History

The original inhabitants, the Lucayan Indians, survived through fishing and a developed trading system with Cuba and Haiti, flourishing until 1492 when the Bahamas were first discovered by Europeans under Columbus. San Salvador, near modern-day Cockburn Town, was his first landing place in the New World.

Close to key trading routes, settlers arrived in their droves: most notably the Eleutheran Adventurers, a group of English religious dissidents, in 1647. Adventurers they certainly were: braving food shortages and piracy before establishing a more easily-defensible settlement on Harbour Island. The era of privateering raged on: the pirate Blackbeard was at one time “magistrate” of a pirate-controlled Nassau before the islands were formally colonised by Britain in 1717, under Woodes Rogers (himself an ex-privateer). The islands were briefly re-occupied by the Spanish in 1782 but returned to Britain the following year.

A comparatively peaceful, prosperous era ensued. An early haven for freed slaves, the islands lucratively became a trading post for Confederate cotton in the American Civil War; during the Prohibition the port of Nassau had to expand to cope with the surge in the rum trade. When glitzy Cuba closed to tourism in 1962, the Bahamas quickly promoted itself as the bona fide holiday destination for America’s wealthy. Internal self-government arrived two years later, followed by full independence in 1973.

Post-independence politics in The Bahamas have been dominated by Sir Lynden Pindling, first elected as head of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) in 1967. The damage to Pindling’s reputation following drug trafficking claims, and the islands’ poor economic performance during the early 1990s led to the PLP’s rejection by the electorate at the August 1992 polls. The new premier was long-time opposition leader Hubert Ingraham of the Free National Movement (FNM). The PLP regained control of the government in 2002 before Ingraham became Prime Minister again in 2007.

In late 2004, Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne caused extensive damage in The Bahamas, but tourism and offshore finance have nonetheless secured the Bahamas their place as the third richest country in North America, after the USA and Canada.