Lucayan National Park Bahamas

Just 5km long and 2km wide, it’s a photogenic bric-a-brac of pink-sand beaches and colonial houses that once served as the national capital. The Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci , for whom the Americas are named, came on a Spanish charter and spent four months exploring the Bahamas in — The Bahamas passed back and forth between Spanish and British rule for years.

The Bahamas

Pre-colonial era[ edit ] The first inhabitants of The Bahamas were the Taino people, who moved into the uninhabited southern islands from Hispaniola and Cuba around the s—s AD, having migrated there from South America; they came to be known as the Lucayan people. Whilst there is a general Glacier National Park To Great Falls Mt that this island lay within The Bahamas, precisely which island Columbus landed on is a matter of scholarly debate.

Some researchers believe the site to be present-day San Salvador Island formerly known as Watling’s Islandsituated in the southeastern Bahamas, whilst an alternative theory holds that Columbus landed to the southeast on Samana Cayaccording to calculations made in by National Geographic writer and editor Joseph Judgebased on Columbus’s log.

The Spanish did however exploit the native Lucayan peoples, many of whom were enslaved and sent to Hispaniola for use as forced labour. However, it was not until that the first English settlers arrived on the islands. Known as the Eleutherian Adventurers and led by William Saylethey migrated to Bermuda seeking greater religious freedom. These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named ‘ Eleuthera ‘, Greek for ‘freedom’.

They later settled New Providencenaming it Sayle’s Island. Life proved harder than envisaged however, and many — including Sayle — chose to return to Bermuda. They rented the islands from the king with rights of trading, tax, appointing governorsand administering the country from their base on New Providence.

Ina local assembly was established giving a degree of self-governance for the English settlers. In a Spanish fleet appeared off the coast of Nassau, and the city surrendered without a fight. Later, in Aprilon a visit made by Prince William of the United Kingdom later to become King William IV to Luis de Unzaga at his residence in the Captaincy General of Havana, they made prisoner exchange agreements and also dealt with the preliminaries of the Treaty of Parisin which the recently conquered Bahamas would be exchanged for East Floridawhich would Lucayan National Park Bahamas have to conquer the city of St.

Augustine, Florida in by order of Luis de Unzaga; after that, also inthe Bahamas would Lucayan National Park Bahamas declared a British colony. The United Kingdom pressured other slave-trading countries to also abolish slave-trading, and give the Royal Navy the right to intercept ships carrying slaves on the high seas. From eyewitness accounts, escaped in a mass flight inaided by Bahamians in 27 sloopswith others using canoes for the journey.

When wreckers took the masters, passengers and Lucayan National Park Bahamas into Nassau, customs officers seized the slaves and British colonial officials freed them, over the protests of the Americans. There were slaves on the Comet and 48 on the Encomium.

The United Kingdom finally paid an indemnity to the United States in those two cases inunder the Treaty of Claims ofwhich settled several compensation cases between the two countries. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire on 1 August It was carrying slaves from Virginia destined for sale in New Orleans. The Bahamian officials freed the slaves who chose to stay in the islands.

They had been co-operating in patrols to suppress the international slave trade. However, Lucayan National Park Bahamas about the stability of its large domestic slave trade and its value, the United States argued that the United Kingdom should not treat its domestic ships that came to its colonial ports under duress as part of the international trade.

During the American Civil War of the s, the islands briefly prospered as a focus for blockade runners…

Multi-day adventures

The fort has a waterless moat, dungeons, underground passageways, and 42 cannons, which have never been fired in a war. There is also duty-free shopping throughout, as well as straw and craft markets and four bars. Renamed Forfar Field Station, the site is used for science education and research of the surrounding reef, marine, and island ecology for Bahamian and American middle and high school students, as well, as college students, non-profit organizations, and researchers. When wreckers took the masters, passengers and slaves into Nassau, customs officers seized the slaves and British colonial officials freed them, over the protests of the Americans.