Perfect Paradise: History
The origin of the name "Bahamas" is unclear. It may derive from the Spanish baja mar, meaning "shallow seas," or the Lucayan word for Grand Bahama Island, ba-ha-ma, meaning "large upper middle land." Although the history of the name may be unclear, the history of the Bahamas is generally well-documented since the 1600s.
The seafaring Taino people moved into the uninhabited southern Bahamas from Hispaniola and Cuba around the 7th Century C.E. These people came to be known as the Lucayans. There were an estimated 30,000+ Lucayans at the time of Columbus' arrival in 1492. Christopher Columbus' first landfall in the New World was on the island named San Salvador (known to the Lucayans as Guanahani), which is generally accepted to be present-day San Salvador Island (also known as Watling's Island) in the southeastern Bahamas. Here, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayans and exchanged goods with them.
The Spaniards who followed Columbus depopulated the islands, carrying most of the indigenous people off into slavery. The Lucayans throughout the Bahamas were wiped out by exposure to diseases for which they had no immunity. The smallpox that ravaged the Taino Indians after Columbus's arrival wiped out half of the population on what is now the Bahamas. It is generally assumed that the islands were then uninhabited until the mid-17th Century. However, recent research suggests that there may have been to settle the islands by groups from Spain, France, and Britain, as well as by other Amerindians. In 1648, the Eleutherian Adventurers 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 resorted to salvaged goods from wrecks.
In 1670, King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas, who rented the islands from the king with rights of trading, tax, appointing governors, and administering the country. During proprietary rule, the Bahamas became a haven for pirates, including the infamous Blackbeard. To restore orderly government, the Bahamas was made a British crown colony in 1718 under the royal governorship of Woodes Rogers, who, after a difficult struggle, succeeded in suppressing piracy.
During the American Revolutionary War, the islands were a target for American naval forces under the command of Commodore Ezekial Hopkins. The capital of Nassau on the island of New Providence was occupied by United States Marines for a fortnight. In 1782, after the British defeat at Yorktown, a Spanish fleet appeared off the coast of Nassau, which surrendered without fight. But the 1783 Treaty of Versailles – which ended the global conflict between Britain, France and Spain – returned the Bahamas to British sovereignty.
After the American Revolution, some 7,300 loyalists and their slaves moved to the Bahamas from New York, Florida, and the Carolinas. These Americans established plantations on several islands and became a political force in the capital. The small population became mostly African from this point on. The British abolished the slave trade in 1807, which led to the forced settlement on Bahamian islands of thousands of Africans liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy. Slavery itself was finally abolished in the British Empire on August 1, 1834.
Modern political development began after the Second World War. The first political parties were formed in the 1950s and the British made the islands internally self-governing in 1964, with Roland Symonette of the United Bahamian Party as the first premier. In 1967, Lynden Pindling of the Progressive Liberal Party became the first black premier of the colony, and in 1968 the title was changed to prime minister. In 1973, the Bahamas became fully independent, but retained membership in the Commonwealth of Nations. Sir Milo Butler was appointed the first black governor-general, the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, shortly after independence.
Based on the twin pillars of tourism and offshore finance, the Bahamian economy has prospered since the 1950s. However, there remain significant challenges in areas such as education, health care, international narcotics trafficking, and illegal immigration from Haiti, as well as frequent tropical storms and hurricanes that cause significant damage each season.
Adapted from Wikipedia.