Page 42 - The British Big Four

his major shipping thoroughfare eventually he islands were mostly deserted from 1513 to the islands from Florida, and nearly 500 were
until 1648. In 1578 Queen Elizabeth con- freed from American merchant ships in the do-
T Tbecame so popular that it also attracted pi-
rates and buccaneers, who found the shallow ferred upon Sir Gilbert Humphrey all lands not mestic trade by the Royal Navy. Slavery in the

waters and numerous sandbars to be an ideal already occupied by some Christian power, and Bahamas was abolished in 1834. Today the de-

setting for attacking unwary ships. Hundreds finding the Bahamas neglected, he annexed scendants of slaves and free Africans form the

of secluded cays and islets allowed marauding them; but no settlement was established. In majority of the population; issues related to the

ships to lie in wait and pounce on unwitting 1647, a group of English and Bermudan religious slavery years are part of society. The Bahamas be-

prey sailing by. Spanish conquistadors, having refugees, the Eleutheran Adventurers, founded came an independent Commonwealth realm in

plundered South and Central America, had their the first permanent European settlement in The 1973, retaining Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch.

treasure-laden galleons overtaken by pirates Bahamas and gave Eleuthera Island its name. The M uch the same religious dissension
as they came through the islands on their way first British settlers were refugees from religious that caused the Pilgrims to sail to
home to Europe. persecution under Charles I. The island was re-

Although the Spanish never colonized the named Eleuthera, meaning freedom. Plymouth Rock in 1620 caused Captain Wil-
Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucay- liam Sayle and 25 others to form “The Com-
ans to slavery in Hispaniola. An estimated 30,000 The Bahamas became a British Crown colony pany of Adventurers for the Plantation of
Lucayans inhabited the Bahamas at the time of in 1718, when the British clamped down on the Island of Eleuthera.” They drew up Arti-
cles and Orders and sailed to Eleuthera in

Christopher Columbus’ arrival in 1492. The Span- piracy. After the American War of Independence, the Bahamas in 1648. New Providence be-

ish forced much of the Lucayan population to thousands of American Loyalists, taking their en- came the population center for its central

Hispaniola for use as forced labor; together with slaved Africans, moved to the Bahamas, where location. It also had a good harbor (Gnaws)

suffering from exposure to diseases to which the Americans set up a plantation economy. with two entrances/exits and was inhabited

they had no immunity, they suffered high fatali- After Britain abolished the international slave primarily by seafarers.

ties. The population of the Bahamas was severely trade in 1807, the Royal Navy resettled many free

diminished. Half were killed by smallpox after Africans liberated from illegal slave ships in the

Columbus’s arrival in the Bahamas. Within 25 Bahamas during the 19th century. Hundreds of

years, all Lucayans perished. American slaves and Black Seminoles escaped