From the initial colonization(s), the Lucayan expanded throughout the Bahamas in some 800 years (c. 700 – c. 1500), growing to a population of about 40,000. Population density at the time of first European contact was highest in the south-central area of the Bahamas, declining towards the north, reflecting the migration pattern and progressively shorter time of occupation of the northern islands. Known Lucayan settlement sites are confined to the nineteen largest islands in the archipelago, or to smaller cays located less than one km. from those islands. Population density in the southernmost Bahamas remained lower, probably due to the drier climate there (less than 800 mm of rain a year on Great Inagua Island and the Turks and Caicos Islands and only slightly higher on Acklins and Crooked Islands and Mayaguana).Keegan:25, 54-8, 86, 170-3 European exploration upDepiction of Christopher Columbus seizing the Guanahani shortly after landing in the Bahamas in 1492 In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain on his first voyage with three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the flagship, Santa Maria, seeking a direct route to Asia. On 12 October 1492 Columbus reached an island in the Bahamas and claimed it for Spain, an event long regarded by Europeans as the 'discovery ' of America. This island was called Guanahani by the Lucayan, and San Salvador by the Spanish. The identity of the first American landfall by Columbus remains controversial, but many authors accept Samuel E. Morison's identification of Columbus' San Salvador as what was later called Watling (or Watling's) Island. Its name has been officially changed to San Salvador. Columbus visited several other islands in the Bahamas before sailing to present-day Cuba and afterwards to Hispaniola.Albury:21-33Craton:28-37Keegan:175-205 The Bahamas held little interest to the Spanish except as a source of slave labor. Nearly the entire population of Lucayan (almost 40,000 people total) were transported to other islands as laborers over the next 30 years. When the Spanish decided to remove the remaining Lucayans to Hispaniola in 1520, they could find only eleven. The islands remained abandoned and depopulated for 130 years afterwards . With no gold to be found, and the population removed, the Spanish effectively abandoned the Bahamas. They retained titular claims to them until the Peace of Paris in 1783, when they ceded them to Britain in exchange for East Florida.Albury:34-7Albury:34-7Craton. pp. 37-39Johnson:3Keegan:212, 220-3 For many years, historians believed that The Bahamas was not colonized until the 17th century. However, recent studies show that there may have been attempts of colonization by groups from Spain, France, Britain, and the Netherlands. The French settled in Abaco in 1565 , and tried again in 1625. Early English settlement In 1648 a group from Bermuda called 'The Company of Adventurers for the Plantation of the Islands of Eleutheria,' which was led by William Sayle, sailed to the Bahamas to found a colony. These early settlers were Puritans and republicans. Bermuda was becoming overcrowded, and the Bahamas offered both religious and political freedom and economic opportunity. The larger of the company's two ships, the William, wrecked on the reef at the north end of what is now called Eleuthera Island, with the loss of all provisions. Despite the arrival of additional settlers, including Europeans, slaves  and former African slaves from Bermuda and the receipt of relief supplies from Virginia and New England, the Eleuthera colony struggled for many years, hampered by poor soil, fighting between settlers, and conflict with the Spanish. In the mid-1650s many of the settlers returned to Bermuda. The remaining settlers founded communities on Harbour Island and Saint George's Cay (Spanish Wells) at the north end of Eleuthera. In 1670 about 20 families lived in the Eleuthera communities.Albury:41-6Johnson:3-4 Map of New Providence in 1751. Settled in the mid-1600s, the island quickly became the centre of population and commerce in the Bahamas. In 1666 other colonists from Bermuda settled on New Providence, which soon became the centre of population and commerce in the Bahamas, with almost 500 people living on the island by 1670. Unlike the Eleutherians, who were primarily farmers, the first settlers on New Providence made their living from the sea, salvaging (mainly Spanish) wrecks, making salt, and taking fish, turtles, conchs and ambergris. Farmers from Bermuda soon followed the seamen to New Providence, where they found good, plentiful land. Neither the Eleutherian colony nor the settlement on