DENOMINATION: 

The Bahamas

The Bahamas (/bəˈhɑːməz/ (About thissoundlisten)), known officially as The Commonwealth of The Bahamas,[12] is asovereign country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in theAtlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to88% of the archipelago's population. The archipelagic state consists of morethan 700 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is located northof Cuba and northwest of the island of Hispaniola (split between Haiti and theDominican Republic) and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the Americanstate of Florida, and east of the Florida Keys. The capital is Nassau on theisland of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes TheBahamas' territory as encompassing 470,000 km2 (180,000 sq mi) of ocean space.

The Bahama Islands were inhabited by theLucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taíno, for many centuries.[13]Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfallin the "New World" in 1492. Later, the Spanish shipped the nativeLucayans to and enslaved them on Hispaniola, after which the Bahama islandswere mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermudasettled on the island of Eleuthera.

The Bahamas became a British crown colony in1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American RevolutionaryWar, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists to the Bahamas; theytook enslaved people with them and established plantations on land grants.African enslaved people and their descendants constituted the majority of thepopulation from this period on. The slave trade was abolished by the British in1807; slavery in the Bahamas was abolished in 1834. Subsequently, the Bahamasbecame a haven for freed African slaves. Africans liberated from illegal slaveships were resettled on the islands by the Royal Navy, while some NorthAmerican slaves and Seminoles escaped to the Bahamas from Florida. Bahamianswere even known to recognise the freedom of enslaved people carried by theships of other nations which reached the Bahamas. Today Afro-Bahamians make up90% of the population of 332,634.[13]

The country gained governmental independence in1973 led by Sir Lynden O. Pindling, with Elizabeth II as its queen.[13] Interms of gross domestic product per capita, The Bahamas is one of the richestcountries in the Americas (following the United States and Canada), with aneconomy based on tourism and offshore finance.[14]

Etymology

The name Bahamas is derived from the Lucayanname Bahama ('large upper middle island'), used by the indigenous Taíno peoplefor the island of Grand Bahama.[15][16] Tourist guides often state that thename comes from the Spanish baja mar ('shallow sea'). Wolfgang Ahrens of YorkUniversity argues that this is a folk etymology.[15] Alternatively, it mayoriginate from Guanahani, a local name of unclear meaning.[17]

First attested on the c. 1523 Turin Map, Bahamaoriginally referred to Grand Bahama alone but was used inclusively in Englishby 1670.[18] Toponymist Isaac Taylor argues that the name was derived fromBimani (Bimini), which Spaniards in Haiti identified with Palombe, a legendaryplace where John Mandeville's Travels said there was a fountain of youth.[19]

The word The constitutes an integral part ofthe short form of the name and is, therefore, capitalised. The Constitution ofthe Commonwealth of The Bahamas, the country's fundamental law, capitalises the"T" in "The Bahamas".[20]

History

Pre-colonial era

The first inhabitants of the Bahamas were theTaino people, who moved into the uninhabited southern islands from Hispaniolaand Cuba around the 800s–1000s AD, having migrated there from South America;they came to be known as the Lucayan people.[21] An estimated 30,000 Lucayansinhabited the Bahamas at the time of Christopher Columbus's arrival in1492.[22]

Arrival of the Spanish

Columbus's first landfall in what was toEuropeans a "New World" was on an island he named San Salvador (knownto the Lucayans as Guanahani). Whilst there is a general consensus that thisisland lay within the Bahamas, precisely which island Columbus landed on is amatter of scholarly debate. Some researchers believe the site to be present-daySan Salvador Island (formerly known as Watling's Island), situated in thesoutheastern Bahamas, whilst an alternative theory holds that Columbus landedto the southeast on Samana Cay, according to calculations made in 1986 byNational Geographic writer and editor Joseph Judge, based on Columbus's log. Onthe landfall island, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayans andexchanged goods with them, claiming the islands for the Crown of Castile,before proceeding to explore the larger isles of the Greater Antilles.[21]

The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas theoreticallydivided the new territories between the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom ofPortugal, placing the Bahamas in the Spanish sphere; however they did little topress their claim on the ground. The Spanish did however exploit the nativeLucayan peoples, many of whom were enslaved and sent to Hispaniola for use asforced labour.[21] The slaves suffered harsh conditions and most died fromcontracting diseases to which they had no immunity; half of the Taino died fromsmallpox alone.[24] As a result of these depredations the population of theBahamas was severely diminished.[25]

