In it he explained his belief that Dominica was able to be the best colony that the English held in the West Indies, due to its high proportion of fertile and uncultivated land.
However, he expressed his opinion that the island could be turned around with additional cattle and an increase of enslaved Africans for the sugar plantations.
[5] The history was published in 1791, and he also published a pamphlet - Observations on the true method of treatment and usage of the Negro slaves in the British West India Islands in which he defended slavery, claiming that the slaves were treated better than English workers back home.
[5] Atwood's description of Dominica during the American Revolution was directly incorporated by Bryan Edwards into his 1793 The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies.
"[8] The extinct Dominican green-and-yellow macaw is named Ara atwoodi in honour of his description of it in his 1791 The History of the Island of Dominica.