New Providence had any legal standing under English law. In 1670 the Proprietors of Carolina were issued a patent for the Bahamas, but the governors sent by the Proprietors had difficulty imposing their authority on the independent-minded residents of New Providence.Albury:47-51Johnson:4 Republic of Pirates The Bahamians soon came into conflict with the Spanish over the salvaging of wrecks. The Bahamian wreckers drove the Spanish away from their wrecked ships, and attacked Spanish salvagers, seizing goods the Spanish had already recovered from the wrecks. When the Spanish raided the Bahamas, the Bahamians in turn commissioned privateers against Spain, even though England and Spain were at peace. In 1684 the Spanish burned the settlements on New Providence and Eleuthera, after which they were largely abandoned. New Providence was settled a second time in 1686 by colonists from Jamaica. upPirate captain Henry Every on shore while his ship the Fancy engages another vessel. Every eluded the authorities after supposedly bribing the governor appointed by the Proprietors of Carolina In the 1690s English privateers (England was then at war with France) made a base in the Bahamas. In 1696 Henry Every (or Avery), using the assumed name Henry Bridgeman, brought his ship Fancy, loaded with pirates' loot, into Nassau harbor. Every bribed the governor, Nicholas Trott (uncle of the Nicholas Trott who presided at the trial of Stede Bonnet), with gold and silver, and by leaving him the Fancy, still loaded with 50 tons of elephant tusks and 100 barrels of gunpowder. Following peace with France in 1697, many of the privateers became pirates. From this time the pirates increasingly made Nassau, the Bahamian capital founded in 1694, their base. The governors appointed by the Proprietors usually made a show of suppressing the pirates, but most were accused of dealing with them. By 1701 England was at war with France and Spain. In 1703 and in 1706 combined French-Spanish fleets attacked and sacked Nassau, after which some settlers left, and the Proprietors gave up on trying to govern the islands.Albury:51-5Craton:70-87Johnson:6Woodard:12-14, 23-24 Reasserting British control Starting in 1713, Woodes Rogers had conceived the idea of leading an expedition to Madagascar to suppress the pirates there and establish it as a British colony. Rogers' friends Richard Steele and Joseph Addison eventually convinced him to tackle the pirates nest in the Bahamas, instead. Rogers and others formed a company to fund the venture. They persuaded the Proprietors of Carolina to surrender the government of the Bahamas to the king , while retaining title to the land. In 1717 King George appointed Rogers governor of the Bahamas and issued a proclamation granting a pardon to any pirate who surrendered to a British governor within one year.Albury:69-74Craton:93-6Johnson:7-8Woodard:117-121, 163-168 Woodes Rogers and his family by William Hogarth, 1729. Rogers, the first royal governor of the Bahamas, is seated as he is shown a map of New Providence. Word of the appointment of a new governor and of the offer of pardons reached Nassau ahead of Rogers and his forces. Some of the pirates were willing to accept a pardon and retire from piracy. Henry Jennings and Christopher Winter, sailed off to find British authorities to confirm their acceptance of the amnesty. Others were not ready to give up. Many of those were Jacobites, supporters of the House of Stuart, who identified as enemies of the Hanoverian King George. Still  others simply identified as rebels , or thought they were better off as pirates than trying to earn an honest living. When a Royal Navy ship brought official word to Nassau of the pardon offer, many pirates planned to accept. Soon, however, the recalcitrant parties gained the upper hand, eventually forcing the Navy ship to leave.Woodard:226-29 Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, Nicholas Brown and Edmond Condent left the Bahamas for other territories. Charles Vane, with "Calico Jack" Rackham and Edward England in his crew, came to prominence at this time. Vane worked to organize resistance to the anticipated arrival of Royal authority, even appealing to James Francis Edward Stuart, the Stuart pretender, for aid in holding the Bahamas and capturing Bermuda for the Stuarts. As aid from the Stuarts failed to materialize and the date for Rogers' arrival approached, Vane and his crew prepared to leave Nassau.Woodard:236-40, 245-47, 259-61 Vane attacked several small settlements in the Bahamas but, after he refused to attack a stronger French frigate, he was deposed for cowardice and replaced as captain by "Calico