Editing Antigua and Barbuda (section)

===European arrival and slavery===
[[Christopher Columbus]] was the first European to sight the islands in 1493.<ref name=Britannica /><ref name=Commonwealth /> The Spanish did not colonise Antigua until after a combination of European and African diseases, malnutrition, and slavery eventually extirpated most of the native population; [[smallpox]] was probably the greatest killer.<ref>{{cite book| last = Austin Alchon| first = Suzanne| title = A pest in the land: new world epidemics in a global perspective| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=YiHHnV08ebkC&pg=PA62| year = 2003| publisher = University of New Mexico Press| isbn = 0-8263-2871-7| pages = 62–63| access-date = 11 September 2020| archive-date = 29 November 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211129165420/https://books.google.com/books?id=YiHHnV08ebkC&pg=PA62| url-status = live}}</ref>

The English settled on Antigua in 1632;<ref name=Commonwealth /><ref name=Britannica /> Christopher Codrington settled on Barbuda in 1685.<ref name=Commonwealth /><ref name=Britannica /> Tobacco and then sugar was grown, worked by a large population of slaves transported from West Africa, who soon came to vastly outnumber the European settlers.<ref name=Britannica />