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| History ofthe Bahamas |
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| Pre-Columbian Bahamas |
| Lucayan people Columbus' voyage toGuanahani |
| Spanish Bahamas |
| Eleutheran Adventurers |
| British Bahamas |
| Raid on Charles Town Raid on Nassau Republic of Pirates Battle of Nassau Raid of Nassau 1782 Capture of the Bahamas |
| Spanish Bahamas |
| 1783 Capture of the Bahamas |
| British Bahamas |
| 1783 Peace of Paris Abaco Slave Revolt Slavery Abolition Act 1833 Creole case American Civil War |
| Independent Bahamas |
| Abaco Independence Movement Hurricane Dorian COVID-19 pandemic |
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The earliest arrival of people in the islands now known asThe Bahamas was in the first millennium AD. The first inhabitants of the islands were theLucayans, anArawakan language-speakingTaino people, who arrived between about 500 and 800 AD from other islands of theCaribbean.
Recorded history began on 12 October 1492, whenChristopher Columbus landed on the island ofGuanahani, which he renamedSan Salvador Island, on his first voyage to theNew World. The earliest permanent European settlement was in 1648 onEleuthera, settled by theBritish. During the 18th centuryslave trade, many purchased African slaves were brought to The Bahamas to work unpaid. Their descendants now constitute 85% of the Bahamian population. The Bahamas gained independence from theUnited Kingdom on July 10, 1973.
Sometime between 500 and 800 AD, Taínos began crossing indugout canoes fromHispaniola and/orCuba to the Bahamas. Suggested routes for the earliest migrations have been from Hispaniola to theCaicos Islands, from Hispaniola or eastern Cuba toGreat Inagua Island, and from central Cuba toLong Island (in the central Bahamas). William Keegan argues that the most likely route was from Hispaniola or Cuba to Great Inagua. Granberry and Vescelius argue for two migrations, from Hispaniola to the Turks and Caicos Islands, and from Cuba to Great Inagua.[1]
From the initial colonisation(s), the Lucayan expanded throughout the Bahamas in some 800 years (c. 700 – c. 1500), growing to a population of about 40,000. Population density at the time of first European contact was highest in the south-central area of The Bahamas, declining towards the north, reflecting the migration pattern and progressively shorter time of occupation of the northern islands. Known Lucayan settlement sites are confined to the nineteen largest islands in the archipelago, or to smaller cays located less than one km. from those islands. Population density in the southernmost Bahamas remained lower, probably due to the drier climate there (less than 800 mm of rain a year on Great Inagua Island and the Turks and Caicos Islands and only slightly higher on Acklins and Crooked Islands and Mayaguana).[2]
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In 1492,Christopher Columbus sailed fromSpain on hisfirst voyage with three ships, theNiña, thePinta, and the flagship,Santa Maria, seeking a direct route toAsia. On 12 October, Columbus reached an island in the Bahamas and claimed it for Spain, an event long regarded by Europeans as the "discovery" of America. This island was calledGuanahani by the Lucayan, and San Salvador by the Spanish. The identity of the first American landfall by Columbus remains controversial, but many authors acceptSamuel E. Morison's identification of Columbus' San Salvador as what was later called Watling (or Watling's) Island. Its name has been officially changed toSan Salvador. Columbus visited several other islands in the Bahamas before sailing to present-day Cuba and afterwards to Hispaniola.[3]
The Bahamas held little interest to the Spanish except as a source ofslave labor. Nearly the entire population of Lucayan (almost 40,000 people total) were transported to other islands as laborers over the next 30 years. When the Spanish decided to remove the remaining Lucayans to Hispaniola in 1520, they could find only eleven. The islands remained abandoned and depopulated for 130 years afterwards. With no gold to be found, and the population removed, the Spanish effectively abandoned the Bahamas. They retained titular claims to them until thePeace of Paris in 1783, when they ceded them to Britain in exchange for East Florida.[4][5]
When Europeans first landed on the islands, they reported the Bahamas were lushly forested. Cleared to develop the land forsugarcaneplantations, the forests have not regrown and have not been replanted.[citation needed]
For many years, historians believed that the Bahamas was not colonised until the 17th century. However, recent studies show that there may have been attempts of colonisation by groups from Spain, France, Britain, and the Netherlands. In 1565 a group of French Huguenots settled on Abaco and were never heard of again.[6]
In 1648, a group fromBermuda called "The Company of Adventurers for the Plantation of the Islands of Eleutheria", which was led byWilliam Sayle, sailed to the Bahamas to found a colony. These early settlers werePuritans andrepublicans. Bermuda was becoming overcrowded, and the Bahamas offered both religious and political freedom and economic opportunity. The larger of the company's two ships, theWilliam, wrecked on the reef at the north end of what is now calledEleuthera Island, with the loss of all provisions.
