t The sun setting over the white sandy beach and its rich forest
t The sun setting over the white sandy beach and its rich forest
Experience The Bahamas
The Bahamas comprises an archipelago of some 700 low-lying islands and cays spread over 100,000 sq miles (259,000 sq km) of the Atlantic Ocean. Most Bahamians live on New Providence, location of the country’s capital, Nassau. The Out Islands – the term used to cover all the islands except New Providence and Grand Bahama – are sparsely populated or uninhabited, unspoiled idylls. Columbus made his first landfall in the Americas on the easternmost Bahamian island of San Salvador in 1492. The Spanish soon wiped out the peaceful Lucayans who were already living in The Bahamas, transporting many to work in mines on Hispaniola. European colonization was taken up in earnest by English settlers from Bermuda on Eleuthera in 1647, then New Providence two decades later. These were lawless times, with the looting of cargo ships across the shallow waters around the islands. Blackbeard was one of the many pirates operating at the time.
After the American Revolution (1765–83), many defeated Loyalists arrived in The Bahamas with slaves, and set up cotton plantations. During the American Civil War in the 1860s, The Bahamas was a haven for blockade runners associated with the Confederate states. Later, during Prohibition in the U.S. in the 1920s, rum-running from Bahamian ports to Florida became big business. The Bahamas gained independence from Britain in 1973, and tourism has developed as the mainstay of the country’s economy, with most visitors coming from North America.