After the great Caribbean earthquake, the settlement on Willoughby Bay (Bridgetown) was abandoned, the inhabitants there moved partly to Bethesda, mostly to Freetown.

The area is now a modest, self-sufficient agricultural community with a developed structure, but it contrasts sharply with the eastern noble, contained hotel and villa area between Half Moon Bay and Mill Reef, which is popular with tourists from other countries.

It is a sparsely populated area with one beach – Half Moon Bay with its beautiful white and pink sand.

[10] Freetown is often ranked as the coldest town in Antigua and Barbuda, often achieving low temperatures of 15 degrees Celsius in the winter.

The spatial dichotomy is well illustrated by the juxtaposition of Freetown, an impoverished local settlement, with the opulent tourist ghetto of Mill Reefvgl.