Anguilla never developed a profitable plantation economy -- poor, dry
soil kept it the "poor stepchild" of the sugar islands -- so it drew
far less colonial attention, and far less of the surviving paper
trail, than its wealthier neighbors. These first-hand accounts and
testimonials were dug out via a wide research pass, each individually
verified.
An eyewitness account of Emancipation Day in Anguilla
1838
A Black Methodist minister recounts being stationed in Anguilla when emancipation took effect -- the newly-freed continued their work calmly on the day itself, but broke into weeping and shouting the following Sunday when he preached on their new status.
From an American Quaker delegation's tour documenting conditions after British slave emancipation (1834) across the West Indies. A rare direct account of how the moment itself was actually experienced in Anguilla, rather than a description from outside.
A visiting Englishman's full chapter on Anguilla
1826
Describes the island's stark, unplanted landscape -- more like Kent or Devon than the sugar islands -- an aging lieutenant governor proudly recalling repelling a French attack, and a legal system so under-resourced that a 1809 writ wasn't executed until 1818 for want of a jail. Recounts the 1796 French raid that burned the church and church and stripped and murdered residents, and calls Anguilla an “unjustly forgotten colony.” Gives a population breakdown (365 white, 327 free-colored, 2,388 enslaved) and describes the salt pond as the island's one real export, calling free trade what “would be charity to Anguilla.”
By far the richest and most detailed pre-20th-century account of Anguilla found in this whole project -- a full ~13-page dedicated chapter, not a passing mention. Written by Henry Nelson Coleridge (nephew of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge), who toured the West Indies in 1825 with his cousin, the Bishop of Barbados, and published this account anonymously the following year.
A French spy's report, and a documented Irish chapter
1887
Cites a French agent sent from St. Christopher over 200 years earlier (so, mid-1600s) to assess Anguilla, who reported it "not deemed worth the trouble of keeping or cultivating" -- independently echoing the 1678 English account elsewhere on this page. Also cites the historian Oldmixon on a group of Irish settlers ("Wild Irish") who reportedly displaced earlier fishermen and fell into internal conflict before Britain assumed direct governance.
By 1887, population was estimated at ~2,500 (100 white), annual revenue under £600, taxation about five shillings per capita -- governed by a stipendiary magistrate and a seven-member vestry.
Confirming the "Eel" etymology, and mapping the surrounding cays
1868
Explicitly attributes the name Anguilla to the island's "long and narrow... irregular and much twisted" shoreline, resembling an eel. Details the reef-lined south coast, and the surrounding rocks and cays -- Grand and Little Scrub, Sandy Island, and the Anguilletta (also called Blowing Rock, for a blowhole resembling a whale).
From official British Admiralty sailing directions -- pairs naturally with the historical sounding charts elsewhere on this site.
A German geologist's classification (translated from German)
1912
Groups Anguilla with Tintamarre and Barbuda as part of the Antilles' "flat outer zone," contrasting them with the volcanic inner-zone islands (Guadeloupe's Grande Soufrière reaches 1,484m). Separately notes that on Tobago, Anguilla, and Barbuda specifically, pastoral grazing -- not crop plantation -- formed the main occupation of inhabitants, unlike most other islands.
From a German geographical survey of Central America, the Lesser Antilles, and the Dutch West and East Indies -- a genuinely different national/scientific perspective (geological rather than colonial-administrative) from most other sources in this archive.
A different French attack, and outnumbered defenders who won
1866
Describes 600 French troops landing in 1746 against a defending force of only 150 armed Anguillans -- who nonetheless killed 150 of the attackers and forced the rest to retreat. Also details 1861 revenue (£414) and expenditure (£240), and the island's governance structure under a Stipendiary Magistrate and elected Vestry.
A separate incident from the 1796 French attack described in Coleridge's 1826 account elsewhere on this page -- Anguilla was attacked by the French more than once. Note: this source gives the settlement date as "1450," almost certainly an OCR/printing error for 1650, the well-documented actual date.
A thin archaeological record, even by a museum's own account
1922
A museum collections guide notes that finds from Anguilla and St. Eustatius were "small" with "little character," compared to richer Carib-influenced stone tools and pottery documented from St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat.
Even in archaeology, Anguilla shows up as comparatively under-documented next to its neighbors -- consistent with the broader pattern across this whole archive.
