Qualla: Barbuda

Barbuda: Introduction

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CROIX, CC BY 4.0. In September 2017, Hurricane Irma destroyed more than ninety percent of the buildings on Barbuda and the entire population was evacuated to Antigua, thirty miles to the south. For the first time in over three hundred years, no one lived on the island. Before Irma, Barbuda had about 1,634 residents. Nearly all of them -- 98.5 percent -- lived on land they owned communally, a system rooted in a peculiar accident of colonial history: the entire island had been covered by a single land grant to the Codrington family, so when slavery was abolished, the Barbudans had no individual plots to inherit. They kept the land together instead, and they have been fighting to keep it that way ever since.

Read more: Barbuda on Qualla

Image: CROIX | CC BY 4.0

Barbuda: Before the Codringtons

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CROIX, CC BY-SA 4.0. People have lived on Barbuda for at least five thousand years. The first settlers -- sometimes called Archaic Age people, sometimes Ciboney, though scholars debate the name -- arrived around 3000 BC, leaving behind cutting blades carved from gastropod shells and tools fashioned f...

Read more: Barbuda on Qualla

Image: CROIX | CC BY-SA 4.0

Barbuda: The Codrington Century

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cacahuate, CC BY-SA 4.0. Christopher Columbus sailed through the eastern Caribbean in 1493 but may never have sighted Barbuda. English colonists attempted settlement from St. Kitts in the 1620s, and by 1666 the village of Codrington had become the primary settlement. The Codrington family held the island...

Read more: Barbuda on Qualla

Image: Cacahuate | CC BY-SA 4.0

Barbuda: Sixty-Two Square Miles of Coral and Scrub

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CROIX, CC BY 4.0. Barbuda is flat. The Barbuda Highlands, on the eastern side, reach a modest 125 feet at their highest point. The western half of the island is dominated by Codrington Lagoon, where the Magnificent Frigate Bird Sanctuary draws the birds that have become one of Barbuda's primary sy...

Read more: Barbuda on Qualla

Image: CROIX | CC BY 4.0

Barbuda: Irma

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CROIX, CC BY 4.0. Hurricane Irma hit Barbuda on 6 September 2017 as a Category 5 storm. It destroyed more than ninety percent of the island's buildings. The central government evacuated the entire population to Antigua -- 1,634 people leaving an island their ancestors had occupied continuously for...

Read more: Barbuda on Qualla

Image: CROIX | CC BY 4.0

Barbuda: The Land They Share

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CROIX, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today, 98.5 percent of Barbudan homes sit on communally owned or freeheld land. The Barbuda Council, an eleven-member body with nine directly elected members and two representatives from the national parliament, governs the island's affairs from Codrington. The economy runs on go...

Read more: Barbuda on Qualla

Image: CROIX | CC BY-SA 4.0