Anguilla (British Overseas Territory)

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SKB
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Anguilla (British Overseas Territory)

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Introduction
Anguilla is a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The territory consists of the main island of Anguilla, approximately 16 miles (26 km) long by 3 miles (5 km) wide at its widest point, together with a number of much smaller islands and cays with no permanent population. The island's capital is The Valley. The total land area of the territory is 35 square miles (90 km2), with a population of approximately 13,500 (2006 estimate).

Anguilla has become a popular tax haven, having no capital gains, estate, profit or other forms of direct taxation on either individuals or corporations. In April 2011, faced with a mounting deficit, it introduced a 3% "Interim Stabilisation Levy", Anguilla's first form of income tax.


Name
The name Anguilla is an anglicised or latinate form of earlier Spanish anguila meaning "eel" in reference to the island's shape. It is believed by most sources to have been named by Christopher Columbus. For similar reasons, it was also known as Snake or Snake Island.


History
Anguilla was first settled by Indigenous Amerindian peoples who migrated from South America. The earliest Native American artefacts found on Anguilla have been dated to around 1300 bc; remains of settlements date from ad 600. The Arawak name for the island seems to have been Malliouhana. The date of European colonisation is uncertain: some sources claim that Columbus sighted the island during his second voyage in 1493, while others state that the island's first European explorer was the French Huguenot nobleman and merchant mariner René Goulaine de Laudonnière in 1564.

Traditional accounts state that Anguilla was first colonised by English settlers from Saint Kitts beginning in 1650.[6][12] In this early colonial period, however, Anguilla sometimes served as a place of refuge and recent scholarship focused on Anguilla has placed greater significance on other Europeans and creoles migrating from St. Christopher, Barbados, Nevis and Antigua. The French temporarily took over the island in 1666 but returned it to English control under the terms of the Treaty of Breda the next year. A Major John Scott who visited in September 1667, wrote of leaving the island "in good condition" and noted that in July 1668, "200 or 300 people fled thither in time of war".

It is likely that some of these early Europeans brought enslaved Africans with them. Historians confirm that African slaves lived in the region in the early 17th century. For example, Africans from Senegal lived in St. Christopher in 1626. By 1672 a slave depot existed on the island of Nevis, serving the Leeward Islands. While the time of African arrival in Anguilla is difficult to place precisely, archival evidence indicates a substantial African presence of at least 100 slaves by 1683. These seem to have come from Central Africa as well as West Africa.

Attempts by the French to capture the island during the War of Austrian Succession (1745) and the Napoleonic Wars (1796) ended in failure.

During the early colonial period, Anguilla was administered by the British through Antigua; in 1825, it was placed under the administrative control of nearby Saint Kitts. In 1967, Britain granted Saint Kitts and Nevis full internal autonomy. Anguilla was also incorporated into the new unified dependency, named Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla, against the wishes of many Anguillians. This led to two Anguillian Revolutions in 1967 and 1969 headed by Atlin Harrigan[16] and Ronald Webster. The island briefly operated as the independent "Republic of Anguilla". The goal of the revolution was not independence per se, but rather independence from Saint Kitts and Nevis and a return to being a British colony. British authority was fully restored in July 1971 and in 1980 Anguilla was finally allowed to secede from Saint Kitts and Nevis and become a separate British Crown colony (now a British overseas territory).

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SKB
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Re: Anguilla (British Overseas Territory)

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(BVI = British Virgin Islands)
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Following the damage caused by Hurricane Irma, RFA Mounts Bay has provided disaster relief to Anguilla, moving stores ashore & repairing local infrastructure.

RetroSicotte
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Re: Anguilla (British Overseas Territory)

Post by RetroSicotte »

That is an absolutely cracking shot of a Mexefloat doing what it does best. Never realised they were that big actually, despite knowing they wer emodular.

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SKB
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Re: Anguilla (British Overseas Territory)

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Anguilla's runway was also cleared by Mounts Bay crew to allow RAF C-17 transport planes to land and deliver relief. Mounts Bay then went on to the British Virgin Islands.

marktigger
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Re: Anguilla (British Overseas Territory)

Post by marktigger »

wouldn't this all have been so much simpler if we had a Garrison in the caribbean area which say included and infantry bn, artillery battery, engineer sqn, log sqn, signals troop, AAC flight and backed by a flight of 4 RAF puma and an AD Flt RAF Regt?

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