The History of the Bahamas

Podcast Transcript

Located just 50 miles off the coast of Miami, Florida, is the country of the Bahamas. It is a large archipelago of islands covering over 5000 square miles in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Bahamas are a unique country both historically and geologically. It has a landscape unlike any other in the world, and it has been at the forefront of the European colonization of the Americas.

The modern nation of the Bahamas has also taken a unique path, having achieved independence with little in the way of natural resources.

Learn more about the Bahamas and what makes it so special on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

When most people think of the Bahamas, they think of white sand beaches and a popular tourist destination. They are not wrong, but there is a lot more to the country that makes it very interesting.

Let’s begin with the country’s geography.

A popular trivia question is what country, other than Mexico and Canada, is closest to the United States.

The answer is Russia because of two small islands in the Bering Strait. These islands are only 2.4 miles or 3.8 kilometers apart.

However, after Russia, the next closest country is the Bahamas.

At its closest point, the island of Bimini in the Bahamas is about 52 miles or 80 kilometers from Miami Beach.

The official name of the country is the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The origin of the word Bahamas isn’t known for certain, but the most popular theory is that it comes from the Spanish “Baja Mar,” or lower sea, which describes the shallow water in the region.

Geographically, the Bahamas is an archipelago consisting of approximately 700 islands and more than 2,000 cays and islets, stretching over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in the western Atlantic Ocean. The country lies to the southeast of Florida, north of Cuba and Hispaniola, and northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Although expansive in terms of total area in the sea, its exclusive economic zone covers over 470,000 square kilometers, the actual land area of the Bahamas is only about 13,900 square kilometers (5,400 square miles).

Despite the large number of islands, only about 30 to 40 are inhabited. Most of the land lies just a few meters above sea level, with the highest point in the entire country being only about 63 meters or 207 feet above sea level, located at Mount Alvernia on Cat Island.

One of the biggest misconceptions about the Bahamas is that it is a Caribbean country. It is not.

It isn’t located in the Caribbean Sea. It is north of the Caribbean and situated in the Atlantic.

Because of its proximity to other Caribbean countries, it is often grouped with them, but strictly speaking, it isn’t a Caribbean country.

The Bahamas is geographically part of the Lucayan Archipelago, along with the Turks and Caicos Islands. More on the Turks and Caicos in a bit…

Another misconception about the Bahamas is that it consists of coral atolls. It is not.

There are, in fact, no atolls in the Bahamas. If you just saw images of a beach in the Bahamas and a beach on an atoll, they do indeed look similar. They both have low-lying lands barely above sea level and have white sand beaches.

If you recall from a previous episode, atolls are a ring of islands that are coral reefs which are the remnants of once-volcanic islands.

The Bahamas does not have a volcanic origin, unlike the other islands in the Caribbean. This can be seen on islands like Montserrat, which are currently volcanically active.

The Bahamas is one of the best-developed examples of a carbonate platform system in the modern world. Its geology is dominated by limestone and oolite, a form of fine-grained calcium carbonate, deposited over tens of millions of years.

Calcium carbonate is the chemical that makes up seashells, coral, and limestone. It is also dissolved in seawater.

The Bahamian archipelago lies on the Bahama Platform, which formed during the Cretaceous Period, around 100 million years ago, on the southeastern edge of the North American continental plate.

It began as a shallow, warm-water marine environment where calcium carbonate precipitated out of seawater or was produced by marine organisms such as coral, mollusks, and algae.

When calcium carbonate becomes supersaturated in the water, it can precipitate out onto the sea floor.

Over time, these carbonate sediments accumulated in thick sequences, eventually compacting into limestone.

During the Pleistocene glaciations, over the last 2.5 million years, sea levels fell dramatically—sometimes more than 100 meters below present levels—exposing much of the Bahama Banks.

This exposure led to the development of karst topography, a hallmark of Bahamian geology. Karst processes, driven by rainwater dissolving calcium carbonate, created extensive networks of caves, sinkholes, and blue holes—submerged vertical caves found both inland and offshore. The Bahamas contains some of the world’s deepest blue holes, such as Dean’s Blue Hole on Long Island, which is over 200 meters or 660 feet deep.

I actually got to visit Dean’s Blue Hole during a visit to Long Island. It is literally a circular hole that just goes down. It is a popular spot for freedivers who want to see how far they can dive without any supplemental oxygen, a sport I have absolutely no desire to ever participate in.

When sea levels rose again following the glacial periods, these karst features were submerged, preserving them beneath shallow tropical seas. Many blue holes and underwater caves in the Bahamas still remain poorly explored.

The Bahamas are still actively accumulating carbonate sediments today. On a satellite image of the Earth, the Bahamas is one of the easiest countries to identify because of the distinctive light blue color of the water surrounding it.

Shifting gears to now look at history, before the arrival of Europeans, the Bahamas were inhabited by the Lucayan people, a branch of the Taíno who migrated northward from the islands of the Greater Antilles. They settled the islands as early as the 9th century CE.

The Lucayans were skilled seafarers, farmers, and artisans, and they lived in a matrilineal society. It is estimated that around 30,000 Lucayans inhabited the islands by the late 15th century, practicing a subsistence lifestyle based on fishing, farming, and gathering.

The Bahamas has a unique claim to fame. It was the first place where Columbus set foot in the Americas on his first voyage in 1492.

On the morning of October 12, after 33 days at sea from the Canary Islands, Columbus and his crew sighted land. He named the island San Salvador, or “Holy Savior,” in gratitude.

