Antigua is the largest of the Leeward Islands. Discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493 for the Spanish Crown, Spain never colonized it.  After settling St. Cristophe in 1623 and being its first Governor from 1624 until his death in 1649, Sir Thomas Warner (1580-1649) settled Antigua in 1632 becoming its first Governor from 1632 to 1635, succeeded by his son Edward Warner from 1635 to 1639. Antigua formally became an English colony in 1667 and by 1672 accounted for almost half of the Leeward Islands sugar production.

The sugar industry in Antigua bagan in the mid 1600s and remained the primary industry of Antigua for some three hundred years until the 1950s.  It was developed by British immigrants and their descendants and to a lesser extent by families from the Thirteen Colonies.  Contrary to Barbados and St. Kitts where white families that arrived in the 1600's remained for generations, white population in Antigua began arriving in 1632 but did not remain on the island permanently.  Plantation owners were mostly absentee landlords.

Beginning around 1671, sugar mills were powered by wind started to appear in Antigua’s landscape. Many windmills were built of which today a good number of stone towers characteristic of windmills remain. In the Google Map below, the location of many that remain still today can be found.

The first large scale sugar plantation in Antigua was established by Col. Christopher Codrington (1640-1698) who named it Betty's Hope in honor of his daughter.  During the 19th Century, the whole island of Antigua could have been considered a big sugar plantation.  Windmills first appeared in Antigua ca. 1750, by 1870 there were approximately one hundred seventy windmills in an island of one hundred eight square miles, each the center of a sizable plantation. In 1684, King Charles II granted a renewable fifty year lease on the island of Barbuda to Col. Codrington.  His family held control of Barbuda until 1860 when it was annexed to Antigua.  Col. Codrington used Barbuda to cultivate provisions for his estate in Antigua.  The whole island of Barbuda was but a big plantation and was never developed.  In 2017 Hurricane Irma missed Antigua but pummeled Barbuda pretty much flattening it.  All Barbudans were evacuated to Antigua and the island has never recovered from the devastation.

Steam power was introduced in Antigua around 1845 and by the end of the century the central sugar mill concept took over all sugar production. Towards the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century when the sugar industry evolved into the central sugar mill concept, the following three central sugar mills were established in Antigua:

• Montpellier Sugar Factory - established in 1890 operated until 1954, was considered one of the finest muscovado sugar factories in the Caribbean in the 1890’s, in 1945 the factory was acquired by Antigua Distillery Ltd to produce molasses for its rum distillery

• Bendals Sugar Factory - established in 1904 in St. John's Parish in what used to be Belvidere, closed and dismantled in 1940, the sugar factory on this estate no longer exists but the manager’s house still sits up on the hill overlooking the factory site below along with several stone walls, the tennis court, and the foundation stones of several of the staff houses

• The Antigua Sugar Factory - established in 1904 in what used to be Gunthorpe's Sugar Factory in St. George's Parish, it was the largest central sugar mill on the island, it closed in 1972  

For years, individual plantations processed their sugarcane and produced rum for the local market.  However, in the early 20th Century estates stopped distilling and it was individual rum shops that concocted their own blends.  In 1932 a number of these rum shops joined together to form the Antigua Distillery Ltd. (ADL).  In 1934 ADL acquired several sugar plantations and Montpellier Sugar Factory to produce molasses for its rum distillery in Rat Island.  Montpellier Sugar Factory closed down due to labor problems after the 1954 crop.

In 1967 Antigua became an associated state of the British Commonwealth and in 1981 achieved full independence.  Antigua & Barbuda as the island nation is formally known, is a founding member of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, an economic union created to adopt a common approach to trade, health, education and the environment, as well as the development of critical sectors such as agriculture, tourism and energy. In 1969 the Parliament of Antigua and Barbuda a bill to borrow EC$5.6 million from the Royal Bank of Canada to purchase the Antigua Sugar Factory and the Antigua and Barbuda Syndicate Estates Ltd. both of which combined owned a vast majority of the sugar estates on the island which included some 33,000 acres of arable land, beach land, estate houses and the sugar mill.

Today there are some remains of two of the three central sugar mills and quite a few windmills still remain standing.  Some of the old picturesque stone windmills that remain have or are still being used as houses, bars, restaurants and shops. Bucknell University’s Griot Institute’s Antigua Sugar Mills Project has an excellent website titled Antigua Sugar Mills documenting the research work of Antigua native Agnes Meeker on the sugar mills and plantations on the island. The website lists and includes maps and a brief history of the many sugar plantations that existed in Antigua, including those for which no remains are left.