The Museum of Antigua and Barbuda occupies the old Court House on Long Street, a Georgian-era building dating to 1750. It is the island's main repository of history, covering everything from pre-Columbian Arawak and Carib culture through the sugar plantation era to independence in 1981.
The exhibits are modest in scale but thoughtful in arrangement. Stone tools, pottery, and animal bones trace Antigua's earliest inhabitants back 4,000 years. A full-scale replica of an Arawak house stands in one corner. Plantation-era exhibits deal honestly with the slavery that powered the sugar economy, and there is a section on the events leading to emancipation in 1834. Admission is by donation, and the staff are knowledgeable and happy to talk. Allow an hour.