Bahamas

History

The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is an island country located within the Lucayan Archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. The country comprises more than 3,000 islands, cays and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, located north of Cuba and north-west of the island of Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the US state of Florida and east of the Florida Keys. The capital and largest city is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes The Bahamas' territory as encompassing 470,000 km2 (180,000 sq mi) of ocean space. The Bahama islands were inhabited by the Arawak and Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taíno, for many centuries. Christopher Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfall in the New World in 1492 when he landed on the island of San Salvador. Later, the Kingdom of Spain shipped the native Lucayans to Hispaniola and enslaved them there, leaving the Bahama islands mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648. In 1649, English colonists from Bermuda, known as the Eleutheran Adventurers, settled on the island of Eleuthera. The Bahamas... Summary adapted from the English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). The live article includes citations, maps, and updates.