The Bahamas
i/bəˈhɑːməz/, officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is an island country of the Lucayan Archipelago consisting of more than 700 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean; north of Cuba and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic); northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands; southeast of the US state of Florida and east of the Florida Keys.Its capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence.
The designation of "Bahamas" can refer to either the country or the larger island chain that it shares with the Turks and Caicos Islands.
As stated in the mandate/manifesto of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Bahamas territory encompasses 470,000 km2 (180,000 sq mi) of ocean space.
Originally inhabited by the Lucayan, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taino people, the Bahamas were the site of Columbus' first landfall in the New World in 1492.
Although the Spanish never colonised the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola.
The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera.
The Bahamas became a British Crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy.
After the American War of Independence, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists in the Bahamas; they brought their slaves with them and established plantations on land grants.
Africans constituted the majority of the population from this period.
The Bahamas became a haven for freed African slaves: the Royal Navy resettled Africans here liberated from illegal slave ships; American slaves and Seminoles escaped here from Florida; and the government freed American slaves carried on United States domestic ships that had reached the Bahamas due to weather.
Slavery in the Bahamas was abolished in 1834.
Today the descendants of slaves and free Africans make up nearly 90% of the population; issues related to the slavery years are part of society.
The Bahamas became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1973, retaining Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch.
In terms of gross domestic product per capita, the Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the Americas (following the United States and Canada). Its economy is based on tourism and finance.[9]
| Commonwealth of the Bahamas | ||||||||||||
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| Motto: "Forward, Upward, Onward, Together" | ||||||||||||
Anthem: March On, Bahamaland Royal anthem: God Save the Queen a |
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| Capital and largest city |
Nassau 25°4′N 77°20′W |
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| Official languages | English | |||||||||||
| Ethnic groups ([1]) |
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| Demonym | Bahamian | |||||||||||
| Government | Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy[2][3] |
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| • | Monarch | Elizabeth II | ||||||||||
| • | Governor-General | Marguerite Pindling | ||||||||||
| • | Prime Minister | Perry Christie | ||||||||||
| Legislature | Parliament | |||||||||||
| • | Upper house | Senate | ||||||||||
| • | Lower house | House of Assembly | ||||||||||
| Independence | ||||||||||||
| • | from the United Kingdom | 10 July 1973[4] | ||||||||||
| Area | ||||||||||||
| • | Total | 13,878 km2 (160th) 5,358 sq mi |
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| • | Water (%) | 28% | ||||||||||
| Population | ||||||||||||
| • | 2014 estimate | 321,834[5] (177th) | ||||||||||
| • | 1990 census | 254,685 | ||||||||||
| • | Density | 23.27/km2 (181st) 60/sq mi |
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| GDP (PPP) | 2012 estimate | |||||||||||
| • | Total | $11.055 billion[6] | ||||||||||
| • | Per capita | $31,382[6] | ||||||||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2012 estimate | |||||||||||
| • | Total | $8.043 billion[6] | ||||||||||
| • | Per capita | $22,832[6] | ||||||||||
| Gini (2001) | 57[7] high |
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| HDI (2014) |  0.790[8]high · 55th |
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| Currency | Bahamian dollar (BSD) (US dollars widely accepted) |
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| Time zone | EST (UTC−5) | |||||||||||
| • | Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC−4) | ||||||||||
| Drives on the | left | |||||||||||
| Calling code | +1 242 | |||||||||||
| ISO 3166 code | BS | |||||||||||
| Internet TLD | .bs | |||||||||||
Etymology
The name Bahamas is derived from either the Taino ba ha ma ("big upper middle land"), which was a pronoun for the region used by the indigenous Amerindians,[10] while other theories suggest it derives from the Spanish baja mar ("shallow water or sea" or "low tide") reflecting the shallow waters of the area.Alternatively it may originate from Guanahani, a local name of unclear meaning.[11]
In English, the Bahamas is one of only two countries whose self-standing short name begins with the word "the", along with the Gambia.[12]
History
Main article: History of the Bahamas
They came to be known as the Lucayan people.
An estimated 30,000 Lucayan inhabited the Bahamas at the time of Christopher Columbus' arrival in 1492.
Columbus's first landfall in the New World was on an island he named San Salvador (known to the Lucayan as Guanahani).
Some researchers believe this site to be present-day San Salvador Island (formerly known as Watling's Island), situated in the southeastern Bahamas.
An alternative theory holds that Columbus landed to the southeast on Samana Cay, according to calculations made in 1986 by National Geographic writer and editor Joseph Judge, based on Columbus's log.
Evidence in support of this remains inconclusive. On the landfall island, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayan and exchanged goods with them.
