

The Codringtons were not known as oppressive or inhumane slave masters as so many up and down the island chain were, however it is rumored that the Codringtons carried out breeding experiments with their slaves trying to produce slaves that were taller and stronger and who would bring a good price on the slave market. The Codrington’s slaves had cottages and their own plots for growing food, as Barbuda’s harsh conditions required the slaves to develop skills other than farming to survive. This gave Barbuda’s slaves a certain independence that was unique among slaves and not known elsewhere in the western hemisphere. This independence, this self-sufficiency and autonomy has carried down to this day on the island where Barbuda’s residents make the most of the few resources available to them.

Antigua annexed Barbuda shortly after Emancipation in 1834 but the Codringtons retained ownership of the land until 1872 when their lease expired. However, when emancipation came, the slaves on Barbuda became Crown tenants and their rights to the land they worked for so many years were recognized. Barbudans have fiercely protected these rights over the years and this has led to much disagreement between themselves and the government on Antigua. To this day, only Barbudans may own land on Barbuda and the land is given to them free of charge. Barbuda’s unique history has resulted in little development of the island and the many undesirable elements of the tourism industry are not to be found here…so life continues here…at a slow pace…just like it has for hundreds of years.