Anguilla is a British Overseas Territory of the Caribbean region in the North Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The territory consists of the main island of Anguilla, approximately long by wide at its widest point, together with a number of much smaller islands and cays with no permanent population. The territory's capital is The Valley. The total land area of the territory is , with a population of approximately in .
Etymology The Indigenous Arawakan name for the island was Malliouhana.
In reference to the island's shape, the Italian , meaning "eel" (in turn, from the Latin diminutive of anguis, "snake") was used as its name. Anguillan tradition holds that Christopher Columbus named the island.
History
Anguilla was first settled by Indigenous American peoples who migrated from South America. The earliest Native American artefacts found on Anguilla have been dated to around 1300 BC; remains of settlements date from AD 600.Caribbean Islands, Sarah Cameron (Footprint Travel Guides), p. 466 (Google Books ) There are two known petroglyph sites in Anguilla: Big Spring and Fountain Cavern. The rock ledges of Big Spring contain more than 100 petroglyphs (dating back to AD 600–1200), the majority consisting of three indentations that form faces.Source: The Anguilla National Trust - Preservation for Generations .
Precisely when Anguilla was first seen by Europeans is uncertain. Some sources claim that Columbus sighted the island during his second voyage in 1493, while others state that the first European explorer was the French Huguenot nobleman and merchant René Goulaine de Laudonnière in 1564. The Dutch West India Company established a fort on the island in 1631, but the Company withdrew after the fort was destroyed by the Spanish in 1633.Source: Atlas of Mutual Heritage .
Traditional accounts state that Anguilla was first colonised by English settlers from Saint Kitts, beginning in 1650. The settlers focused on planting tobacco and, to a lesser extent, cotton. The French temporarily took over the island in 1666, but returned it to English control in the next year, under the terms of the Treaty of Breda. Major John Scott, who visited in September 1667, wrote of leaving the island "in good condition" and noted that, in July 1668, "200 or 300 people fled thither in time of war".British Colonial and State Papers 1661–1668, 16 November 1667 and 9 July 1668. The French attacked again in 1688, 1745 and 1796, causing much destruction but failing to capture the island.
It is likely that the early European settlers brought enslaved Africans with them. Historians confirm that African slaves lived in the region in the early 17th century, with slaves from Senegal living on St Kitts by the mid 17th century. By 1672, a slave depot existed on the island of Nevis, serving the Leeward Islands. While the time of African arrival in Anguilla is difficult to place precisely, archival evidence indicates a substantial African presence of at least 100 enslaved people by 1683. They seem to have come from Central Africa as well as West Africa.Walicek, Don E. (2009). "The Founder Principle and Anguilla's Homestead Society," Gradual Creolization: Studies Celebrating Jacques Arends, ed. by M. van den Berg, H. Cardoso, and R. Selbach. (Creole Language Library Series 34), Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 349–372. The slaves were forced to work on plantations growing sugar, which had begun to replace tobacco as Anguilla's main crop. Over time, the African slaves and their descendants came to vastly outnumber the white settlers. In 1807, the African slave trade was terminated within the British Empire, and slavery was outlawed completely in 1834. Many planters subsequently sold up or left the island.
During the early colonial period, Anguilla was administered by the British through Antigua but, in 1825, it was placed under the administrative control of nearby Saint Kitts. Anguilla was federated with St Kitts and Nevis in 1882, against the wishes of many Anguillans. Economic stagnation, the severe effects of several droughts in the 1890s, and then the Great Depression of the 1930s, led many Anguillans to emigrate for better prospects elsewhere.
Anguillan Revolution
In 1952, full adult suffrage was introduced to Anguilla. After a brief period as part of the West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962, the island of Anguilla became part of the associated state of Saint Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, which was granted full internal autonomy in 1967. Many Anguillans had no wish to be a part of that union, however, resenting the dominance of St Kitts within it.
On 30 May 1967, Anguillans forcibly ejected the St Kitts police force from the island and, following a referendum, declared their independence from St Kitts.
The events, led by Atlin Harrigan and Ronald Webster, among others, became known as the Anguillan Revolution. Its goal was not independence per se, but rather to gain separation from Saint Kitts and Nevis and a return to being a British colony.
With negotiations failing to break the deadlock, a second referendum was held, which confirmed the desire for separation from St Kitts, and the Republic of Anguilla was declared unilaterally, with Ronald Webster as president. Efforts by British envoy, William Whitlock, failed to break the impasse.
In March 1969, 300 British troops were sent to the island. British authority was restored, and confirmed by the Anguilla Act 1971 (c. 63) of July 1971.