Jack" Rackham. Vane never returned to the Bahamas; he was eventually caught, convicted  and executed in Jamaica. After nearly being captured by Jamaican privateers, and hearing that the king had extended the deadline for pardons for piracy, Rackham and his crew returned to Nassau to surrender to Woodes Rogers. Diarama of Anne Bonny and Mary Read at Nassau harbour at the Pirates of Nassau Museum in Nassau. The two began their pirating careers at Nassau. In Nassau Rackham became involved with Anne Bonny; he tried to arrange an annulment of her marriage to another ex-pirate, James Bonny. Rogers blocked the annulment, and Rackham and Bonny left Nassau to be pirates again, taking a small crew and Bonny's friend Mary Read with them. Within months, Rackham, Bonny  and Read were captured and taken to Jamaica. They were convicted of piracy, and Rackham was executed. Bonny and Read were sent to prison, as both were pregnant and therefore excluded from execution. Read died in prison, while Bonny's fate is unknown.Woodard:304-10, 315-20 When Britain and Spain went to war again in 1719, many of the ex-pirates were commissioned by the British government as privateers. A Spanish invasion fleet set out for the Bahamas, but was diverted to Pensacola, Florida when it was seized by the French. Rogers continued to improve the defenses of Nassau, spending his personal fortune and going heavily into debt to do so. In 1720, the Spaniards finally attacked Nassau. Rogers returned to Britain in 1722 to plead for repayment of the money he had borrowed to build up Nassau, only to find he had been replaced as governor. He was sent to debtors' prison, although his creditors later absolved his debts, gaining him release. Latter 18th century In 1741, Governor John Tinker and Peter Henry Bruce constructed Fort Montague. Additionally, the Governor also reported a privateering boom in the Thirteen Colonies in North America. He also reported that over 2300 sumptuous houses were built. In 1768 Governor William Shirley filled in mosquito-breeding swamps and extended Nassau. American forces lands at New Providence during the American Revolutionary War. The landing resulted in a two-week occupation of Nassau in 1776 During the American War of Independence the Bahamas was attacked by American and allied forces on several occasions. In 1778, American forces launched an amphibious assault against Nassau, resulting in its two-week occupation. In 1782, Spanish forces under General Galvez captured the Bahamas in 1782. A British-American Loyalist expedition led by Colonel Andrew Deveaux, recaptured the islands in 1783. After the American Revolution, the British issued land grants to American Loyalists who had gone into exile from the newly established United States. The sparse population of the Bahamas tripled within a few years. The Loyalists developed cotton as a commodity crop, but it dwindled from insect damage and soil exhaustion. In addition to  slaves they brought with them, the planters' descendants imported more African slaves for labour . Most of the current inhabitants in the islands are descended from the slaves brought to work on the Loyalist plantations. In addition , thousands of captive Africans, who were liberated from foreign slave ships by the British navy after the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807, were resettled as free persons in the Bahamas. The  Bahamas during the American Civil War prospered as a base for Confederate blockade-running, bringing in cotton to be shipped to the mills of England and running out arms and munitions. None of these provided any lasting prosperity to the islands, nor did attempts to grow different kinds of crops for export. Colonial 20th century In 1911, there was a short-lived movement to make the Bahamas part of Canada. Although the movement enjoyed the support of many in Nassau and from the head of Sun Life, a Canadian insurance company, the movement failed. The failure of the movement was, in part, due to the British government's opposition to uniting a predominantly Black colony with a predominantly white country.Smith, Andrew. 2009. "Thomas Bassett Macaulay and the Bahamas: Racism, Business  and Canadian Sub-imperialism". