Bethesda, Antigua and Barbuda

Parish

Bethesda is a small community in the Saint Paul 's Parish on the Caribbean island of Antigua, in the State of Antigua and Barbuda. He is best known as the site of the country historically important strikes 1951/52, a milestone on the road of the island nation to independence.

Location and landscape

Bethesda is located on the Willoughby Bay, the large bay of the eastern coast of Antigua. To the northeast, the area, the Central Plain extends inland flat in the central plain of the island. Southwest lie down the hills of the Monks Hill against Falmouth Bay and English Harbour. The region is sparsely populated and agricultural.

The village has about 500 inhabitants, and extends on the road from St. Phillip 's Parish, the southeast of Antigua, English Harbour.

Inland is the important for water supply Bethesda Dam, the second largest after about 2 km north lying Potworks Dam. Is the wetland Christian Cove, one of the largest remaining mangrove forests of the island on the coast.

St. Phillips ( St. Phillip )

History, infrastructure and attractions

1812 founded the Methodists, the missionaries in Antigua since 1760, here is a school for the workers of the estate Blake. It was the first built for slaves School of the West Indies. After the abolition of slavery in 1834, the chaplaincy received feed and made ​​it a place. The Congregation and Chapel was located initially in Bridgetown at the Willoughby Bay, 1841 moved the mission to Bethesda, which takes its name from the new church in honor of the garden Bethesda. After the great Antilles Earthquake 1843 the settlement at the Willoughby Bay was abandoned, the local residents moved mostly to Freetown, the main freedmen settlement of Antigua, partly also to Bethesda to. Already in 1847 the church was enlarged, and in 1871 a new church built with school. The Methodists operated teaching until 1962, when a public school was established, and in 1975 the present church was built as a solid Bauwwerk, the glory of God ( " Glory of God" ) consecrated.

Bethesda also played an important role in the history of the Antiguan labor movement. It was here in January 1951 the labor dispute with the landowner Alexander Moody - Stuart to the wages of sugarcane workers instead. Vere Cornwall Bird, nachmaliger first prime minister of the sovereign state Antigus and Barbuda, here gave the speech that is the source of the saying, mussels and Widdy - Widdy to eat and to drink pond water ("We will eat cockles and the widdy widdy bush. We wants to drink Pond water " ), if there were nothing to eat because of the strike. That was the extra income to Bethesda freely available already in the time of slavery. Exactly one year kept the workers on strike through, and forced the higher wage. The inconspicuous, but significant for the country's history tamarind tree under which the words were coined, is still standing.

Today, the place has a clinic, a primary school, and branches of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and Americas, the Church of God Antigua (Bethesda Zion Church, founded 1951), and the St. John's Pentecostal Church ( 1950 ).