In 1980, Anguilla was allowed to formally secede from Saint Kitts and Nevis and become a separate British Crown colony (now a British overseas territory). Since then, Anguilla has been politically stable, and has had considerable growth in its tourism and offshore financing sectors.
Geography and geology
Anguilla is a flat, low-lying island of coral and limestone in the Caribbean Sea, measuring some 16 miles (26 km) long and 3.5 miles (6 km) in width. It lies to the east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin, separated from that island by the Anguilla Channel. The soil is generally thin and poor, supporting scrub, tropical and forest vegetation. The terrain is generally low-lying, with the highest terrain located in the vicinity of The Valley; Crocus Hill, Anguilla's highest peak at , lies in the western regions of the town.
Anguilla is noted for its ecologically important coral reefs and beaches. Apart from the main island of Anguilla itself, the territory includes a number of other smaller islands and cays, mostly tiny and uninhabited: Anguillita Blowing Rock Dog Island Little Scrub Island Prickly Pear Cays Scrub Island Seal Island Sombrero, also known as Hat Island Sandy Island Scilly Cay In Anguilla, forest cover is around 61% of the total land area, equivalent to 5,500 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, which was unchanged from 1990.
Geology
Anguilla (and the wider Anguilla Bank) is of volcanic origin, lying on the Lesser Antilles volcanic island arc, and tuffs and volcaniclastic breccias of Eocene age are exposed locally on the island. The island was largely submerged during the Miocene, leading to the formation of the reefal limestone Anguilla Formation, which was subsequently tectonically uplifted and covers most of the island today. Since the late Pleistocene, however, Anguilla has undergone tectonic subsidence at a rate of around 1–2 mm/yr.
Climate
Temperature Northeastern trade winds keep this tropical island relatively cool and dry. Average annual temperature is . July–October is its hottest period, December–February, its coolest.
Rainfall Rainfall averages annually, although the figures vary from season to season and year to year. The island is subject to both sudden tropical storms and hurricanes, which occur in the period from July to November. The island suffered damage from Hurricane Luis in 1995, severe flooding from Hurricane Lenny in 1999 and severe damage from Hurricane Irma in 2017, which remains the most powerful hurricane to hit the island.
Governance
Political system
Anguilla is an internally self-governing overseas territory of the United Kingdom. Its politics take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic dependency, whereby the Premier is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. A governor is appointed by the British government to represent the King.
The United Nations Committee on Decolonization includes Anguilla on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories. The territory's constitution is the Anguilla Constitutional Order 1 April 1982 (amended 1990). Executive power is exercised by the government, with legislative power being vested in both the government and the House of Assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
Defence As a British overseas territory, the UK is responsible for Anguilla's military defence, although there are no active garrisons or armed forces present in the territory. Since 2020, the Royal Navy has often forward-deployed a River-class offshore patrol vessel long-term to the Caribbean for patrol and sovereignty protection duties. In October 2023, the destroyer HMS Dauntless (which had temporarily replaced the River-class patrol vessel HMS Medway on her normal Caribbean tasking), visited the territory in order to assist local authorities in preparing for the climax of the hurricane season.
Population Demographics
The majority of residents (90.08%) are of West African ancestry, most of whom are the descendants of enslaved people transported from Africa. Minorities include whites at 3.74% and people of mixed race at 4.65% (figures from 2001 census). Of the population, 72% is Anguillan while 28% is non-Anguillan (2001 census). Of the non-Anguillan population, many are citizens of the United States, United Kingdom, St Kitts & Nevis, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica.
The years 2006 and 2007 saw an influx of large numbers of Chinese, Indian and Mexican workers, brought in as labour for major tourist developments due to the local population not being large enough to support the labour requirements.
Religion Christian churches did not have a consistent or strong presence during the initial period of English colonisation; spiritual and religious practices of Europeans and Africans tended to reflect their regional origins. As early as 1813, Christian ministers formally ministered to enslaved Africans and promoted literacy among converts.Walicek, Don E. (2011). "Christianity, Literacy, and Creolization in Nineteenth-Century Anguilla". In Anansi's Defiant Webs, Contact, Continuity, Convergence, and Complexity in the Language, Literatures and Cultures of the Greater Caribbean, ed. by N. Faraclas, R. Severing, et al., Willemstad: University of Curaçao and Fundashon pa Planifikashon di Idioma, pp. 181–189. The Wesleyan (Methodist) Missionary Society of England built churches and schools from 1817.Hodge, S. Wilfred (2003). "Bethel—the road—and due west" In Wilbert Forker (Ed.), Born in Slavery: A Story of Methodism in Anguilla and Its Influence in the Caribbean (pp. 20–29). Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press.