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 37, no. 1: 29-50. In World War I organizations such as the Imperial Order of the Daughters of Empire and the Bahamas Red Cross Guild , began collecting money, food  and clothing for soldiers and civilians in Europe. "The Gallant Thirty" Bahamians set out to join the British West Indies Regiment as early as 1915 and as many as 1,800 served in the armed forces of Canada, Britain  and the United States. The Duke of Windsor was installed as Governor of the Bahamas, arriving at that post in August 1940 with his new Duchess. They were appalled at the condition of Government House, but they "tried to make the best of a bad situation." He did not enjoy the position, and referred to the islands as "a third-class British colony".Bloch, Michael (1982). The Duke of Windsor's War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. , p. 364. He opened the small local parliament on October 29, 1940, and they visited the 'Out Islands' that November, which caused some controversy because of on whose yacht they were cruising. The British Foreign Office strenuously objected when the Duke and Duchess planned to tour aboard a yacht belonging to a Swedish magnate, Axel Wenner-Gren, whom American intelligence wrongly believed to be a close friend of Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring.Bloch, Michael (1982). The Duke of Windsor's War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. , pp. 154–159, 230–233 The Duke was praised, however, for his efforts to combat poverty on the islands, although he was as contemptuous of the Bahamians as he was of most non-white peoples of the Empire.Ziegler, Philip (1991). King Edward VIII: The official biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. . He was also praised for his resolution of civil unrest over low wages in Nassau in June 1942, when there was a "full-scale riot," even though he blamed the trouble on "mischief makers – communists" and "men of Central European Jewish descent, who had secured jobs as a pretext for obtaining a deferment of  draft".Ziegler, pp. 471–472 The Duke resigned the post on 16 March 1945.Matthew, H. C. G. (September 2004; online edition January 2008) "Edward VIII, later Prince Edward, duke of Windsor (1894–1972)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 1 May 2010 (Subscription required)Higham places the date of his resignation as 15 March, and that he left on 5 April. During World War II, the Allies centred their flight training and antisubmarine operations for the Caribbean in the Bahamas. They fought for their freedom. Canadian garrison In April 1942 the United Kingdom asked Canada to provide military support in Nassau, in part to provide protection services to H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor. No. 33 company of the Veterans Guard of Canada was raised and arrived in June. No 33 company were relieved in 1943 by a company of The Pictou Highlanders. The Canadian garrison left Nassau in 1946 p. 181 Post-World War II The wartime airfield became Nassau's international airport in 1957 and helped spur the growth of mass tourism, which accelerated after Havana was closed to American tourists in 1961. Freeport, on the island of Grand Bahama, was established as a free trade zone in the 1950s and became the Bahama's second city. Bank secrecy combined with the lack of corporate and income taxes led to a rapid growth in the offshore financial sector during the postwar years. By the early 1980s, the islands had become a major centre for the drug trade, with 90 per cent of all the cocaine entering the United States reportedly passing through the Bahamas. The College of the Bahamas was founded in 1974 and provided the nation's higher or tertiary education. The college was chartered in 2016 as the University of the Bahamas, offering baccalaureate, masters and associate degrees, on three campuses and teaching and research centres throughout the Bahamas. Based on the twin pillars of tourism and offshore finance, the Bahamian economy has prospered since the 1950s. However, there remain significant challenges in areas such as education, health care, housing, international narcotics trafficking  and illegal immigration from Haiti. References Albury, Paul. (1975) The Story of the Bahamas. MacMillan Caribbean. Carr, J. Revell. (2008) Seeds of Discontent: The Deep Roots of the American Revolution 1659–1750. Walker & Company. Craton, Michael. (1986) A History of the Bahamas. San Salvador Press. Granberry, Julius  and Gary S. Vescelius. (2004) Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles. The University of Alabama Press. Johnson, Howard. (1996) The Bahamas from Slavery to Servitude, 1783–1933. University Press of Florida. Keegan, William F. (1992) The People Who Discovered Columbus: The Prehistory of the Bahamas. University Press of Florida. Woodard, Colin. (2007) The Republic of Pirates. Harcourt, Inc. State Dept Country Study - Includes information on the Bahamas including history. Rulers.org — Bahamas List of rulers for  Bahamas
