History · Bahamianology

Pindling Snatches Immigration From DPM Hanna, Pulls Finance from Carlton Francis – February 1973

In 1973, within the quiet revolution of tremendous sociopolitical change, there was also turmoil brewing within the political inner circle ...

A young Judson Eneas, jailed in Nashville along with civil rights great John Robert Lewis for protesting against racial segregation in restaurants April 1964

In April 2020, the life of Dr. Judson Frazier Eneas, (April 18, 1947 - April 5, 2020) eminent Bahamian physician ...

PLP Party was born on East Street not Long Island 1953

They may have been Long Island boys by birth, but the political party they founded, was born, in an old ...

Doris Johnson, a modern, emancipated woman 1964, posthumously a National Hero in 2023

Dame Doris Johnson (1921-1983) was recently posthumously honoured, in the 50th anniversary—2023 Independence National Honours—with the distinguished Order of National ...

Independence Euphoria Marred By Dark Drugs Decade

Between 1978 and 1982, the euphoria of our 1973 national independence, had somehow dissipated. What took its place, some have ...

A Nation Is Born – The Definitive Bahamian Independence Album 1973

In early 1973, as the Bahamas was fast approaching that very first Independence Day, scheduled for 10th July 1973, the ...

Stafford Sands was lawyer behind development of Lyford Cay 1950

When the true history books are finally written on the under the table land deals, government kickbacks, collusion, bribery and ...

From the hands of poor negro children picking cotton to Bay Street high fashion store Mademoiselle 1958

Few images have pricked the moral consciousness of 20th century America, more than photos of poor negroes - men, women ...

National anthem had to be approved by England and that awkward aquamarine we still can’t get right some fifty years later 1973

In the decades following that very first national independence, a debate arose, over the meaning of the black triangle in ...

Music as Identity: Should Bahamian Music Officially Be Called Goombay?

One can argue that independence, in 1973, had many goals to accomplish. Within that political exercise, negotiating sovereignty away from ...

Sidney Poitier sadly loses father and brother then gets letter over unpaid funeral expenses 1961

December 1961 became a particularly difficult period for Bahamian actor Sir Sidney Poitier. Indeed, this was so for the entire ...

House of Assembly and Senate 1971-72: PLP, UBP, Free PLP, Labour and Independent

Prior to the general elections of 19th September 1972, an extraordinary group of people sat in the House of Assembly ...

Largest Land Transfer Since Columbus Come Tief Up All We Land – H. G. Christie Transfers 2,800 Acres To E. P. Taylor of Lyford Cay 1956

‘They tief every gaddamn bit… all of it was once we Crown Land,’ my Grammy used to say. ‘And there ...

Loftus Roker told ‘boy come back when you grow up’ withdraws from election 1956

In 1956, the newly formed Progressive Liberal Party were actively preparing for the June general elections. The Party, was effectively ...

PLP Founder Forced To Resign From HOA After Sentenced To Four Years For Multiple Land Scams 1956

William W. Cartwright was elected, as the Member for Cat Island, in the 1949. Cartwright ran as an Independent. He ...

Clement T. Maynard, successful contractor, dies at home on Kemp Road in 1946

Clement Travelyan Maynard became a successful builder and large scale contractor, in New Providence, in the early 1900s. His company, ...

1962 – Demand for Crown Land, Renaming Hog Island, Smuggling, Help For Family of Murdered Police Officer, Baptisms and Elections

1962 was a long awaited election year. Hostile political lines had been drawn between the governing United Bahamian Party and ...

A young Sir Franklyn R. Wilson and Unicoll, a Nassau-based movement of young people 1967

Among the after-effects of January 1967— a tumultuous period in Bahamian political history, known as ‘The Quiet Revolution,’ —-some very ...

Bahamian Who Died At Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 25th April 1961 – What was he doing there?

Charles Nathaniel Albury was born in Matthew Town, Inagua on 12th February 1912. Albury was 49 years, 2 months and ...

Nerve Gas Ship Dump Cargo Near Abaco Brings Unexpected Opportunity To Whisper Independence – 16th August 1970

By 1970, some twenty-five years had passed since the Second Great War. Memories were beginning to fade. The great reconstruction ...

Bravery of African King Mulay Abdelmalek – Battle of Three Kings – Morocco 1578

In 1492, the defeat of the Moors of Granada was complete. After ten long years of wars —-Catholicism against Mohammedans ...

‘Come Outside So I Could Bust You In Your Mouth’ says PM Pindling to Michael Lightbourne MP 1975

‘Who run you hot’ is a common Bahamian saying. It simply means, who or what has made you angry… really ...

