Forbidden Islands
7 Abandoned Places in the Caribbean You Didn't Know
In 1871 an engineer found phosphate on an island 11 kilometres off Curaçao, in 1872 a London company built a gold mill on the north coast of Aruba, and in 1983 two Soviet-built aircraft were seized on an airfield in Grenada. Those three sites and four more were worked for as long as they paid. All seven were left behind.
In this video, we explore:
→ A gold mill on Aruba that processed 2,938 tons of ore for 2,075 ounces of gold in its first two years, and shut down in 1899
→ A copper mine on a sea cliff in the British Virgin Islands, begun in 1837 by miners from Cornwall, with two different closing years on record (1862 and 1865)
→ A 44-acre islet off Saint Lucia that the British fortified after 1778, that became a whaling station from 1909 to 1952, and that served as an American communications station in the Second World War
→ A sugar estate in Antigua that one family owned from 1674 to 1944, where the slave registers list 380 people in 1817
→ An airfield in Grenada, opened in 1943 and captured in the invasion of 25 October 1983, where two derelict Antonov aircraft were still lying in the grass in November 2024
→ A sugar works above Leinster Bay on Saint John, where one owner held nearly 1,300 acres and 662 enslaved people by 1808
And at number one: Klein Curaçao, an uninhabited island of 1.7 square kilometres. The Dutch West India Company quarantined sick enslaved Africans there, and graves have been found in the southern part of the island. Phosphate mining from 1871 left it about 3 metres lower than before. Tour boats now sell it as a beach day trip.
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SOURCES & FURTHER READING Stichting Monumentenfonds Aruba, on the Bushiribana gold smelter National Parks Trust of the Virgin Islands, on Copper Mine Point National Park Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, heritage listing for the Copper Mine Saint Lucia National Trust, on Pigeon Island National Landmark International National Trusts Organisation, Pigeon Island case study Museum of Antigua and Barbuda, on Betty's Hope Betty's Hope archaeological project, California State University, Chico Legacies of British Slavery database, University College London UK Parliament, on emancipation in the West Indian colonies Grenada Airports Authority, on Pearls Airport Joint History Office, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Operation Urgent Fury US National Park Service, Virgin Islands National Park, on Annaberg CyArk, Annaberg Sugar Plantation documentation Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Maritime Stepping Stones, on Klein Curaçao Ramsar Convention, site 2355, Klein Curaçao The Lighthouse Directory, University of North Carolina, on the Klein Curaçao light
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Published Oct 4, 2026