From the initial colonization(s), the Lucayan expanded throughout the Bahamas in some 800 years (c. 700 – c. 1500), growing to a population of about 40,000. Population density at the time of first European contact was highest in the south-central area of the Bahamas, declining towards the north, reflecting the migration pattern and progressively shorter time of occupation of the northern islands. Known Lucayan settlement sites are confined to the nineteen largest islands in the archipelago, or smaller cays located less than one km. from those islands. The population density in the southernmost Bahamas remained lower, probably due to the drier climate there (less than 800 mm of rain a year on Great Inagua Island and the Turks and Caicos Islands and only slightly higher on Acklins and Crooked Islands and Mayaguana).Keegan:25, 54-8, 86, 170-3 European exploration upDepiction of Christopher Columbus seizing the Guanahani shortly after landing in the Bahamas in 1492 In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain on his first voyage with three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the flagship, Santa Maria, seeking a direct route to Asia. On 12 October 1492 Columbus reached an island in the Bahamas and claimed it for Spain, an event long regarded by Europeans as the 'discovery of America. This island was called Guanahani by the Lucayan, and San Salvador by the Spanish. The identity of the first American landfall by Columbus remains controversial, but many authors accept Samuel E. Morison's identification of Columbus' San Salvador as what was later called Watling (or Watling's) Island. Its name has been officially changed to San Salvador. Columbus visited several other islands in the Bahamas before sailing to present-day Cuba and afterward to Hispaniola.Albury:21-33Craton:28-37Keegan:175-205 The Bahamas held little interest in the Spanish except as a source of slave labor. Nearly the entire population of Lucayan (almost 40,000 people total) were transported to other islands as laborers over the next 30 years. When the Spanish decided to remove the remaining Lucayans to Hispaniola in 1520, they could find only eleven. The islands remained abandoned and depopulated for 130 years afterward . With no gold to be found, and the population removed, the Spanish effectively abandoned the Bahamas. They retained titular claims to them until the Peace of Paris in 1783, when they ceded them to Britain in exchange for East Florida.Albury:34-7Albury:34-7Craton. pp. 37-39Johnson:3Keegan:212, 220-3 For many years, historians believed that The Bahamas was not colonized until the 17th century. However, recent studies show that there may have been attempts of colonization by groups from Spain, France, Britain, and the Netherlands. The French settled in Abaco in 1565 and tried again in 1625. Early English settlement In 1648 a group from Bermuda called 'The Company of Adventurers for the Plantation of the Islands of Eleutheria,' which was led by William Sayle, sailed to the Bahamas to found a colony. These early settlers were Puritans and republicans. Bermuda was becoming overcrowded, and the Bahamas offered both religious and political freedom and economic opportunity. The larger of the company's two ships, the William, wrecked on the reef at the north end of what is now called Eleuthera Island, with the loss of all provisions. Despite the arrival of additional settlers, including Europeans, slaves , and former African slaves from Bermuda and the receipt of relief supplies from Virginia and New England, the Eleuthera colony struggled for many years, hampered by poor soil, fighting between settlers, and conflict with the Spanish. In the mid-1650s many of the settlers returned to Bermuda. The remaining settlers founded communities on Harbour Island and Saint George's Cay (Spanish Wells) at the north end of Eleuthera. In 1670 about 20 families lived in the Eleuthera communities.Albury:41-6Johnson:3-4 Map of New Providence in 1751. Settled in the mid-1600s, the island quickly became the center of population and commerce in the Bahamas. In 1666 other colonists from Bermuda settled on New Providence, which soon became the center of population and commerce in the Bahamas, with almost 500 people living on the island by 1670. Unlike the Eleutherians, who were primarily farmers, the first settlers on New Providence made their living from the sea, salvaging (mainly Spanish) wrecks, making salt, and taking fish, turtles, conchs and ambergris. Farmers from Bermuda soon followed the seamen to New Providence, where they found good, plentiful land. Neither the Eleutherian colony nor the settlement on New Providence had any legal standing