More than visiting a mill!

Yes, I chose Antigua for higher chance of a warm sunny summer vacation, beaches but not just to lie down and go shopping. I like to see the history of a country their richness, the agriculture, churches and more.

The island focuses on the tourism industry and there is just a few places that has some heritage sites. One of them is Betty’s Hope, my personal favorite historic site.

Around the island we will see ruins of mills here and there but rarely accessible or provides any information. Betty’s Hope is the place that tells us more about the history.

Ruins are spread on this open-air site which use to be a large sugar plantation. While you stroll on your own the site, a cotton house is converted into a visitor center/museum. The doors are open but no one to introduce this place, nor guides to take you around when we were there.

A donation box is available.

The museum was very interesting through models, plans, artifacts, you learn different aspects of the island by reading the placards around the room: the sugar industry, the conditions at the time, the slavery, this place of course.

Compared to other historical sites on the island this one is well documented. After this visit, I felt different and I have different views on the island.

Yes, the fields of cane are long gone and I would not be able to support to see and I feel really sad just to think or talk about all the sufferance that many have endure here. I could not support it a minute. But yet, for those who survived and kept going, they have shown resilience, strength and kept hope for a better future. We are witnessing the future.

To me it was my favorite visit to learn on the history of the island.

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