Antigua's first people were the nomadic Ciboney, originally from present-day Venezuela, whose earliest traces on the island date from around 3100 BC. By the early years AD the Ciboney had been replaced by Arawak-speaking Amerindians from the same region.

The first European sighting of Antigua came in 1493 when Columbus sailed close by, naming the island Santa Maria la Antigua. The island remained uninhabited for over a century until, in 1624, the first British settlement in the West Indies was established on the island of St Kitts, and the British laid claim to nearby Antigua and Barbuda. Within a decade, settlers at Falmouth on the south coast had experimented with a number of crops before settling on sugar , which was to guarantee the island its future wealth. For the next two hundred years, sugar was to remain the country's dominant industry, bringing enormous wealth to the planters .

Unlike most of Britain's West Indian colonies, Antigua remained British throughout the colonial era. This was due, in large part, to the massive fortifications built around it, the major ones at places like Shirley Heights on the south coast.

As the centuries passed, conditions for the slaves who worked the plantations improved very slowly. Even after the abolition of slavery in 1834, many were obliged to continue to labour at the sugar estates, for wages that were insufficient to provide even the miserly levels of food, housing and care formerly offered under slavery.

Gradually, though, free villages began to emerge at places like Liberta, Jennings and Bendals, often based around Moravian or Methodist churches or on land reluctantly sold by the planters to a group of former slaves. Slowly a few Antiguans scratched together sufficient money to set up their own businesses - shops, taverns and tiny cottage industries. An embryonic black middle class was in the making. Nonetheless, economic progress on the island was extremely slow. By World War II, life for the vast majority of Antiguans was still extremely tough, with widespread poverty across the island.

After the war, Antigua continued to be administered by Britain, but gradually the island's politicians were given authority for the running of their country. Slowly, the national economy began to take strides forward, assisted by the development of tourism. By the elections of 1980 all parties considered that, politically and economically, the country was sufficiently mature for full independence and the flag of an independent Antigua and Barbuda was finally raised in November 1981.