under English law. In 1670 the Proprietors of Carolina were issued a patent for the Bahamas, but the governors sent by the Proprietors had difficulty imposing their authority on the independent-minded residents of New Providence.Albury:47-51Johnson:4 Republic of Pirates The Bahamians soon came into conflict with the Spanish over the salvaging of wrecks. The Bahamian wreckers drove the Spanish away from their wrecked ships, and attacked Spanish salvagers, seizing goods the Spanish had already recovered from the wrecks. When the Spanish raided the Bahamas, the Bahamians , in turn, commissioned privateers against Spain, even though England and Spain were at peace. In 1684 the Spanish burned the settlements on New Providence and Eleuthera, after which they were largely abandoned. New Providence was settled a second time in 1686 by colonists from Jamaica. upPirate captain Henry Every on shore while his ship the Fancy engages another vessel. Every eluded the authorities after supposedly bribing the governor appointed by the Proprietors of Carolina In the 1690s English privateers (England was then at war with France) made a base in the Bahamas. In 1696 Henry Every (or Avery), using the assumed name Henry Bridgeman, brought his ship Fancy, loaded with pirates' loot, into Nassau harbor. Every bribed the governor, Nicholas Trott (uncle of the Nicholas Trott who presided at the trial of Stede Bonnet), with gold and silver, and by leaving him the Fancy, still loaded with 50 tons of elephant tusks and 100 barrels of gunpowder. Following peace with France in 1697, many of the privateers became pirates. From this time the pirates increasingly made Nassau, the Bahamian capital founded in 1694, their base. The governors appointed by the Proprietors usually made a show of suppressing the pirates, but most were accused of dealing with them. By 1701 England was at war with France and Spain. In 1703 and 1706 combined French-Spanish fleets attacked and sacked Nassau, after which some settlers left, and the Proprietors gave up on trying to govern the islands.Albury:51-5Craton:70-87Johnson:6Woodard:12-14, 23-24 Reasserting British control Starting in 1713, Woodes Rogers had conceived the idea of leading an expedition to Madagascar to suppress the pirates there and establish it as a British colony. Rogers' friends Richard Steele and Joseph Addison eventually convinced him to tackle the pirate's nest in the Bahamas, instead. Rogers and others formed a company to fund the venture. They persuaded the Proprietors of Carolina to surrender the government of the Bahamas to the king while retaining title to the land. In 1717 King George appointed Rogers governor of the Bahamas and issued a proclamation granting a pardon to any pirate who surrendered to a British governor within one year.Albury:69-74Craton:93-6Johnson:7-8Woodard:117-121, 163-168 Woodes Rogers and his family by William Hogarth, 1729. Rogers, the first royal governor of the Bahamas, is seated as he is shown a map of New Providence. Word of the appointment of a new governor and the offer of pardons reached Nassau ahead of Rogers and his forces. Some of the pirates were willing to accept a pardon and retire from piracy. Henry Jennings and Christopher Winter, sailed off to find British authorities to confirm their acceptance of the amnesty. Others were not ready to give up. Many of those were Jacobites, supporters of the House of Stuart, who identified as enemies of the Hanoverian King George. Still , others simply identified as rebels or thought they were better off as pirates than trying to earn an honest living. When a Royal Navy ship brought official word to Nassau of the pardon offer, many pirates planned to accept. Soon, however, the recalcitrant parties gained the upper hand, eventually forcing the Navy ship to leave.Woodard:226-29 Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, Nicholas Brown and Edmond Content left the Bahamas for other territories. Charles Vane, with "Calico Jack" Rackham and Edward England in his crew, came to prominence at this time. Vane worked to organize resistance to the anticipated arrival of Royal authority, even appealing to James Francis Edward Stuart, the Stuart pretender, for aid in holding the Bahamas and capturing Bermuda for the Stuarts. As aid from the Stuarts failed to materialize and the date for Rogers' arrival approached, Vane and his crew prepared to leave Nassau.Woodard:236-40, 245-47, 259-61 Vane attacked several small settlements in the Bahamas but, after he refused to attack a stronger French frigate, he was deposed for cowardice and replaced as captain by "Calico Jack" Rackham. Vane never returned to the