The Spanish forced much of the Lucayan population to Hispaniola for use as forced labour.
The slaves suffered from harsh conditions and most died from contracting diseases to which they had no immunity; half of the Taino died from smallpox alone.[14]
The population of the Bahamas was severely diminished.[15]
In 1648, the Eleutherian Adventurers, led by William Sayle, migrated from Bermuda.
These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named Eleuthera—the name derives from the Greek word for freedom.
They later settled New Providence, naming it Sayle's Island after one of their leaders.
To survive, the settlers salvaged goods from wrecks.
In 1670 King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas in North America.
They rented the islands from the king with rights of trading, tax, appointing governors, and administering the country.[16]
In 1684 Spanish corsair Juan de Alcon raided the capital, Charles Town (later renamed Nassau).
In 1703 a joint Franco-Spanish expedition briefly occupied the Bahamian capital during the War of the Spanish Succession.
18th–19th centuries
Sign at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park commemorating hundreds of African-American slaves who escaped to freedom in the early 1820s in the Bahamas.
To put an end to the 'Pirates' republic' and restore orderly government, Britain made the Bahamas a crown colony in 1718 under the royal governorship of Woodes Rogers.
After a difficult struggle, he succeeded in suppressing piracy.[17]
In 1720, Rogers led local militia to drive off a Spanish attack.
During the American War of Independence in the late 18th century, the islands became a target for American naval forces under the command of Commodore Esek Hopkins. US Marines occupied the capital of Nassau for a fortnight.
In 1782, following the British defeat at Yorktown, a Spanish fleet appeared off the coast of Nassau. The city surrendered without a fight.
Spain returned possession of the Bahamas to Britain the following year, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris.
Before the news was received, however, the islands were recaptured by a small British force led by Andrew Deveaux.
After American independence, the British resettled some 7,300 Loyalists with their slaves in the Bahamas, and granted land to the planters to help compensate for losses on the continent.
These Loyalists, who included Deveaux, established plantations on several islands and became a political force in the capital. European Americans were outnumbered by the African-American slaves they brought with them, and ethnic Europeans remained a minority in the territory.
In 1807, the British abolished the slave trade, followed by the United States the next year.
During the following decades, the Royal Navy intercepted the trade; they resettled in the Bahamas thousands of Africans liberated from slave ships.
In the 1820s during the period of the Seminole Wars in Florida, hundreds of American slaves and African Seminoles escaped from Cape Florida to the Bahamas.
They settled mostly on northwest Andros Island, where they developed the village of Red Bays.
From eyewitness accounts, 300 escaped in a mass flight in 1823, aided by Bahamians in 27 sloops, with others using canoes for the journey.
This was commemorated in 2004 by a large sign at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park.[18][19]
Some of their descendants in Red Bays continue African Seminole traditions in basket making and grave marking.[20]
The United States' National Park Service, which administers the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, is working with the African Bahamian Museum and Research Center (ABAC) in Nassau on development to identify Red Bays as a site related to American slaves' search for freedom.
The museum has researched and documented the African Seminoles' escape from southern Florida.
It plans to develop interpretive programs at historical sites in Red Bay associated with the period of their settlement in the Bahamas.[21]
In 1818,[22] the Home Office in London had ruled that "any slave brought to the Bahamas from outside the British West Indies would be manumitted."
This led to a total of nearly 300 slaves owned by US nationals being freed from 1830 to 1835.[23]
The American slave ships Comet and Encomium used in the United States domestic coastwise slave trade, were wrecked off Abaco Island in December 1830 and February 1834, respectively.
When wreckers took the masters, passengers and slaves into Nassau, customs officers seized the slaves and British colonial officials freed them, over the protests of the Americans.
There were 165 slaves on the Comet and 48 on the Encomium.
Britain finally paid an indemnity to the United States in those two cases in 1855, under the Treaty of Claims of 1853, which settled several compensation cases between the two nations.[24][25]
Slavery was abolished in the British Empire on 1 August 1834.
After that British colonial officials freed 78 American slaves from the Enterprise, which went into Bermuda in 1835; and 38 from the Hermosa, which wrecked off Abaco Island in 1840.[26]
The most notable case was that of the Creole in 1841: as a result of a slave revolt on board, the leaders ordered the American brig to Nassau.
It was carrying 135 slaves from Virginia destined for sale in New Orleans.
The Bahamian officials freed the 128 slaves who chose to stay in the islands.
The Creole case has been described as the "most successful slave revolt in U.S. history".[27]
These incidents, in which a total of 447 slaves belonging to US nationals were freed from 1830 to 1842, increased tension between the United States and Great Britain.
They had been co-operating in patrols to suppress the international slave trade.