Soldier Road was Whitfield’s Road and Bernard Road was Bannard’s Road and Wulff Road was Wolf’s Road 1853

In 1853, James Malcolm claimed ownership of lands which contained: Whitfield’s Road, now called Soldier Road; and Bannard’s Road, now ...

“The Crazy Hill” Was Once A Real Place 1897

“The Crazy Hill” for any Bahamian kid growing up, in the hundred years or so since it was occupied in ...

Freedom Park, Fox Hill Dedicated in 1967 Sits On Historical Cemetery

Where Freedom Park in Fox Hill, Nassau, sits today, there once was a historically significant burial place. In 1967, new ...

“After long time I will go and rake up the Bones” Bodies of hurricane drowned wash ashore on Berry Islands -August 1899

In the first half year of 1899, fate had already racked up its share of tragic drownings. A handful of ...

Bahamian born PFC Norman Darling killed by a suicide bomber – Baghdad, Iraq 29 April 2004

Bahamian born, Norman B. Darling, was only 29 years old in April 2004, when, as a Private First Class, in ...

Stephen Dillet’s Outside Children – Myth or Reality? Whatever happened to his Slaves? Was Stephen the first ‘Dillet’ in The Bahamas?

Stephen Dillet had an interesting personal life, if anecdotal evidence is to be believed. To fully understand what is proving ...

First Bahamian Knighted in 1873 Dies From Mystery Mental Illness 1879

Sir William Henry Doyle was 50 years old, a proper age, all things considered, when, in 1873, he became the ...

The Many Hats of Stephen Dillet,… but was he also an angry Arsonist in 1825?

Bahamians have, not too surprisingly, put a lot of stock into the historical personality that was Stephen Dillet. The reasons ...

The Hon. Lewis Kerr legitimises his mulatto slave daughter Eliza Ann 1826

The fate of mulatto children —the children of white slaveowners— was as precarious as any other slave. All depended on ...

Did Annie W. Dillet meet Abolitionist Harriet Tubman in Boston in October 1906?

In 1906, the Harriet Tubman Union held a reception, in Boston, for Mrs. Annie W. Dillet, President of the Bahama ...

McCabe’s Curse on Nassau 1814

According to historical lore, McCabe’s Curse on Nassau, was penned in the year 1814. The Tribune 24th NOVEMBER 1924 “And ...

Mercedes Elizabeth Sands – only child of Sir Stafford – born 17th July 1942

Sir Stafford Sands, remains one of the most compelling and controversial personalities, in modern Bahamian history. Arguably, his contribution to ...

Murder-Suicide 1836 – Ensign John Foss (white Englishman) shoots Mary Thomson, his black common law wife

In 1836, a shocking case of domestic violence, a murder-suicide, was revealed, during a Coroner’s Inquest on Monday 22nd August ...

Runaway White Slaves – Wilhelm and Muller (Germans) – Nassau 1805

How and why two German men, became runaway white slaves, in Nassau, in 1805, is not so strange as one ...

First Cohort of Girls Welcomed At St. Augustine’s College 1967

In 1967, St. Augustine’s College, introduced co-instructional education, into its all-boys day and boarding school. By that year, the school ...

Eustace Duvallier 18, Native of Haiti Hanged For Murder 1905

By May 1905, Eustace Duvallier, a native of Haiti, had been living, with his mother and sister for four years ...

Cyril Poitier (1911-1991) Brother Who Help To Raise Sir Sidney Poitier in Miami Died in 1991 at 80 years old

Cyril Poitier, was the eldest of eight brothers and sisters, born to Reginald and Evelyn Poitier of Cat Island. Cyril ...

PLP Very FIRST Director of Communications was a white man, a fixer, named David Probinksy – January 1967

David Probinksy, was a onetime Miami night club owner, catering to coloureds, in the 1950s. By 1965, Probinksy had became ...

‘UBP is a hooked fish, club it over the head, lest it gain strength and jump out the boat’ Pindling 1967

Oddly enough, the UBP were celebrating in September 1967. They were circling, the House of Assembly, like a shark that ...

Premier Lynden Pindling and Speaker of the House, A. R. Braynen Needed Bodyguards After 1967 Elections

Despite all outward appearances, there was a storm brewing over New Providence in 1967. The January general election ushered in ...

60 Government Schools, 27 Private Schools, 4 High Schools, 280 Churches in population of just 55,190 – Bahamas 1902

In 1902, the Bahama Islands, per capita, was probably the most educated and most churched country/colony in the world. Population ...