Bahamas; he was eventually caught, convicted , and executed in Jamaica. After nearly being captured by Jamaican privateers, and hearing that the king had extended the deadline for pardons for piracy, Rackham and his crew returned to Nassau to surrender to Woodes Rogers. Diarama of Anne Bonny and Mary Read at Nassau harbor at the Pirates of Nassau Museum in Nassau. The two began their pirating careers at Nassau. In Nassau Rackham became involved with Anne Bonny; he tried to arrange an annulment of her marriage to another ex-pirate, James Bonny. Rogers blocked the annulment, and Rackham and Bonny left Nassau to be pirates again, taking a small crew and Bonny's friend Mary Read with them. Within months, Rackham, Bonny , and Read were captured and taken to Jamaica. They were convicted of piracy, and Rackham was executed. Bonny and Read were sent to prison, as both were pregnant and therefore excluded from execution. Read died in prison, while Bonny's fate is unknown.Woodard:304-10, 315-20 When Britain and Spain went to war again in 1719, many of the ex-pirates were commissioned by the British government as privateers. A Spanish invasion fleet set out for the Bahamas, but was diverted to Pensacola, Florida when it was seized by the French. Rogers continued to improve the defenses of Nassau, spending his personal fortune and going heavily into debt to do so. In 1720, the Spaniards finally attacked Nassau. Rogers returned to Britain in 1722 to plead for repayment of the money he had borrowed to build up Nassau, only to find he had been replaced as governor. He was sent to debtors' prison, although his creditors later absolved his debts, gaining his release. Latter 18th century In 1741, Governor John Tinker and Peter Henry Bruce constructed Fort Montague. Additionally, the Governor also reported a privateering boom in the Thirteen Colonies in North America. He also reported that over 2300 sumptuous houses were built. In 1768 Governor William Shirley filled in mosquito-breeding swamps and extended Nassau. American forces lands at New Providence during the American Revolutionary War. The landing resulted in a two-week occupation of Nassau in 1776 During the American War of Independence the Bahamas was attacked by American and allied forces on several occasions. In 1778, American forces launched an amphibious assault against Nassau, resulting in its two-week occupation. In 1782, Spanish forces under General Galvez captured the Bahamas in 1782. A British-American Loyalist expedition led by Colonel Andrew Deveaux, recaptured the islands in 1783. After the American Revolution, the British issued land grants to American Loyalists who had gone into exile from the newly established United States. The sparse population of the Bahamas tripled within a few years. The Loyalists developed cotton as a commodity crop, but it dwindled from insect damage and soil exhaustion. In addition to the slaves they brought with them, the planters' descendants imported more African slaves for labor . Most of the current inhabitants in the islands are descended from the slaves brought to work on the Loyalist plantations. Also , thousands of captive Africans, who were liberated from foreign slave ships by the British navy after the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807, were resettled as free persons in the Bahamas. The the Bahamas during the American Civil War prospered as a base for Confederate blockade-running, bringing in cotton to be shipped to the mills of England and running out arms and munitions. None of these provided any lasting prosperity to the islands, nor did attempts to grow different kinds of crops for export. Colonial 20th century In 1911, there was a short-lived movement to make the Bahamas part of Canada. Although the movement enjoyed the support of many in Nassau and from the head of Sun Life, a Canadian insurance company, the movement failed. The failure of the movement was, in part, due to the British government's opposition to uniting a predominantly Black colony with a predominantly white country.Smith, Andrew. 2009. "Thomas Bassett Macaulay and the Bahamas: Racism, Business , and Canadian Sub-imperialism". