Recent History
The Bahamas achieved autonomy through a sequence of constitutional and political steps, attaining internal self-government in 1964 and complete freedom within the Commonwealth on 10 July 1973. Queen Elizabeth II was retained as the constitutional head of the state in 1973, when the Commonwealth of The Bahamas became sovereign within the Commonwealth of Nations.
In The Bahamas African heritage comprises of 85 per cent of the Bahamian population. In the New Providence, locality of Nassau, about two-thirds of the inhabitants resides. In the early 1800s many relatives of the individuals who served as a slave trade arrived in the Bahamas islands. During the Revolutionary War others escorted thousands of British loyalists who fled from the American colonies.
Longer Historical Perspective
The very initial settlers were The "Lukku-cairi" or the island people, as they entitled themselves. The people wandered around the Caribbean, formerly from South America; recognized as Arawaks also called "Lucayans" and "Indians" a label conferred by Columbus, when they finally arrived in The Bahamas around the Ninth Century. In 1492, Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Western Hemisphere in The Bahamas. The Lucayan Indians were captured by the traders of slaves in Spain to labour in the gold mines in Hispaniola, and all the Lucayans disappeared within 25 years.
A group of English and Bermudan religious immigrants in 1647 known as the Eleutheran Adventurers brought into being the first everlasting European arrangement in the Bahamas and gave Eleuthera Island its name. They created the primary British colony on the Island of Eleuthera, and began a thriving agricultural economy that still flourishes today. In 1717 the Island became a British Crown Colony when many identical groups of settlers formed governments in the Bahamas. Britain, which claimed islands in 1670, remained powerless against their predations for almost 50 years, until the first Royal Governor, a former 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.
A government-sanctioned structure of piracy was practiced during Britain's war with Spain and the American Revolution, brought periods of prosperity to the islands. The Bahamas was retaken by Spain in May 1782 when they entered the fray on the side of the Americans. It once again became a part of the British colony a year later, under the Treaty of Versailles. From 1861 until 1865, the boom and ruined economy of the Bahamas advantaged significantly from the U.S. Civil War. The textile industry of the Great Britain depended upon the Southern cotton, so it favoured the confederation. However, British ships could not reach Southern ports because the Union set up barriers for them.
The end of the Civil War meant the end of prosperity for The Islands of the Bahamas until 1919; When Prohibition transformed The Bahamas into a base for rum-running. But after Prohibition was annulled, the islands again lapsed into economic stagnation. Prosperity did not come back until World War II, when the Bahamas served as an air and sea way-station in the Atlantic. he priorities in the island of Bahamas were changed by the new tourism industry. For the first time, the beauty and life of the islands were recognized as a positive feature. The luck of the Islands of Bahamas clicked when Cuba (with its extravagant casinos and beach resorts) was blocked to American tourists in 1961. The Bahamas has developed into a chief tourist and monetary services centre from the time then onwards.