Despite the arrival of additional settlers, including Europeans, slaves and former African slaves from Bermuda and the receipt of relief supplies fromVirginia andNew England, the Eleuthera colony struggled for many years, hampered by poor soil, fighting between settlers, and conflict with the Spanish. In the mid-1650s, many of the settlers returned to Bermuda. The remaining settlers founded communities onHarbour Island and Saint George's Cay (Spanish Wells) at the north end of Eleuthera. In 1670 about 20 families lived in the Eleuthera communities.[7]
In 1666 other colonists from Bermuda settled onNew Providence, which soon became the centre of population and commerce in the Bahamas, with almost 500 people living on the island by 1670. Unlike the Eleutherians, who were primarily farmers, the first settlers on New Providence made their living from the sea, salvaging (mainly Spanish) wrecks, making salt, and taking fish, turtles,conchs andambergris. Farmers from Bermuda soon followed the seamen to New Providence, where they found good, plentiful land. Neither the Eleutherian colony nor the settlement on New Providence had any legal standing under English law. In 1670, the Proprietors of Carolina were issued a patent for the Bahamas, but the governors sent by the Proprietors had difficulty imposing their authority on the independent-minded residents of New Providence.[8]
The early settlers continued to live much as they had in Bermuda, fishing, hunting turtles, whales, and seals, findingambergris, making salt on the drier islands, cutting the abundant hardwoods of the islands for lumber,dyewood and medicinal bark; andwrecking, or salvaging wrecks. The Bahamas were close to the sailing routes between Europe and the Caribbean, so shipwrecks in the islands were common, and wrecking was the most lucrative occupation available to the Bahamians.[9]
The Bahamians soon came into conflict with the Spanish over the salvaging of wrecks. The Bahamian wreckers drove the Spanish away from their wrecked ships, and attacked Spanish salvagers, seizing goods the Spanish had already recovered from the wrecks. When the Spanish raided the Bahamas, the Bahamians in turn commissionedprivateers against Spain, even though England and Spain were at peace. In 1684, the Spanishburned the settlements on New Providence and Eleuthera, after which they were largely abandoned. New Providence was settled a second time in 1686 by colonists fromJamaica.
In the 1690s, English privateers (England was then at war withFrance) made a base in the Bahamas. In 1696Henry Every (or Avery), using the assumed name Henry Bridgeman, brought his shipFancy, loaded with pirates' loot, into Nassau harbor. Avery bribed the governor, Nicholas Trott (uncle of theNicholas Trott who presided at the trial ofStede Bonnet), with gold and silver, and by leaving him theFancy, still loaded with 50 tons ofelephant tusks and 100 barrels of gunpowder. Following peace with France in 1697, many of the privateers becamepirates. From this time the pirates increasingly made Nassau, the Bahamian capital founded in 1694, their base. The governors appointed by the Proprietors usually made a show of suppressing the pirates, but most were accused of dealing with them. By 1701 England was at war with France and Spain. In 1703, and again in 1706, combined French-Spanish fleetsattacked and sacked Nassau, after which some settlers left, and the Proprietors gave up on trying to govern the islands.[10]
With no functioning government in the Bahamas, English privateers operated from Nassau as their base, in what has been called a "privateers' republic", which lasted for eleven years. The raiders attacked French and Spanish ships, while French and Spanish forces burned Nassau several times. TheWar of the Spanish Succession ended in 1714, but some privateers were slow to get the news, or reluctant to accept it, and slipped into piracy. One estimate puts at least 1,000 pirates in the Bahamas in 1713, outnumbering the 200 families of more permanent settlers.[11]