First Woman In Bahamian History to Apply for Jury Service – Mrs. Zoe Maynard 1968

Jury service, was once the sole domain of men of property, in The Bahamas. Despite women finally getting the right ...

“Meaho” an African Dies of Starvation in Grant’s Town 1837

Life is ‘SOLITARY, POOR, NASTY, BRUTISH, AND SHORT’ so says philosopher Thomas Hobbes in 1651. In January 1837, an African ...

Henry Forbes, a free black man and his runaway son Henry 1809

Being a parent, in 1800s Bahamas, was apparently as complicated as it is today. Strong-willed children—or as Bahamians like to ...

Nancy Gambier, former slave and wet nurse to Lord James Gambier dies in Nassau 1810

Nancy Gambier died a free black woman. She certainly earned it. Nancy was wet nurse and nanny to James, Lord ...

Slaves of Prospect Hill Sold including Adam 7 and Charity 3 – May the Ancestors Be Praised 1827

That same Prospect Ridge. That small hill connecting West Bay Street to John F Kennedy Drive, in Nassau, was once ...

Priscilla Munnings, Free Black Woman, Hanged In 1825 Convicted Under Copyright Law

Why was Priscilla Munnings, a free black woman, hanged in August 1825, under a 1710 British copyright law - the ...

William Campbell Adderley 1889 and Cleophas Adderley (UBP) 1967 – Black Representatives For City District, Nassau

William Campbell Adderley (1846-1892) MHA for City District (1889 until sudden death 1892) and Cleophas Adderley (elected 1967 by-election and ...

‘The New Year’ 30th December 1899 Poem by Arthur E. Leslie

In 1899, Arthur E. Leslie, a coloured man, was a music and mathematics teacher in Savannah Sound, Eleuthera. Leslie was ...

Bahamian Progressive League – Present Gold Watch to Wounded Coloured WW1 Soldier – Pt. John Demeritte and Pays Tribute to Dr. William Archibald Pitt 1917

The Bahamian Progressive League began as a political ideal, a community collective, and what would be referred to today, as ...

Tandem Falls at Queen’s Staircase – Nassau’s Newest Attraction Opens March 1967

Tandem Falls, at the Queen’s Staircase in Nassau, opened in March 1967. It was a spectacular multi-levelled constructed waterfall, highlighted ...

Liberated Africans – America Perpall, Chance Harvey and Alliday Adderley, Guilleam Rahming – Rest With The Ancestors

Precious little is known about the intimate lives of Nassau’s Liberated Africans. They were settled from captured slave ships - ...

Liberated Africans – Peter Pinder and Hercules Charles Pinder – Land Owners and Monied Contemporaries of Alliday Adderley

Liberated Africans changed the ethnic, social and economic landscape of New Providence. As they were settled, by the British, in ...

Bahamas Population 27,519 with 13,071 Vaccinated in 1851

The 1851 census was particularly detailed. Of note, was the need for the government to assess the number of able ...

Mrs. Edith Bertram – First Woman Appointed To A Public Board in The Bahamas Ignited A Firestorm 1903

In January 1903, Mrs. Edith Bertram became the first woman, in the history of the Bahama Islands, to be appointed ...

Three Generations of Sands – Sir James, Mr. Stafford and Sir Stafford

Sir James Patrick Sands was born 1859 in Nassau. He spent the better part, of his first twenty years, in ...

Death Granted Sisal Patent and Crown Land in Abaco 1889

Death came to the Bahama Islands in 1889. William Ephraim Death, an engineer with a most striking name, from Leicester ...

FOR SALE – Entire FOX HILL 1,200 acres renamed Sandilands by Order of the Bank 1850

In 1850, Robert Sandilands had been forced to sell all 1,200 acres of Fox Hill, renamed Sandilands. Robert Sandilands in ...

Almost Failed Suicides… A Long Bahamian History of Despair in So-Called Paradise

A long, miserable history of suicide lies buried in Bahamian history. Something about the promise of so-called paradise never quite ...

Bahamian, Haitian, Barbadian and Guyanese form “Ballot Box Party” in Grant’s Town – Political Party with Chairman Capt. Stephen A. Dillet 1924

Captain Stephen Albert Dillet was Bahamian. Lewis W. Duvalier news editor of the Tribune was Haitian. Robert M. Bailey was ...

