Betty's Hope Historic Sugar Plantation

Betty's Hope, Antigua. Betty's Hope, Antigua's first sugar plantation and one of the largest rum producing works, is now an open-air museum. The entrance fee is just US$2, payable in cash into a donation box.

It was established in 1650, shortly after the island had become an English colony, and flourished as a successful agricultural industrial enterprise during the centuries of slavery. It was the first large-scale sugar plantation to operate in Antigua and belonged to the Codrington family from 1674 until 1944.

One Barbados planter named Edward Littleton estimated that a sugar planter who owned 100 slaves and employed them in growing and processing sugar cane would kill them all in 19 years. The production of sugar required – and killed – hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans.

Explore the storied ruins of Betty's Hope, one of the Caribbean's earliest sugar plantations, and visit the beautiful St. Barnabas Church for a glimpse into Antiguan spiritual life.