The Bahamas
The Bahamas, )}} officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. It comprises more than 3,000 islands, cays and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, located north of Cuba and north-west of the island of Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the U.S. state of Florida and east of the Florida Keys. The capital and largest city is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes the Bahamas' territory as encompassing of ocean space. The Bahama islands were inhabited by the Arawak and Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taíno, for many centuries. Christopher Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfall in the "New World" in 1492 when he landed on the island of San Salvador. Later, the Kingdom of Spain shipped the native Lucayans to Hispaniola and enslaved them there, after which the Bahama islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, as nearly all native Bahamians had been forcibly removed for enslavement or had died of European diseases. In 1649 English colonists from Bermuda, known as the Eleutheran Adventurers, settled on the island of Eleuthera.
The Bahamas became a crown colony of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1718 when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American Revolutionary War, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists to the Bahamas; they took slaves with them and established plantations on land grants. African slaves and their descendants constituted the majority of the population from this period on. The slave trade was abolished by the British in 1807. Although slavery in the Bahamas was not abolished until 1834, the Bahamas became a haven of manumission for African slaves, from outside the British West Indies, in 1818. Africans liberated from illegal slave ships were resettled on the islands by the Royal Navy, while some North American slaves and Seminoles escaped to the Bahamas from Florida. Bahamians were even known to recognise the freedom of slaves carried by the ships of other nations which reached the Bahamas. Today Black Bahamians make up 90 per cent of the population of 400,516.
The country became an independent Commonwealth realm separate from the United Kingdom in 1973, led by its first prime minister, Sir Lynden Pindling. It maintains Charles III as its monarch; the appointed representative of the Crown is the governor-general of the Bahamas. The Bahamas has the fourteenth-largest gross domestic product per capita in the Americas. Its economy is based on tourism and offshore finance. Though the Bahamas is in the Lucayan Archipelago, and not on the Caribbean Sea, it is still considered part of the wider Caribbean region. The Bahamas is a full member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) but is not part of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy. Provided by Wikipedia
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4Published 1957Nassau : Government of the Colony of the Bahama Islands, 1957.6 v. (lx, 3547 p.) ; 25 cm.Also issued in microfiche.“...Bahamas...”
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5Published 1965Nassau : Govt. of the Colony of the Bahama Islands, 1965.3 v. (xxviii, 1970 p.) ; 25 cm.Also issued in microfiche.“...Bahamas...”
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6Published 1901London : Printed by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1901.1 online resource (xx, 1056 p.)“...Bahamas...”
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7Published 1965Nassau : Govt. of the Colony of the Bahama Islands, 1965.7 v. ; 25 cm.Also issued in microfiche.“...Bahamas...”
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8Published 1929Nassau : Government of the colony of the Bahama Islands, 1929.2 v. ; 25 cm.Also issued in microfiche.“...Bahamas...”
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9Published 1877London : Harrison and Sons, 1877.1 online resource (xiv, 941 p.)“...Bahamas...”
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11[Nassau, New Providence : Printed at the Office of the Nassau Guardian]Also issued in print.Also issued on microfiche.“...Bahamas...”
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12Published 1906Nassau : L.E.H. Dupuch, 1906.1 online resource (108 p.)“...Bahamas. Supreme Court...”
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14Published 1823Nassau, New-Providence : London : Printed at the Royal Gazette Office ; Re-printed by J.S. Brickwood, 1823.78 pages.“...Bahamas. Commissioners of Correspondence...”
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15Nassau, Nassau Guardian.Nassau, Bahama HeraldNassau, Nassau Herald1 online resource (volumes)“...Bahamas. Legislature. House of Assembly...”
Center for Research Libraries: 1863
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16Published 1973London : H.M.S.O., [1973]1 online resource (18 p.)“...Bahamas Independence Conference London, England...”
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17Published 1963London : H.M.S.O., [1963]1 online resource (12 p.)“...Bahamas Constitutional Conference London, England...”
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18Published 1968London : H.M.S.O., 1968.1 online resource (20 p.)“...Bahamas Constitutional Conference London, England...”
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19Published 1968London : Reference Division, Central Office of Information, [1968]1 online resource (4 p.) : map.“...Bahamas Constitutional Conference...”
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20Published 1960Washington, D.C. : National Archives, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1960.24 microfilm reels ; 35 mm.“...United States. Consulate (Nassau, Bahamas)...”