But, worried about the stability of its large domestic slave trade and its value, the United States argued that Britain should not treat its domestic ships that came to its colonial ports under duress, as part of the international trade.
The United States worried that the success of the Creole slaves in gaining freedom would encourage more slave revolts on merchant ships.
20th century
Although disheartened at the condition of Government House, they "tried to make the best of a bad situation".[28]
He did not enjoy the position, and referred to the islands as "a third-class British colony".[29]
He opened the small local parliament on 29 October 1940.
The couple visited the "Out Islands" that November, on Axel Wenner-Gren's yacht, which caused some controversy.[30]
The British Foreign Office strenuously objected to the trip because they had been advised (mistakenly) by United States intelligence that Wenner-Gren was a close friend of the Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring of Nazi Germany.[30][31]
The Duke was praised at the time for his efforts to combat poverty on the islands. A 1991 biography by Philip Ziegler, however, described him as contemptuous of the Bahamians and other non-white peoples of the Empire.
He was praised for his resolution of civil unrest over low wages in Nassau in June 1942, when there was a "full-scale riot."[32]
Ziegler said that the Duke 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".[33]
The Duke resigned the post on 16 March 1945.[34][35]
Post-Second World War
Sign at the entrance of the Sir Roland Symonette Park in North Eleuthera district commemorating Sir Roland Theodore Symonette, the Bahamas' first Premier.
The first political parties were formed in the 1950s.
The British Parliament authorised the islands as internally self-governing in 1964, with Sir Roland Symonette, of the United Bahamian Party, as the first Premier.
A new constitution granting the Bahamas internal autonomy went into effect on 7 January 1964.[36] In 1967, Lynden Pindling of the Progressive Liberal Party, became the first black Premier of the majority-black colony; in 1968 the title of the position was changed to Prime Minister.
In 1968, Pindling announced that the Bahamas would seek full independence.[37]
A new constitution giving the Bahamas increased control over its own affairs was adopted in 1968.[38]
The British House of Lords voted to give the Bahamas its independence on 22 June 1973.[39]
Prince Charles delivered the official documents to Prime Minister Lynden Pindling, officially declaring the Bahamas a fully independent nation on 10 July 1973.[40]
It joined the Commonwealth of Nations on the same day.[41]
Sir Milo Butler was appointed the first Governor-General of the Bahamas (the official representative of Queen Elizabeth II) shortly after independence.
The Bahamas joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on 22 August 1973,[42] and it joined the United Nations on 18 September 1973.[43]
Based on the twin pillars of tourism and offshore finance, the Bahamian economy has prospered since the 1950s.
Significant challenges in areas such as education, health care, housing, international narcotics trafficking and illegal immigration from Haiti continue to be issues.
The College of the Bahamas is the national higher education/tertiary system.
Offering baccalaureate, masters and associate degrees, COB has three campuses, and teaching and research centres throughout the Bahamas.
COB is on track to become the national "University of The Bahamas" (UOB) in 2015.
Geography and climate
Main article: Geography of the Bahamas
In 1864, the Governor of the Bahamas reported that there were 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 rocks in the colony.[44]
The closest island to the United States is Bimini, which is also known as the gateway to the Bahamas.
The island of Abaco is to the east of Grand Bahama.
The southeasternmost island is Inagua.
The largest island is Andros Island.
Other inhabited islands include Eleuthera, Cat Island, Long Island, San Salvador Island, Acklins, Crooked Island, Exuma and Mayaguana. Nassau, capital city of the Bahamas, lies on the island of New Providence.
All the islands are low and flat, with ridges that usually rise no more than 15 to 20 m (49 to 66 ft).
The highest point in the country is Mount Alvernia (formerly Como Hill) on Cat Island.
It has an elevation of 63 metres (207 ft).
Climate
See also: Geography of the Bahamas § Climate
As such, there has never been a frost or freeze reported in the Bahamas, although every few decades low temperatures can fall into the 3–5 °C (37–41 °F) range for a few hours when a severe cold outbreak comes off the North American landmass.
Otherwise, the low latitude, warm tropical Gulf Stream, and low elevation give the Bahamas a warm and winterless climate.
There is only an 8 °C difference between the warmest month and coolest month in most of the Bahama islands.
As with most tropical climates, seasonal rainfall follows the sun, and summer is the wettest season.
The Bahamas are often sunny and dry for long periods of time, and average more than 3,000 hours or 340 days[45] of sunlight annually.
Tropical storms and hurricanes affect the Bahamas.
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew passed over the northern portions of the islands, and Hurricane Floyd passed near the eastern portions of the islands in 1999.
Source: Wikipedia.org
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