The Commonwealth of The Bahamas is an independent, sovereign, English-speaking country consisting of two thousand cays and seven hundred islands that form an archipelago. It is located in the Atlantic Ocean southeast of the United States; north of Cuba, Hispaniola and the Caribbean Sea; and northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
History
Main article: History of the Bahamas
The seafaring Taino people moved into the uninhabited southern Bahamas from Hispaniola and Cuba around the 7th century AD. These people came to be known as the Lucayans. There were an estimated 30,000+ Lucayans at the time of Columbus' arrival in 1492.
Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the New World was on an island he named San Salvador which is generally accepted to be present-day San Salvador Island in the southeastern Bahamas. Here, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayans and exchanged goods with them.
Parts of the Bahamas as seen from an aircraft
The Spaniards who followed Columbus depopulated the islands and they were deserted until the arrival of the Eleutherian Adventurers from Bermuda in the mid 1600s. The Adventurers established the first permanent European settlements on an island which they named Eleuthera - the name derives from the Greek word for freedom. They later discovered New Providence and named it Sayle's Island. To survive, the settlers salvaged goods from wrecks.
In 1670 King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas, who rented the islands from the king with rights of trading, tax, appointing governors, and administering the country.
During proprietary rule, the Bahamas became a haven for pirates, including the infamous Blackbeard. To restore orderly government, the Bahamas was made a British crown colony in 1718 under the royal governorship of Woodes Rogers, who cracked down on piracy.
During the American Revolutionary War, the islands were a target for American naval forces under the command of Commodore Ezekial Hopkins