Arrival of the English

The English had expressed an interest in theBahamas as early as 1629. However, it was not until 1648 that the first Englishsettlers arrived on the islands. Known as the Eleutherian Adventurers and ledby William Sayle, they migrated from Bermuda seeking greater religious freedom.These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement onan island which they named Eleuthera, Greek for freedom. They later settled NewProvidence, naming it Sayle's Island. Life proved harder than envisagedhowever, and many – including Sayle – chose to return to Bermuda.[21] Tosurvive, the remaining settlers salvaged goods from wrecks.

In 1670, King Charles II granted the islands tothe Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas in North America. They rented the islandsfrom the king with rights of trading, tax, appointing governors, andadministering the country from their base on New Providence.[26][21] Piracy andattacks from hostile foreign powers were a constant threat. In 1684, Spanishcorsair Juan de Alcon raided the capital Charles Town (later renamedNassau),[27] and in 1703, a joint Franco-Spanish expedition briefly occupiedNassau during the War of the Spanish Succession.[28][29]

18th Century

During proprietary rule, the Bahamas became ahaven for pirates, including Blackbeard (circa 1680–1718).[30] To put an end tothe "Pirates' republic" and restore orderly government, Britain madethe Bahamas a crown colony in 1718, which they dubbed "the Bahamaislands" under the royal governorship of Woodes Rogers.[21] After adifficult struggle, he succeeded in suppressing piracy.[31] In 1720, theSpanish attacked Nassau during the War of the Quadruple Alliance. In 1729, alocal assembly was established giving a degree of self-governance for Britishsettlers.[21][32] The reforms had been planned by the previous Governor GeorgePhenney and authorised in July 1728.[33]

During the American War of Independence in thelate 18th century, the islands became a target for US naval forces. Under thecommand of Commodore Esek Hopkins, US Marines, the US Navy occupied Nassau in1776, before being evacuated a few days later. In 1782 a Spanish fleet appearedoff the coast of Nassau, and the city surrendered without a fight. Later, inApril 1783, on a visit made by Prince William of the United Kingdom (later tobecome King William IV) to Luis de Unzaga at his residence in the CaptaincyGeneral of Havana, they made prisoner exchange agreements and also dealt withthe preliminaries of the Treaty of Paris (1783), in which the recentlyconquered Bahamas would be exchanged for East Florida, which would still haveto conquer the city of St. Augustine, Florida in 1784 by order of Luis deUnzaga; after that, also in 1784, the Bahamas would be declared a Britishcolony.[34]

After US independence, the British resettledsome 7,300 Loyalists with their African slaves in the Bahamas, including 2,000from New York[35] and at least 1,033 European, 2,214 African ancestrals and afew Native American Creeks from East Florida. Most of the refugees resettledfrom New York had fled from other colonies, including West Florida, which theSpanish captured during the war.[36] The government granted land to theplanters to help compensate for losses on the continent. These Loyalists, whoincluded Deveaux and also Lord Dunmore, established plantations on severalislands and became a political force in the capital.[21] European Americanswere outnumbered by the African-American slaves they brought with them, andethnic Europeans remained a minority in the territory.

19th century

The Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished slavetrading to British possessions, including the Bahamas. The United Kingdompressured other slave-trading countries to also abolish slave-trading, and gavethe Royal Navy the right to intercept ships carrying slaves on the highseas.[37][38] Thousands of Africans liberated from slave ships by the RoyalNavy were resettled in the Bahamas.

