Afro–Antiguans and Barbudans are

Antiguans and Barbudans Antiguans and Barbudans () are the people associated with the country of Antigua and Barbuda. They primarily speak Antiguan and Barbudan Creole and share the same culture. Antiguans and Barbudans are found worldwide, most notably in the United S ...

of entirely or predominantly African (notably

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

n) ancestry. According to the 2011 census, 87% of Antigua and Barbuda's population is Black and 4.4% is

Mulatto ( , ) is a Race (human categorization), racial classification that refers to people of mixed Sub-Saharan African, African and Ethnic groups in Europe, European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the ...

Origins

Most of the enslaved Africans brought to Antigua and Barbuda disembarked from the

Bight of Biafra The Bight of Biafra, also known as the Bight of Bonny, is a bight off the west- central African coast, in the easternmost part of the Gulf of Guinea. This "bight" has also sometimes been erroneously referred to as the "Bight of Africa" because ...

(22,000 Africans) and the Gold Coast (16,000 Africans). Other African slaves came from the

Windward Coast The Windward Coast is an area of West Africa located on the coast between Cape Mount and Assini, i.e. the coastlines of the modern states of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast, to the west of the Gold Coast. A related region is the Pepper Co ...

(11,000 Africans), the

West Central Africa West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

(9,000 Africans), the

Bight of Benin The Bight of Benin, or Bay of Benin, is a bight in the Gulf of Guinea area on the western African coast that derives its name from the historical Kingdom of Benin. Geography The Bight of Benin was named after the Kingdom of Benin. It extends ea ...

(6,000 Africans),

Senegambia The Senegambia (other names: Senegambia region or Senegambian zone,Barry, Boubacar, ''Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade'', (Editors: David Anderson, Carolyn Brown; trans. Ayi Kwei Armah; contributors: David Anderson, American Council of Le ...

(5,000 Africans),

Guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

and

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

(4,000 Africans).African origins of the slaves from British and former British Antilles
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History

Settlers raised

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indigo InterGlobe Aviation Limited (d/b/a IndiGo), is an India, Indian airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest List of airlines of India, airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 64.1% domestic market ...

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

, and

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

as cash crops. Sir Christopher Codrington established the first large sugar estate in Antigua in 1674, and leased

Barbuda Barbuda (; ) is an island and dependency located in the eastern Caribbean forming part of the twin-island state of Antigua and Barbuda as an autonomous entity. Barbuda is located approximately north of Antigua. The only settlements on the i ...

to raise provisions for his plantations. In the fifty years after Codrington established his initial plantation, the

sugar industry The sugar industry subsumes the production, Sugar refinery, processing and marketing of sugars (mostly sucrose and fructose). Globally, about 80% of sugar is extracted from sugar cane, grown predominantly in the tropics, and 20% from sugar beet, ...

became so profitable that many farmers replaced other crops with sugar, making it the economic backbone of the islands. Codrington and others brought slaves from Africa's western coast to work the plantations. Africans started arriving in Antigua and Barbuda in large numbers during the 1670s; they soon became the largest racial group of Antigua and Barbuda. With all others in the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

, Antiguan and Barbudan slaves were emancipated in 1834, but remained economically dependent upon the plantation owners. Economic opportunities for the new freedmen were limited by a lack of surplus farming land, no access to credit, and an economy built on agriculture rather than manufacturing. Poor labour conditions persisted until 1939, when a member of a royal commission urged the formation of a trade union movement. In the 20th-century was redefined the role of Afro–Antiguans and Barbudans. The colonial social structure gradually started to be phased out with the introduction of universal education and better economic opportunities.

Statistics by Parish

References and footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Afro-Antiguans and Barbudans African diaspora in the Caribbean Antigua and Barbuda people of African descent Ethnic groups in Antigua and Barbuda People of African descent