Another nickname, and a pirate-haunt footnote
1917
Confirms the island as "sometimes known as Eel Island and Little Snake" -- a second nickname corroborating the 1835 gazetteer's "Snake Island" -- notes a population of about 3,000, cattle and pony export, and that it was "formerly a resort of freebooters."
A traveler's gazetteer appendix entry, brief but useful for corroborating details found independently in other sources on this page (the snake-related nicknames, and the same pirate history documented separately via the Captain Kidd connection in this site's Library).
A vivid, literary sense of isolation
1893
Describes an Administrator's posting to Anguilla as a desolate, vegetation-scarce islet visited only monthly by a ship bringing mail -- the wait for it described as the one bright point in an otherwise isolated existence for the small white administrative household.
A literary, atmospheric sketch of West Indian social life rather than a strict statistical account -- captures the psychological experience of an isolated colonial posting in a way the gazetteers don't.
Anguilla in a 1627 royal land grant (translated from French)
1867
Lists Anguilla among a long chain of islands -- from Grenada up through the Virgin Islands -- included in King Charles I's grants intended to form a single colony to be called “the Carlisles.” A footnote identifies Anguilla as “the most northern of the Windward Isles” (this French source's period classification differs slightly from the modern English convention of grouping it with the Leeward Islands).
Translated from a French-language history of early English Caribbean colonization, tracing land grants back to Charles I's 1627 and 1628 charters -- placing Anguilla's inclusion in English colonial planning earlier than its actual 1650 settlement.
A Dutch pilot mistakes Anguilla for its neighbor
1857
Sailing to New Netherland (later New York) in 1632, a Dutch ship's helmsman mistook Anguilla for the nearby island of Sombrero as they passed by at evening -- a small, human moment of period navigation.
From a Dutch sea captain's journal of transatlantic voyages (1632-1644), published in English translation in 1857.
A mid-century statistical snapshot
1855
Gives Anguilla's area (34 square miles), population (3,052), and economy (cattle-breeding, salt-raking, small-scale sugar/cotton/tobacco), notes governance by a locally-elected magistrate answerable to Antigua's governor, and dates English settlement to 1659.
From a comprehensive statistical gazetteer of the West India Islands.
Anguillians as founders, not just forgotten
1811
Describes how, after the Dutch were expelled from Tortola and made little progress developing it, credit for the colony's growth went to English settlers from Anguilla, who emigrated with their families and founded a nearly tax-free, self-governing community there.
From John Pinkerton's "Modern Geography" (1811) -- a rare documented instance of Anguilla as a source of settlers who went on to build up a neighboring colony, rather than the usual story of being overlooked. Notes the Virgin Islands' 1756 population (1,263 white, 6,121 Black) and that formal courts weren't established there until 1773.
"A Description of the Island of Anguilla"
1678
A dedicated section giving the island's coordinates and dimensions, then bluntly assessing its ~200-300 English inhabitants as poor, concluding the isle was “not worth the keeping.”
Part of Richard Blome's "A Description of the Island of Jamaica: with the other isles and territories in America to which the English are related" -- one of the earliest known dedicated English descriptions of Anguilla specifically, and a blunt confirmation of the colonial neglect that shaped the island's whole documentary record.
Major John Scott's account
1667-68
left the island “in good condition”; noted that in July 1668, “200 or 300 people fled thither in time of war.”
One of the earliest surviving firsthand accounts of the English colony, from a visit less than 20 years after settlement.
The Battle of Anguilla
1745
A French force of 759 men landed at Rendezvous Bay; Governor Arthur Hodge's ~150 defenders ambushed them from hidden breastworks, then counterattacked -- 100 French casualties and 50 captured, against 7 British.
A small, poor island with almost no military garrison routed a force five times its size.
A fever-stricken vessel
1884
“A St. Thomas paper tells a story of the wreck of a Norwegian brigantine on the Anguilla reef during a gale, and when all on board, except the Captain and a boy, were down with the African coast fever... The Commander of the brigantine, with the aid of the boy, kept his vessel on her course for a month.”
Sacramento Daily Union, Feb 29, 1884 -- syndicated from a St. Thomas newspaper report.
“The mouse that roared”
1969
British paratroopers and Royal Marines landed on a virtually undefended island in “Operation Sheepskin” -- widely mocked by the British and American press at the time.
Followed the 1967 Anguilla Revolution, when the island broke away from the Associated State of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla.