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Like
the
Florida
Keys,
indigenous
Indians
settled
the
Bahamas
long
before
the
whites
came.
The
following
is
a
brief
history
of
the
Bahamas
with
occasional
references
to
the
Keys.
To
understand
the
evolution
of
Keys
history,
the
Bahama
Islands
should
be
considered.
The
seafaring
Bahamian
people
greatly
influenced
the
settling
of
the
Florida
Keys.
The
200-mile
stretch
of
islands
just
off
the
Florida
coast
stretching
to
Haiti
is
the
Bahama
Islands.
The
water
there
is
relatively
shallow.
"Baja
Mar"
is
Spanish
for
shallow
sea.
The
Spanish
letter
"J"
is
pronounced
like
the
English
letter
"H."
This
sounds
like
Ba-Ha-Mar.
Since
the
land
masses
were
islands,
the
end
result
was
Bahama
Islands.
When
Columbus
became
the
first
Bahamian
"tourist,"
he
called
the
inhabitants
"Indians,"
but
they
called
themselves
Lucayans,
which
means
"Island
People."
They
were
descendants
of
the
Arawaks
of
Hispaniola.
Pandora-like,
Columbus
opened
the
door
to
"their
world."
Soon
the
Spanish
entered
and
decimated
the
Arawaks
of
Hispaniola.
They
forced
-or
lured-
the
Lucayans
into
slave
labor
on
Hispaniola,
destroying
the
entire
indigenous
race.
The
Spanish
brought
to
Florida
a
West
Indies
native
word,
"Cacique,"
pronounced
"Ka-SEEK-ee"
by
some,
but
"Ka-SEE-eh"
by
the
Spanish,
meaning
Chief.
The
fierce
Caribe
tribe,
Spanish
for
cannibal,
gave
rise
to
the
name
Caribbean.
Much
the
same
religious
dissension
that
caused
the
Pilgrims
to
sail
to
Plymouth
Rock
in
1620
caused
Captain
William
Sayle
and
25
others
to
form
"The
Company
of
Adventurers
for
the
Plantation
of
the
Island
of
Eleuthera."
They
drew
up
Articles
and
Orders
and
sailed
to
Eleuthera
in
the
Bahamas
in
1648.
New
Providence
became
the
population
center
for
its
central
location.
It
also
had
a
good
harbor
(Gnaws)
with
two
entrances/exits
and
was
inhabited
primarily
by
seafarers.
The
sea
was
a
better
food
source
than
the
island's
barren
land
was
for
the
farming
Eleutherans.
The
Bahamians
probably
developed
the
commerce
of
wrecking,
i.e.,
salvaging
goods
from
wrecked
ships.
They
were
intense
at
their
work
and
nothing
stood
between
them
and
fortune,
often
even
the
surviving
crew
members.
The
wreckers
made
temporary
harbors
throughout
the
700
islands,
but
Gnaws
was
their
home
port.
Soon
the
Bahamian
economy
started
to
deteriorate.
The
"wrecking"
turned
to
"privateering"
which
degenerated
into
"pirating."
In
October
1703,
a
combined
force
of
French
and
Spanish
sacked
and
burned
Gnaws.
It
was
quickly
rebuilt
and
continued
to
be
the
home
for
hundreds
of
"Black
Flags"
of
the
likes
of
Blackbeard.
This
is
not
to
slight
two
other
famous
Bahamian
pirates,
Mary
Read
and
Ann
Bonney.
It
is
said
they
dressed
like
men,
fought
like
devils
and
were
unsurpassed
in
bravery.
The
Bahamas
prospered
until
the
onset
of
the
American
Revolutionary
War,
when
both
England
and
America
took
everything
they
could
from
the
Bahamas
to
fight
each
other.
After
the
Declaration
of
Independence
in
1776,
many
of
the
English
Loyalists
(Tories)
fled
Georgia
and
the
Carolinas
either
to
Florida
(then
English-owned),
or
to
the
Bahamas.