The native Lucayan people called the island Guanahani. Columbus described the land as lush, green, and inhabited by friendly people. His landing marked the first known European contact with the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, although it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Columbus did not stay long on Guanahani. After taking possession of the island for Spain and exploring its surroundings, he continued on.

It isn’t known exactly which island was Guanahani.

The current San Salvador Island, formerly known as Watling Island, is the officially recognized site by the Bahamas government and is most traditionally accepted. It was renamed “San Salvador” in 1925 to reflect this belief.

Researchers and historians have identified other islands as locations, including Samana Cay, Plana Cays, Cat Island, and Grand Turk Island.

We don’t know for certain, but looking at a map, San Salvador seems a good candidate simply because it is located further northeast of the rest of the archipelago and seems like the most likely island to be encountered first when sailing from Europe..

Despite being visited by Columbus and claimed by Spain, the Spanish never bothered to colonize the Bahamas.

Instead, it was the English who would later colonize the islands. In 1648, a group of English Puritans known as the Eleutheran Adventurers sailed from Bermuda seeking religious freedom and settled on the island of Eleuthera. They attempted to establish a self-governing community based on democratic principles, though they faced hardship, famine, and internal conflict.

During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the Bahamas became a notorious haven for pirates due to its shallow waters, countless islands, and lack of effective government. Nassau, the capital, became the pirate republic’s epicenter. Infamous pirates such as Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, operated out of the Bahamas.

From roughly 1706 to 1718, Nassau was effectively ruled by these pirates in what became known as the “Republic of Pirates,” a loosely organized, anarchic society defying European powers.

In 1718, the British Crown reasserted control over the islands by appointing Woodes Rogers as the first Royal Governor. Rogers offered a royal pardon to pirates who surrendered and launched military actions against those who resisted. He successfully restored order and established a functioning colonial government, marking the start of firm British colonial rule.

During the 18th century, the Bahamas became integrated into the transatlantic slave economy. Enslaved Africans were brought to the islands to work on cotton plantations, although the rocky soil and limited freshwater made plantation agriculture difficult compared to other Caribbean colonies.

Following the American Revolutionary War, thousands of Loyalists fled to the Bahamas, bringing their slaves with them. This migration significantly increased the population and entrenched the plantation system, though, again, it was never as economically successful as in Jamaica or Barbados.

Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834, and freed Bahamians of African descent began to build communities and exert social influence.

In the 19th century, the Bahamas became a key point in Britain’s efforts to suppress the Atlantic slave trade. The Royal Navy often brought liberated Africans to the islands.

The economy remained limited, relying on subsistence farming, fishing, and, later, wrecking—salvaging goods from shipwrecks on the reefs surrounding the archipelago.

During the American Civil War, the Bahamas saw a brief economic boom as a center for blockade-running. Ships from Nassau delivered supplies to the Confederacy and returned with cotton. Similarly, during Prohibition in the United States, the islands became a key point for rum-running, again bringing prosperity.

Despite these brief booms, the Bahamas remained relatively poor and underdeveloped. Education and infrastructure were limited, and political power was concentrated. One of the reasons for the poverty of the Bahamas was the almost complete lack of resources. As everything is sand and limestone, there is no mineral wealth or timber.

In the 20th century, a movement for political reform and greater rights for the majority Black population gained strength. In 1953, the Progressive Liberal Party was formed, becoming the first organized political party in the Bahamas and advocating for majority rule.

By the 1960s, momentum for self-government accelerated. In 1964, the Bahamas achieved internal self-governance, with Britain retaining control of foreign affairs, defense, and internal security. In 1967, the PLP, under Lynden Pindling, won national elections, marking the beginning of majority rule.

Independence was declared on July 10, 1973, and Lynden Pindling became the first Prime Minister of the Bahamas.

Since independence, despite its lack of natural resources, the Bahamas has developed into one of the wealthiest nations in the Caribbean on a per capita basis. This is due primarily to tourism, financial services, and its proximity to the United States. Nassau and Freeport became major hubs for cruise ships and international banking.

I want to end by going back to someone I mentioned before. The Turks and Caicos. These islands are currently a British Territory south of the Bahamas. However, they are geographically and culturally quite similar.

Why weren’t the two territories joined together to become a single country at independence?

Historically, the Turks and Caicos were sometimes administered separately and sometimes under the jurisdiction of the Bahamas.

However, in 1959, 14 years before the Bahamas became independent, the Turks and Caicos were made a separate crown colony with their own governor, initially shared with Jamaica.

When Jamaica gained independence in 1962, the Turks and Caicos Islands became a separate British dependency.

This separation remained when the Bahamas became independent.

Geographically and historically, they should be one country, but due to political circumstances at the time of independence, they are separate.

There has been talk of the Turks and Caicos joining the Bahamas, perhaps as an autonomous region, but so far, nothing has happened.

The Bahamas is a great place to visit. If you ever do get the chance to go, remember that it isn’t all white sand beaches. It does have that, but it is also a place with a unique history and some of the world’s most interesting geology.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Before I get to the review, I have a correction to make.

As many of you have pointed out, when I gave a list of battles from the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War, I had the Battle of Shiloh on the list.

Shiloh, of course, was not in the Eastern Theater but was in the West. It took place in Southwestern Tennessee.

Today’s review comes from listener Josh Wilson816 over on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write.

Great podcast

I don’t think people understand just how hard doing a daily podcast has to be. We are getting many hours of hard work crammed into a 17-minute tube. Sign up for the Patreon already!!!!!

Thanks, Josh! It is a lot of work, but after several years, I like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at it. The first 1,000 are always the hardest.

Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you, too, can have it read on the show.