Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda is a twin-island nation lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major inhabited islands, Antigua and Barbuda, and a number of smaller islands (including Great Bird, Green, Guinea, Long, Maiden and York Islands). Separated by a few sea miles, the group is in the middle of the Leeward Islands part of the Lesser Antilles.

Antigua was first settled by Archaic Age hunter-gatherer Amerindians. Carbon-dating has established that the earliest settlements started around 3100 BCE. They were succeeded by the Ceramic Age pre-Columbian Arawak-speaking Saladoid people who migrated from the lower Orinoco River.

Most Arawaks left Antigua around 1100 CE; those who remained were later raided by the Caribs. European and African diseases, malnutrition and slavery eventually killed most of the Caribbean's native population, although no researcher has conclusively proven any of these causes as the real reason for these deaths.

The English settled on Antigua in 1632 and settled on Barbuda in 1684. Slavery, established to run sugar plantations around 1684, was abolished in 1834. The British ruled from 1632 to 1981, with a brief French interlude in 1666.

The islands became an independent state within the Commonwealth Realm system on November 1.