The
Treaty
of
Versailles
in
1783
restored
Florida
to
Spain,
and
a
great
number
of
these
transplanted
Florida
Loyalists
had
to
flee
to
the
Bahamas
to
remain
under
the
British
flag.
By
1788,
about
9,300
Tories
had
fled
to
the
Bahamas
and
more
would
follow,
but
they
all
had
tasted
life
in
the
U.S.
Before
the
influx
of
the
American
Loyalists,
there
were
probably
no
more
than
1,000
slaves
in
the
Bahamas.
There
were
many
Free
Blacks
who
were
either
exiled
from
Bermuda,
or
had
escaped
to
the
Bahamas.
Bermuda
appears
to
have
been
uninhabited
until
1609
when
the
British
ship
Sea
Venture
wrecked.
The
ship
was
transporting
English
men
and
women
to
the
Jamestown
Colony.
The
1776
influx
of
Loyalists
quickly
brought
in
3,000
or
more
slaves
and
the
1783
influx
attracted
1,000
more.
They
started
cotton
plantations
on
Crooked
Island,
the
Bahama
Lumber
Company
on
Andros
Island,
a
large
salt
mine
on
Great
Inagua
Island,
and
provided
stevedores
for
all
over
the
world.
Florida
became
a
U.S.
Territory
in
1821,
and
in
1825,
the
U.S.
decreed
that
all
wrecked
goods
in
the
area
must
be
taken
to
a
U.S.
port
of
entry.
Key
West
and
St.
Augustine
were
ports
of
entry.
This
prompted
many
Bahamians
to
move
to
Key
West.
(It
also
prompted
Jacob
Housman
in
1831
to
buy
Indian
Key
and
attempt
to
have
it
declared
an
official
port
of
entry
in
competition
with
Key
West.)
The
U.S.
Civil
War
of
1861-1865
aided
the
economy
of
the
Bahamas.
The
Bahamians
were
expert
blockade-runners,
but
this
economic
boost
ended
in
1865
with
the
end
of
the
war.
A
killer
hurricane
struck
the
entire
chain
of
islands
further
deteriorating
the
economy
the
next
year.
Effective
lighthouses
and
modern
steamships
began
to
replace
the
older
sailing
vessels,
resulting
in
fewer
shipwrecks.
This
brought
on
a
decline
in
the
wrecking
industry.
Sponging
and
pineapples
began
replacing
wrecking
as
a
business,
as
they
did
in
the
Keys
also.
The
population
of
the
Bahamas
rose
from
39,000
in
1870
to
53,000
in
1900.
The
Flagler
railway
extended
to
Key
West
in
1912
and
brought
in
cheap
Cuban
pineapples.
This
doomed
not
only
the
Bahama
pineapple
market,
but
also
that
of
Planter
and
Plantation
Key.
One
in
five
Bahamians
departed
for
the
U.S.
The
Bahamas
fared
well
in
World
War
I
with
its
shipping
expertise
and
were
helped
greatly
in
1919
by
the
passing
of
U.S.
Prohibition.
Commerce
once
more
boomed
as
the
result
of
ships
acting
as
rumrunners.
Gun
Cay,
Cat
Cay,
Bimini
and
West
End
were
all
within
60
miles
of
Florida,
but,
as
with
all
booms,
it
came
to
an
end.
In
1933
Prohibition
was
repealed.
However
the
Bahamas
had
prospered
and
its
population
had
risen
to
60,000.
Late
in
1938,
a
deadly
malady
struck
the
sponge
industry,
but
the
tourist
industry
flourished.
Britain
granted
self-government
to
the
Bahamas
in
1964.
In
1967
Lynden
Pindling
and
his
Progressive
Liberal
Party
won
control.
The
Bahamas
gained
independence
from
Britain
on
July
10,
1973.
The
new
nation
was
admitted
to
the
United
Nations
the
same
year.
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