Grand Bahama Island, the fourth largest of The Islands of The Bahamas, gets its name from the Spanish "gran bajamar" meaning "great shallows" for its many flats and shoals in the waters off the island.
The island lies just 55 miles off the coast of Florida and rambles on for 96 miles, rimmed with cities, villages, and cays that offer lasting evidence of the many different people and cultures that have called Grand Bahama Island home.
Early in its history, Grand Bahama Island was virtually uninhabited for almost 300 years. However, with the development of Freeport/Lucaya in the 1950s, and because of the island location just 55 miles from the east coast of Florida, it is now one of the most visited of all the Bahamian islands.
Grand Bahama Island is a unique destination. It allows visitors to combine a cosmopolitan vacation at a world-class resort with the charm of historical fishing villages and undiscovered ecological treasures. It has one of the world's largest underwater cave systems, three national parks, endless beaches, emerald green water and enchanting marine life.
The momentum of today thriving industries on Grand Bahama Island began in the 1950s when the cities of Freeport and Lucaya were developed. But for centuries prior, the island people, culture, and industry were destined to ebb and flow with whatever and whomever drifted in with the tide.
On Grand Bahama Island, the sea has always provided. The earliest settlers were possibly the Siboney Indians, who lived off conch and fishing. They were a Stone Age people who entered the Caribbean about 4,000 years ago. Since they were hunter/gatherers they left almost no evidence of their presence here. When the Taino from South America arrived around the time of Jesus Christ, the Siboney disappeared.
After the Taino (or Island Arawaks) arrived in The Bahamas from Cuba and Hispaniola they created a new culture. They became known as Lucayans and occupied the entire archipelago. When Christopher Columbus sighted San Salvador on his first crossing in 1492, there were an estimated 40,000 Lucayans living in The Bahamas, with a population of about 4,000, or more, on Grand Bahama Island.
Like the Siboney, the Lucayans did not have a written language, which hinders our knowledge of them. After Columbus arrived, the Lucayans succumbed to European diseases and with forced evacuation to the West Indies they died off. We know, however, they had an advanced political and social structure, and lived in well-organized communities. From the Taino/Lucayans we adopted many words into the English: cay (for small island), guava, canoe, cannibal, hurricane, iguana, potato and barbeque. In addition the English language adopted the word tobacco (and the practice of smoking) and the word and use of hammock.
Skulls, bones, and artifacts have been found in the caves at the Lucayan National Park. In western Grand Bahama Island, Deadman Reef, a popular snorkelling reef, is home to one of the most important local archaeological sites discovered to date. The Lucayan Indians were thought to be some of the early dwellers of Grand Bahama Islandand a recent dig along the eroding beachfront of Deadman Reef helped to answer many questions.
Unearthed from the dig were many artifacts belonging to the Lucayan Indians, including hearths, animal bones, pottery pieces, and shell beads. This discovery was dated back to around 1200 to 1300 A.D.
Along with this site, the bones of pre-Columbian Lucayans were found in an underwater cave system, indicating an ancient burial site. Both of these discoveries helped to confirm that the Lucayans were among the first settlers of Grand Bahama Island.
After the Spanish claimed the island in 1492, there was barely a footprint to be seen on the beaches of Grand Bahama Island. The Lucayans were enslaved and transported to work the gold and silver mines of Hispaniola and Cuba and the pearl fisheries of Margarita, near Trinidad. The conquerers gave the island the name "Gran Bajamar" (great shallows), a term that eventually became the basis for The Islands Of The Bahamas themselves.
After they stole away its inhabitants, however, the Spanish seemed to have completely ignored Grand Bahama Island. Once in great while, a ship would drop anchor, perhaps scavenge a few provisions, then sail off towards Europe or South America. More often than not, Grand Bahama Island was viewed as a perilous landfall, due to the treacherous shallow reefs surrounding it. So many ships would collide with the reefs that "wrecking" became a major livelihood of what few inhabitants there were, most of whom lived at West End. In hard times it wasn't unheard of for the townspeople to actually try and lure ships onto the reef with a well-placed lantern at night.
Great Britain claimed The Islands Of The Bahamas in 1670, after British colonists left Bermuda for the island of Eleuthera, where they sought religious independence. More followed, and other ports and colonies gradually developed, bringing in their wake an army of pirates and privateers. Grand Bahama was probably well known to famous pirates like Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, and Henry Morgan, as its reefs would have been perfect for running aground vessels, a common pirate tactic. By 1720, the crown had successfully established control over the pirates, and the island probably saw far fewer visitors than it had during the "Golden Age of Piracy." The sleepy colony lay largely undisturbed for another 200 years, when history finally caught up with it again.