The "privateers' republic" in Nassau became a "pirates' republic". At least 20 pirate captains used Nassau or other places in the Bahamas as a home port during this period, includingHenry Jennings,Edward Teach (Blackbeard),Benjamin Hornigold andStede Bonnet. Many settler families moved from New Providence to Eleuthera orAbaco to escape harassment from the pirates. On the other hand, residents of Harbor Island were happy to serve as middlemen for the pirates, as merchants fromNew England and Virginia came there to exchange needed supplies for pirate plunder.[11] Piracy provoked frequent and brutal but ineffective retaliatory attacks by the French and Spanish.[citation needed]
Starting in 1713,Woodes Rogers had conceived the idea of leading an expedition toMadagascar to suppress the pirates there and establish it as a British colony. Rogers' friendsRichard Steele andJoseph Addison eventually convinced him to tackle the pirates' nest in the Bahamas, instead. Rogers and others formed a company to fund the venture. They persuaded the Proprietors of Carolina to surrender the government of the Bahamas to the king, while retaining title to the land. In 1717King George appointed Rogers governor of the Bahamas and issued aproclamation granting a pardon to any pirate who surrendered to a British governor within one year.[12]
Word of the appointment of a new governor and of the offer of pardons reached Nassau ahead of Rogers and his forces. Some of the pirates were willing to accept a pardon and retire from piracy.Henry Jennings and Christopher Winter, sailed off to find British authorities to confirm their acceptance of the amnesty.[citation needed]
Others were not ready to give up. Many of those wereJacobites, supporters of theHouse of Stuart, who identified as enemies of theHanoverian King George. Still others simply identified as rebels, or thought they were better off as pirates than trying to earn an honest living. When a Royal Navy ship brought official word to Nassau of the pardon offer, many pirates planned to accept. Soon, however, the recalcitrant parties gained the upper hand, eventually forcing the Navy ship to leave.[13]
Blackbeard,Stede Bonnet,Nicholas Brown and Edmond Condent left the Bahamas for other territories.Charles Vane, withJohn Rackham andEdward England in his crew, came to prominence at this time. Vane worked to organise resistance to the anticipated arrival of Royal authority, even appealing toJames Francis Edward Stuart, the Stuartpretender, for aid in holding the Bahamas and capturing Bermuda for the Stuarts. As aid from the Stuarts failed to materialise and the date for Rogers' arrival approached, Vane and his crew prepared to leave Nassau.[14]
Woodes Rogers arrived in Nassau in late July 1718, with his own 460-ton warship, three ships belonging to his company, and an escort of three ships of the Royal Navy. Vane's ship was trapped in Nassau harbor. His crew set that ship on fire, sending it towards Rogers' ships, and escaped in the ensuing confusion in a smaller ship they had seized from another pirate. The remaining population welcomed Rogers; they comprised about 200 settlers and 500 to 700 pirates who wanted to receive pardons, most prominentlyBenjamin Hornigold.[15] After the pirates' surrender, the Proprietors leased their land in the Bahamas to Rogers' company for 21 years.[16]
Rogers controlled Nassau, but Charles Vane was loose and threatening to drive the governor and his forces out. Learning that the King of Spain wanted to expel English from the islands, Rogers worked to improve the defenses of Nassau. He lost nearly 100 men of the new forces due to an unidentified disease, and the Navy ships left for other assignments. Rogers sent four of his ships to Havana to assure the Spanish governor that he was suppressing piracy and to trade for supplies. The crews of ex-pirates and men who had come with Rogers all turned to piracy. The ex-pirate Benjamin Hornigold later caught ten men atGreen Turtle Cay as part of Rogers' suppression effort. Eight were found guilty and hanged in front of the fort.[17]
Vane attacked several small settlements in the Bahamas but, after he refused to attack a stronger French frigate, he was deposed for cowardice and replaced as captain byJohn Rackham. Vane never returned to the Bahamas; he was eventually caught, convicted and executed in Jamaica. After nearly being captured by Jamaican privateers, and hearing that the king had extended the deadline for pardons for piracy, Rackham and his crew returned to Nassau to surrender to Woodes Rogers.