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 37, no. 1: 29-50. In World War I organizations such as the Imperial Order of the Daughters of Empire and the Bahamas Red Cross Guild began collecting money, food , and clothing for soldiers and civilians in Europe. "The Gallant Thirty" Bahamians set out to join the British West Indies Regiment as early as 1915 and as many as 1,800 served in the armed forces of Canada, Britain , and the United States. The Duke of Windsor was installed as Governor of the Bahamas, arriving at that post in August 1940 with his new Duchess. They were appalled at the condition of Government House, but they "tried to make the best of a bad situation." He did not enjoy the position, and referred to the islands as "a third-class British colony".Bloch, Michael (1982). The Duke of Windsor's War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. , p. 364. He opened the small local parliament on October 29, 1940, and they visited the 'Out Islands' that November, which caused some controversy because of on whose yacht they were cruising. The British Foreign Office strenuously objected when the Duke and Duchess planned to tour aboard a yacht belonging to a Swedish magnate, Axel Wenner-Gren, whom American intelligence wrongly believed to be a close friend of Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring.Bloch, Michael (1982). The Duke of Windsor's War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. , pp. 154–159, 230–233 The Duke was praised, however, for his efforts to combat poverty on the islands, although he was as contemptuous of the Bahamians as he was of most non-white peoples of the Empire.Ziegler, Philip (1991). King Edward VIII: The official biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. . He was also praised for his resolution of civil unrest over low wages in Nassau in June 1942, when there was a "full-scale riot," even though he blamed the trouble on "mischief makers – communists" and "men of Central European Jewish descent, who had secured jobs as a pretext for obtaining a deferment of the draft".Ziegler, pp. 471–472 The Duke resigned the post on 16 March 1945.Matthew, H. C. G. (September 2004; online edition January 2008) "Edward VIII, later Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (1894–1972)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 1 May 2010 (Subscription required)Higham places the date of his resignation as 15 March, and that he left on 5 April. During World War II, the Allies centered their flight training and antisubmarine operations for the Caribbean in the Bahamas. They fought for their freedom. Canadian garrison In April 1942 the United Kingdom asked Canada to provide military support in Nassau, in part to provide protection services to H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor. No. 33 company of the Veterans Guard of Canada was raised and arrived in June. No 33 companies were relieved in 1943 by a company of The Pictou Highlanders. The Canadian garrison left Nassau in 1946 p. 181 Post-World War II The wartime airfield became Nassau's international airport in 1957 and helped spur the growth of mass tourism, which accelerated after Havana was closed to American tourists in 1961. Freeport, on the island of Grand Bahama, was established as a free trade zone in the 1950s and became Bahama's second city. Bank secrecy combined with the lack of corporate and income taxes led to rapid growth in the offshore financial sector during the postwar years. By the early 1980s, the islands had become a major center for the drug trade, with 90 percent of all the cocaine entering the United States reportedly passing through the Bahamas. The College of the Bahamas was founded in 1974 and provided the nation's higher or tertiary education. The college was chartered in 2016 as the University of the Bahamas, offering baccalaureate, master's, and associate degrees, on three campuses and teaching and research centers throughout the Bahamas. Based on the twin pillars of tourism and offshore finance, the Bahamian economy has prospered since the 1950s. However, there remain significant challenges in areas such as education, health care, housing, international narcotics trafficking , and illegal immigration from Haiti. References Albury, Paul. (1975) The Story of the Bahamas. MacMillan Caribbean. Carr, J. Revell. (2008) Seeds of Discontent: The Deep Roots of the American Revolution 1659–1750. Walker & Company. Craton, Michael. (1986) A History of the Bahamas. San Salvador Press. Granberry, Julius , and Gary S. Vescelius. (2004) Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles. The University of Alabama Press. Johnson, Howard. (1996) The Bahamas from Slavery to Servitude, 1783–1933. University Press of Florida. Keegan, William F. (1992) The People Who Discovered Columbus: The Prehistory of the Bahamas. University Press of Florida. Woodard, Colin. (2007) The Republic of Pirates. Harcourt, Inc. State Dept Country Study - Includes information on the Bahamas including history. Rulers.org — Bahamas List of rulers for the Bahamas
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