Up until the mid-nineteenth century, Grand Bahama Island had largely been left alone by the outside world. There were plenty of sails on the horizon as ships came and went through the Caribbean, but more often than not they passed by. Records from 1836 show that the population of West End numbered only about 370, many of whom abandoned the island for the greater opportunities of Nassau. In 1861, however, the flow of people reversed direction, and population of the town virtually doubled overnight. The reason was the American Civil War.
At the outbreak of the war, The Confederate States of America, a mere 55 miles away, immediately fell under a strict Union blockade and embargo. Getting goods such as sugar, cotton, and weapons in and out of the Confederacy was essential to the war effort, and smugglers operating out of West End were able to command hefty prices from the South. As soon as the war ended, however, so did the boom, but the short burst of prosperity set an important precedent: From then on, the history of Grand Bahama Island was intimately tied to that of the United States.
The next smuggling boom came from a much different (and much more sought-after) banned good in the U.S.: alcohol. If the residents of West End had known that the 14th Amendment would bring unheard-of prosperity to their village, they probably would have lobbied for it themselves. Prohibition brought warehouses, distilleries, bars, supply stores, and inns to West End. The town's smugglers had the system down to a science. They'd sail off at night, with ropes dragging huge cylinders of liquor behind them. If the American coast guard pursued, they would simply cut the ropes, wait for the patrol to leave, then recover them. Just as it was during the Civil War, however, as soon the U.S. solved its problem, the economy dove and people started fishing again. It was only with the rise of tourism that the fickleness of the economy would change for good.
In 1955, the second most populated city of the Bahamas was little more than a pine forest. There were no resorts, no flashing casino lights or jet-skiers zipping through the surf. Grand Bahama Island was one of the least developed of The Islands of The Bahamas, a place where a few hundred people made their living off the sea, perhaps daydreaming of the days of Prohibition, when the island's economy boomed from smuggling liquor to the United States. No one could have imagined then that the island would become the quintessential tropical Caribbean playground.
No one, perhaps, except a man named Wallace Groves. Groves was an American financier from the state of Virginia who had been on the island since the mid-1940s. He owned a lumber company at Pine Ridge and was keen to the possibilities of the island as a tourist destination. Less than a hundred miles away was the United States and its thriving post-war economy. American vacationers were already streaming into Cuba by the tens of thousands, and beautiful Grand Bahama Island, thought Groves, could be an alternative to the overcrowded beaches and casinos of Havana.
And so in 1955 he approached the Bahamian government with his idea to build a town that catered to both industry and tourists. Shortly afterwards, a famous document known as the Hawksbill Creek Agreement was signed, and Freeport was born.
This Agreement granted 50,000 acres of land to Groves' company, The Grand Bahama Port Authority Ltd., with an option of adding an additional 50,000. To encourage investment, it also freed the Port Authority from paying taxes on income, capital gains, real estate, and private property until 1985a provision that has since been extended to the year 2054. Soon after the Agreement was signed, Groves began to enact his vision. He convinced the shipping tycoon D. K. Ludwig to construct a harbour (the Lucayan Harbour), and in 1962 he brought in Canadian Louis Chesler to develop the tourist center of Lucaya. Over 30 years later, the result is a community completely tailored to the getaway tourist, a premeditated paradise offering almost every kind of vacation activity imaginable.
Local Author
A great source for Grand Bahama Island's history:
"GRAND BAHAMAA Rich and Colourful History" by Peter Barratt, published by IM Publishing, Freeport, 2002,
third edition, with stories, historical photos, and brand-new colour photographs, $23.95.
Peter J. H. Barratt, a town planner formerly in charge of the development of the city of Freeport, writes from first-hand knowledge of the island in all its aspectsnative Lucayans, English and Spanish explorers, sunken ships, bootlegging, industrial magnatesit's all within the colorful pages of this new and revised third edition, which covers the spectacular rise of modern-day Grand Bahama from a sleepy pine-covered lumber camp into the vibrant resort paradise, international business hub, and second-home haven of today. A must-read for anyone wanting to understand the island's amazing past as well as its incredibly exciting future. Visit www.grandbahamabook.com for more information, or email
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. Wholesale and quantity discounts are available on request.
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