In August of 1720, Rackham stole the sloop William out of Nassau harbor. Alongside him was a small crew that included female piratesAnne Bonny andMary Read. 61 days later in October, Rackham, Bonny and Read were captured and taken to Jamaica. They were convicted of piracy, and Rackham was executed. Bonny and Read were sent to prison, after claiming to be pregnant and therefore excluded from execution. Read died in prison, while Bonny was likely quietly released, and died in obscurity in late 1733.[18]
When Britain and Spain went to war again in 1719, many of the ex-pirates were commissioned by the British government as privateers. A Spanish invasion fleet set out for the Bahamas, but was diverted toPensacola, Florida when it was seized by the French. Rogers continued to improve the defenses of Nassau, spending his personal fortune and going heavily into debt to do so. In 1720, theSpaniards finally attacked Nassau. Rogers returned to Britain in 1722 to plead for repayment of the money he had borrowed to build up Nassau, only to find he had been replaced as governor. He was sent to debtors' prison, although his creditors later absolved his debts, gaining him release.[citation needed]
After the publication in 1724 ofA General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, which praised Rogers' efforts to suppress piracy in the Bahamas, his fortunes began to improve. The king awarded him a pension, retroactive to 1721. In 1728 Rogers was appointed Governor of the Bahamas for a second term. He dissolved the colony's assembly when it would not approve taxes to repair Nassau's defenses. He died in Nassau in 1732.[19]
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In 1741, GovernorJohn Tinker and Peter Henry Bruce constructed Fort Montague. Additionally, the Governor also reported a privateering boom in theThirteen Colonies in North America. He also reported that over 2300 sumptuous houses were built. In 1768 Governor William Shirley filled in mosquito-breeding swamps and extended Nassau.
During theAmerican War of Independence the Bahamas was attacked by American and allied forces on several occasions. In 1776, American forces launched anamphibious assault against Nassau, resulting in its two-week occupation. In 1782, Spanish forces underGeneral Galvezcaptured the Bahamas in 1782. A British-American Loyalist expedition led by ColonelAndrew Deveaux,recaptured the islands in 1783.
After theAmerican Revolution, the British issued land grants toAmerican Loyalists who had gone into exile from the newly established United States. The sparse population of the Bahamas tripled within a few years. The Loyalists developed cotton as a commodity crop, but it dwindled from insect damage and soil exhaustion. In addition to slaves they brought with them, the planters' descendants imported more African slaves for labour.
Most of the current inhabitants in the islands are descended from the slaves brought to work on the Loyalist plantations. In addition, thousands of captive Africans, who were liberated from foreign slave ships by the British navy after theabolition of the British slave trade in 1807, were resettled as free persons in the Bahamas.
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In the early 1820s, following theAdams–Onís Treaty ceding Florida from Spain to the United States, hundreds of African slaves andBlack Seminoles escaped from Florida, most settling onAndros Island in the Bahamas. Three hundred escaped in a mass flight in 1823.[20] While the flow was reduced by federal construction of a lighthouse atCape Florida in 1825, slaves continued to find freedom in the Bahamas.[20] In August 1834, the traditional plantation life ended with theBritish emancipation of slaves throughout most of its colonies.Freedmen chose to work on their own small plots of land when possible.
In the 1830s and 1840s, tensions rose between Britain and the United States after American merchant ships, part of the coastwise slave trade, put into Nassau or were wrecked on its reefs. These included theHermosa (1840) and theCreole (1841), the latter brought in after a slave revolt on board. Britain had notified nations that slaves brought into Bahama and Bermuda waters would be forfeited and freed the slaves, refusing US efforts to recover them.[21] In 1853 Britain and the US signed a claims treaty and submitted to arbitration for claims dating to 1814; they paid each other in 1855.
With emancipation, Caribbean societies inherited a rigid racial stratification that was reinforced by the unequal distribution of wealth and power. The three-tier race structure, of whites,mixed-race, and primarily blacks, who comprised the large majority, existed well into the 1940s and in some societies beyond. Like African Americans, many also have European and Native American ancestry. Caribbean societies continue to struggle with racial issues.
TheBahamas during the American Civil War prospered as a base for Confederate blockade-running, bringing in cotton to be shipped to the mills of England and running out arms and munitions. None of these provided any lasting prosperity to the islands, nor did attempts to grow different kinds of crops for export.[citation needed]
In 1911, there was a short-lived movement to make the Bahamas part ofCanada. Although the movement enjoyed the support of many inNassau and from the head ofSun Life, a Canadian insurance company, the movement failed. The failure of the movement was, in part, due to the British government's opposition to uniting a predominantly black colony with a predominantly white country.[22]
InWorld War I organisations such as the Imperial Order of the Daughters of Empire and the Bahamas Red Cross Guild began collecting money, food and clothing for soldiers and civilians in Europe. "The Gallant Thirty" Bahamians set out to join theBritish West Indies Regiment as early as 1915 and as many as 1,800 served in the armed forces of Canada, Britain and the United States.