In the 1820s during the period of the SeminoleWars in Florida, hundreds of North American slaves and African Seminolesescaped from Cape Florida to the Bahamas. They settled mostly on northwestAndros Island, where they developed the village of Red Bays. From eyewitnessaccounts, 300 escaped in a mass flight in 1823, aided by Bahamians in 27sloops, with others using canoes for the journey. This was commemorated in 2004by a large sign at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park.[39][40] Some of theirdescendants in Red Bays continue African Seminole traditions in basket makingand grave marking.[41]

In 1818,[42] the Home Office in London hadruled that "any slave brought to the Bahamas from outside the British WestIndies would be manumitted." This led to a total of nearly 300 enslavedpeople owned by US nationals being freed from 1830 to 1835.[43] The Americanslave ships Comet and Encomium used in the United States domestic coastwiseslave trade, were wrecked off Abaco Island in December 1830 and February 1834,respectively. When wreckers took the masters, passengers and slaves intoNassau, customs officers seized the slaves and British colonial officials freedthem, over the protests of the Americans. There were 165 slaves on the Cometand 48 on the Encomium. The United Kingdom finally paid an indemnity to theUnited States in those two cases in 1855, under the Treaty of Claims of 1853,which settled several compensation cases between the two countries.[44][45]

The lighthouse in Great Isaac Cay.

Slavery was abolished in the British Empire on1 August 1834.[21] After that British colonial officials freed 78 North Americanslaves from the Enterprise, which went into Bermuda in 1835; and 38 from theHermosa, which wrecked off Abaco Island in 1840.[46] The most notable case wasthat of the Creole in 1841: as a result of a slave revolt on board, the leadersordered the US brig to Nassau. It was carrying 135 slaves from Virginiadestined for sale in New Orleans. The Bahamian officials freed the 128 slaveswho chose to stay in the islands. The Creole case has been described as the"most successful slave revolt in U.S. history".[47]

These incidents, in which a total of 447enslaved people belonging to US nationals were freed from 1830 to 1842,increased tension between the United States and the United Kingdom. They hadbeen co-operating in patrols to suppress the international slave trade.However, worried about the stability of its large domestic slave trade and itsvalue, the United States argued that the United Kingdom should not treat itsdomestic ships that came to its colonial ports under duress as part of theinternational trade. The United States worried that the success of the Creoleslaves in gaining freedom would encourage more slave revolts on merchant ships.

During the American Civil War of the 1860s, theislands briefly prospered as a focus for blockade runners aiding theConfederate States.[48][49]

Geography

The Bahamas consists of a chain of islandsspread out over some 800 kilometres (500 mi) in the Atlantic Ocean, located tothe east of Florida in the United States, north of Cuba and Hispaniola and westof the British Overseas Territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands (with whichit forms the Lucayan archipelago). It lies between latitudes 20° and 28°N, andlongitudes 72° and 80°W and straddles the Tropic of Cancer.[13] There are some700 islands and 2,400 cays in total (of which 30 are inhabited) with a totalland area of 10,010 km2 (3,860 sq mi).[13][21]

Nassau, capital city of The Bahamas, lies onthe island of New Providence; the other main inhabited islands are GrandBahama, Eleuthera, Cat Island, Rum Cay, Long Island, San Salvador Island,Ragged Island, Acklins, Crooked Island, Exuma, Berry Islands, Mayaguana, theBimini islands, Great Abaco and Great Inagua. The largest island is Andros.[21]

All the islands are low and flat, with ridgesthat usually rise no more than 15 to 20 m (49 to 66 ft). The highest point inthe country is Mount Alvernia (formerly Como Hill) on Cat Island at 64 m (210ft).[13]

The country contains three terrestrialecoregions: Bahamian dry forests, Bahamian pine mosaic, and Bahamianmangroves.[78] It had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of7.35/10, ranking it 44th globally out of 172 countries.[79]

Geology

The Bahamas is part of the Lucayan Archipelago,which continues into the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Mouchoir Bank, theSilver Bank, and the Navidad Bank.[86]

The Bahamas Platform, which includes TheBahamas, Southern Florida, Northern Cuba, the Turks and Caicos, and the BlakePlateau, formed about 150 Ma, not long after the formation of the NorthAtlantic. The 6.4 km (4.0 mi) thick limestones, which predominate in TheBahamas, date back to the Cretaceous. These limestones would have beendeposited in shallow seas, assumed to be a stretched and thinned portion of theNorth American continental crust. Sediments were forming at about the same rateas the crust below was sinking due to the added weight. Thus, the entire areaconsisted of a large marine plain with some islands. Then, at about 80 Ma, thearea became flooded by the Gulf Stream. This resulted in the drowning of theBlake Plateau, the separation of The Bahamas from Cuba and Florida, theseparation of the southeastern Bahamas into separate banks, the creation of theCay Sal Bank, plus the Little and Great Bahama Banks. Sedimentation from the"carbonate factory" of each bank, or atoll, continues today at therate of about 20 mm (0.79 in) per kyr. Coral reefs form the "retainingwalls" of these atolls, within which oolites and pellets form.[87]

