The town and post of Nassau, New Providence, Bahama Islands

Title

The town and post of Nassau, New Providence, Bahama Islands

Description

Total view of the city of Nassau on the Bahama Islands.

dated 1864

Artist

Anonymus

Historical Description

After Christopher Columbus discovered the Bahama Islands on October 12, 1492, the approximately 40,000 islanders were abducted and enslaved to Hispaniola until 1520, where they perished in the mines due to disease and emaciation. English settlers established the first colonies in the mid-17th century after King Charles I of England claimed the islands in 1629. Buccaneers, like the famous Blackbeard, used the islands as refuge at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century, as they were of little importance to the colonial powers due to their lack of raw materials and the unsuitable soil for agriculture. In 1717, the Bahamas became a British Crown Colony and Woodes Rogers became the islands' first Crown Governor. He solved the pirate problem that had developed on the archipelago and in 1729 gave the Bahamas its own parliament, the House of Assembly. In the course of the American War of Independence, a large number of British loyalists fled to the Bahamas, especially to Abaco. During the American War of Independence (1775–1783), the American Civil War (1861–1865) and Prohibition in the USA (1919–1932), the islands were the starting point for a marked trade in contraband due to their convenient proximity to the USA. Britain granted internal self-government to the Bahamas in 1964, which eventually led to their gaining independence in 1973.