History Of The Bahamas

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In 1492, Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Western Hemisphere in The Bahamas. He encountered friendly Arawak Indians and exchanged gifts with them.

Spanish slave traders later captured native Lucayan Indians to work in gold mines in Hispaniola, and within 25 years, all Lucayans perished. Without a source of slaves, the Spanish did not bother to colonize the islands. In 1647 during the time of the English Civil War, a group of Puritan religious refugees from the royalist colony of Bermuda, the Eleutheran Adventurers, founded the first permanent European settlement in The Bahamas and gave Eleuthera Island its name. Similar groups of settlers formed governments in The Bahamas, but the isolated cays sheltered pirates and wreckers through the 17th century. Charles II granted land in the Bahamas to the Lords proprietors of Carolina, but the islands were left entirely to themselves. After Charles Town was destroyed by a joint French and Spanish fleet in 1703, the local pirates proclaimed an anarchic 'Privateers' Republic' with Edward Teach— better known as Blackbeard— for chief magistrate.

But when the islands became a British Crown Colony in 1717, the first Royal Governor, a reformed pirate named Woodes Rogers, brought law and order to The Bahamas in 1718, when he expelled the buccaneers who had used the islands as hideouts. During the American War of Independence the Bahamas fell to Spanish forces under General Galvez in 1782. After the American Revolution the British government issued land grants to a group of British Loyalists, and the sparse population of The Bahamas tripled in a few years. The planters thought to grow cotton, but the limy soil was unsuited, and the plantations soon failed. Many of the current inhabitants are descended from the slave population brought to work on the Loyalist plantations. When the U.K. outlawed the slave trade in 1807, the Royal Navy began intercepting ships and depositing freed slaves in The Bahamas. Plantation life was finished after the emancipation of remaining slaves in 1834.

During the American Civil War, The Bahamas prospered as a center of Confederate blockade-running, bringing out cotton for the mills of England and running in arms and munitions. After World War I, the islands served as a base for American rumrunners. During World War II, the Allies centered their flight training and antisubmarine operations for the Caribbean in The Bahamas. Since Havana closed to American tourists in 1961, The Bahamas has developed into a major tourist resort and at the same time the establishment of Freeport as a free trade zone (1955) developed an off-shore financial services center with a reputation for a tolerant atmosphere.

Bahamians achieved self-government through a series of constitutional and political steps, attaining internal self-government in 1964 and full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations on July 10, 1973.

When Europeans first arrived, they reported the Bahamas were lushly forested. The forests were cleared during plantation days and have not regrown.

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What are some vacation ideas?

Hello everyone, I've been wanting to go on vacation in the summer 2011. I really want to go to a beach, or somewhere relaxing. Two kids, and two adults. (kids are 12 and 14) And I want it very cheap. I really wanted to go alantis bahamas but it was about 10,000 dollars. We don't want to go THAT far. We live in maryland in the usa so the bahamas is the farest we can go. I hate the woods, and I hate musems and history. None of that please. Thanks.

Since your on the east coast, I'd say go to the Florida Keys (good snorkeling and beaches, etc), possibly Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico. Vieques Island (Puerto Rico) is supposed to be amazing and a lot cheaper than resort places like Atlantis and you'll get a really cheap flight to Puerto Rico from Fort Lauderdale or Miami.l You don't have to go to a ritzy resort to have fun. If the kids like to swim, they would probably like spending hours snorkeling and watching all the fish.

One of my favorite places is Bequia (a small Caribbean island in the West Indies near St Vincent). Getting there is a little more expensive (go from Miami to Puerto Rico to St Vincent, or Miami to Barbados to St Vincent then you take a cheap ferry) but once your there its really cheap- we rented a house on the mountain with a pool overlooking the Caribbean - it even included a jeep- and it was A LOT cheaper than going to Atlantis (less than $1000 for a whole week), and a lot less crowded! Great Caribbean/Reggae played live at the beach, cheap and really good rum/punch, really good seafood... Here is an article about it that I wrote (it explains options of getting there and has a link to the place we rented):

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2802946/bequia_st_vincent_and_the_grenadines.html?cat=16

Plus from there, you can take all types of sailboat trips (pretty cheap too) to different islands- the one where Johnny Depp was stuck on with all the rum (in the Pirates movie) is in that area. My daughter who was 8 at the time had one of the best times of her life.

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