Coral growth was greater through the Tertiary,until the start of the ice ages, and hence those deposits are more abundantbelow a depth of 36 m (118 ft). In fact, an ancient extinct reef exists half akm seaward of the present one, 30 m (98 ft) below sea level. Oolites form whenoceanic water penetrate the shallow banks, increasing the temperature about 3°C (5.4 °F) and the salinity by 0.5 per cent. Cemented ooids are referred to asgrapestone. Additionally, giant stromatolites are found off the ExumaCays.[87]: 22, 29–30 

Sea level changes resulted in a drop in sealevel, causing wind blown oolite to form sand dunes with distinctcross-bedding. Overlapping dunes form oolitic ridges, which become rapidlylithified through the action of rainwater, called eolianite. Most islands haveridges ranging from 30 to 45 m (98 to 148 ft), though Cat Island has a ridge 60m (200 ft) in height. The land between ridges is conducive to the formation oflakes and swamps.[87]: 41–59, 61–64 

Solution weathering of the limestone results ina "Bahamian Karst" topography. This includes potholes, blue holessuch as Dean's Blue Hole, sinkholes, beachrock such as the Bimini Road("pavements of Atlantis"), limestone crust, caves due to the lack ofrivers, and sea caves. Several blue holes are aligned along the South AndrosFault line. Tidal flats and tidal creeks are common, but the more impressivedrainage patterns are formed by troughs and canyons such as Great Bahama Canyonwith the evidence of turbidity currents and turbiditedeposition.[87]: 33–40, 65, 72–84, 86 

The stratigraphy of the islands consists of theMiddle Pleistocene Owl's Hole Formation, overlain by the Late PleistoceneGrotto Beach Formation, and then the Holocene Rice Bay Formation. However,these units are not necessarily stacked on top of each other but can be locatedlaterally. The oldest formation, Owl's Hole, is capped by a terra rosapaleosoil, as is the Grotto Beach, unless eroded. The Grotto Beach Formation isthe most widespread.[86]

Government and politics

The Bahamian Parliament, located in Nassau

The Bahamas is a parliamentary constitutionalmonarchy, with the queen of the Bahamas (Elizabeth II) as head of staterepresented locally by a governor-general.[13] Political and legal traditionsclosely follow those of England and the Westminster system.[21] The Bahamas isa member of the Commonwealth of Nations and shares its head of state with otherCommonwealth realms.[88][89]

The prime minister is the head of governmentand is the leader of the party with the most seats in the House ofAssembly.[13][21] Executive power is exercised by the Cabinet, selected by theprime minister and drawn from his supporters in the House of Assembly. Thecurrent governor-general is The Honourable Cornelius A. Smith, and the currentprime minister is The Hon. Philip Davis MP.[13]

Legislative power is vested in a bicameralparliament, which consists of a 38-member House of Assembly (the lower house),with members elected from single-member districts, and a 16-member Senate, withmembers appointed by the governor-general, including nine on the advice of thePrime Minister, four on the advice of the leader of Her Majesty's LoyalOpposition, and three on the advice of the prime minister after consultationwith the Leader of the Opposition. As under the Westminster system, the primeminister may dissolve Parliament and call a general election at any time withina five-year term.[90]

Constitutional safeguards include freedom ofspeech, press, worship, movement and association. The Judiciary of the Bahamasis independent of the executive and the legislature. Jurisprudence is based onEnglish law.[13]

Languages

The official language of The Bahamas isEnglish. Many people speak an English-based creole language called Bahamiandialect (known simply as "dialect") or "Bahamianese".[128]Laurente Gibbs, a Bahamian writer and actor, was the first to coin the lattername in a poem and has since promoted its usage.[129][130] Both are used asautoglossonyms.[131] Haitian Creole, a French-based creole language is spokenby Haitians and their descendants, who make up of about 25% of the totalpopulation. It is known simply as Creole[1] to differentiate it from BahamianEnglish.[132]

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