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Oakes Field, the Bahamas first airport, was opened in Nassau in January 1940. It was named afterHarry Oakes, a millionaire who made a large contribution. Prior to that, aviation in the Bahamas was largely carried out by seaplanes.[23][24]
TheDuke of Windsor was installed asgovernor of the Bahamas, arriving at that post in August 1940 with his newwife. They were appalled at the condition of Government House, but they "tried to make the best of a bad situation."[25] He did not enjoy the position, and referred to the islands as "a third-class British colony".[26] He opened the small local parliament on October 29, 1940, and they visited the 'Out Islands' that November, which caused some controversy because of on whose yacht they were cruising.[27] The British Foreign Office strenuously objected when the Duke and Duchess planned to tour aboard a yacht belonging to a Swedish magnate,Axel Wenner-Gren, whom American intelligence wrongly believed to be a close friend ofLuftwaffe commanderHermann Göring.[27][28] The Duke was praised, however, for his efforts to combat poverty on the islands, although he was as contemptuous of the Bahamians as he was of most non-white peoples of the Empire.[29] He was also praised for his resolution of civil unrest over low wages inNassau in June 1942, when there was a "full-scale riot,"[30] even though he blamed the trouble on "mischief makers – communists" and "men of Central European Jewish descent, who had secured jobs as a pretext for obtaining a deferment of draft".[31] The Duke resigned the post on 16 March 1945.[32][a]
In April 1942 the United Kingdom asked Canada to provide military support in Nassau, in part to provide protection services to H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor. The No. 33 company of theVeterans Guard of Canada was raised and arrived in June. No. 33 company were relieved in 1943 by a company ofThe Pictou Highlanders. The Canadian garrison left Nassau in 1946.[34]
The wartime airfield became Nassau's international airport in 1957 and helped spur the growth of mass tourism, which accelerated afterHavana was closed to American tourists in 1961.Freeport, on the island ofGrand Bahama, was established as afree trade zone in the 1950s.Bank secrecy combined with the lack of corporate and income taxes led to a rapid growth in theoffshore financial sector during the postwar years.
Modern political development began after World War II. The first political parties were formed in the 1950s. TheProgressive Liberal Party was formed in 1953, and theUnited Bahamian Party was formed in 1956.
Bahamians achieved self-government in 1964, withSir Roland Symonette, of the United Bahamian Party, as the first Premier. SirLynden O. Pindling, leader of the Progressive Liberal Party, became the first black Premier of the colony in 1967, and in 1968 the title was changed toPrime Minister.
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The Bahamas achieved full independence as aCommonwealth realm within theCommonwealth of Nations on 10 July 1973.Sir Milo Butler was appointed the firstGovernor-General of the Bahamas (the official representative ofQueen Elizabeth II) shortly after independence. Pindling was prime minister until 1992. He was succeeded byHubert Ingraham, leader of theFree National Movement, who was prime minister until 2002.
The College of the Bahamas was founded in 1974 and provided the nation's higher or tertiary education. The college was chartered in 2016 as theUniversity of the Bahamas, offering baccalaureate, masters and associate degrees, on three campuses and teaching and research centres throughout the Bahamas.
Based on the twin pillars of tourism and offshore finance, theBahamian economy has prospered since the 1950s. However, there remain significant challenges in areas such as education, health care, housing, international narcotics trafficking and illegal immigration from Haiti.
In the 2002 Bahamian generalelection, the PLP returned to power underPerry Christie.[35]: p.82 Ingraham returned to power from 2007 to 2012, followed by Christie again from 2012 to 2017. With economic growth faltering, Bahamians re-elected the FNM in 2017, withHubert Minnis becoming the fourth prime minister.[36]
In September 2019,Hurricane Dorian struck theAbaco Islands andGrand Bahama atCategory 5 intensity, devastating the northwestern Bahamas. The storm inflicted at leastUS$7 billion in damages and killed more than 50 people,[37][38] with 1,300 people still missing.[39]
In September 2021, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis lost in a snapelection as the economy struggles to recover from its deepest crash since at least 1971.[40] Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) won 32 of the 39 seats in the House of Assembly. Free National Movement (FNM), led by Minnis, took the remaining seats.[41] On 17 September 2021, the leader of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP)Phillip “Brave” Davis was sworn in as the newPrime Minister of the Bahamas.[42]
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