Sidney Poitier’s Daddy ‘Reginald James Poitier’ was the largest tomato grower on Cat Island 1924

World famous, Bahamian born actor, Sir Sidney Poitier, was the youngest of seven children born to Mr. Reginald J. Poitier ...

Young, Gifted and Black – Thaddeus Toote, MHA 1924

Thaddeus Augustus Toote, the younger, was a man born before his time. Toote displayed an attitude and confidence that belied ...

H. N. Chipman Turns “Track Dunmore” Into Chippingham Town 1924

Chippingham was once a horse racing and polo track called Track Dunmore. When Track Dunmore opened in 1915, it was ...

Boy Eaten By Dogs, Man Eaten By Sharks and A Face Slashed To Ribbons – 1887

In 1887, Adelaide was a small, but growing settlement. Residents there were farmers. Cutoff from the city of Nassau by ...

44 Bahamians Help To Build A Socially Significant Paradise Island Bridge – Why Don’t We Know Their Names?

Something to be proud of surely. Bahamian labour built the Paradise Island Bridge in 1966 to 1967. Some 44 Bahamians ...

Merceline Dahl Was Always Smart Even In 1965 At Just 16 Years Old

One of the most accomplished women, in the modern Bahamas, is Dr. Merceline Dahl-Regis. Few people, outside of the medical ...

BoBo del Monte “Love’s Last Dream” Filmed In Nassau 1922 Builds Theatres Bay Street and Grants Town

Love’s Last Dream was filmed in Nassau in 1922, during the great era of the silent movie. Talking movies, that ...

Creator of City Market Foodstore Mr. Stafford Sands 77 Dies From Stroke 1965

Mr. Stafford Sands, the creator of City Market Foodstores, was the third son of the Hon. Sir James Patrick Sands ...

“A politician must be a Christian and a crook” L. W. Young (30 years in the House of Assembly) April 1949

Leon Walton Young had been in the House of Assembly for 30 years. He first sat as a representative in ...

1959 – Cotton Bay, Lyford Cay, Coral Harbour, Cat Cay, Hog Island, Andros, Bimini, Whale Cay, Wallace Groves, French Leave and more massive property developments by foreign investors

Foreign direct investment built the modern Bahamas. Without foreign investment, it is not too difficult to imagine what would have ...

“Democratise the [Public] Boards… train new people in the functions of government so that they may be prepared to accept responsibilities and provide stable leadership in the future” Etienne Dupuch 1957

In 1957, appointments to Public Boards were still done exclusively by the British appointed Governor, whoever he happened to be, ...

Poem about Nassau broke and bored after helping southern slaveowners during American Civil War 1866

Boom and Bust is a big part of The Bahamas story. When the American Civil War ended, the good times ...

“Song of the John Canoes” by Dorothy Kernochan 1950

John Canoe’s origins remains a mystery, however one thing is certain, Bahamians perfected it. These Islands turned John Canoe into ...

“Adieu, Dear Father” by P. Anthony White 1957

Journalist Paul Anthony White penned a most beautiful, heart wrenching poem “Adieu, Dear Father” in 1957. Evoking a strong emotional ...

First Traffic Light in Nassau Delayed Until Government Gets All The Parts 1965

Oddly enough, the first patented, automatic traffic light was invented by a black man, who also happened to be the ...

Freeport’s New Model City But This Time It Was 1,000 Low Cost Homes For Blacks Who Helped Build Freeport 1965

Just ten years after the Hawksbill Creek Agreement was signed on 4th August 1955, The Bahamas government had to go ...

Ortland H. Bodie Sr. Reported To Buy Englertson Estate with its 1,200 50×100 Lots – 1949

J. S. Engler was the earliest subdivision developer, catering to negroes, in Nassau. In 1922, he saw an opportunity and ...

A. R. Braynen’s Only Son Changes His Name No Longer Wanting to be a Braynen 1949

Alvin Rudolph Braynen should really be considered a national hero. There should be something significant named after him, where his ...

‘Who told you that the Bahamas belonged to Bahamians?!’ asks A. R. Braynen in House of Assembly 1950

Under British administration, better known as, colonialism, the cost of all foreign public service appointments, fell on the Bahamian government ...

100 years ago – Nassau’s Oolitic Limestone DISCOVERED and Exported 1921

As early as 1921, it was discovered that New Providence had an incredibly valuable natural resource. This natural resource was ...

“Free Things Kill Nassau People” Roland T. Symonette MHA for New Providence East 1949

In May 1949, an important economic report was tabled in the House of Assembly. Little did they know at the ...

Some in House of Assembly were “men born in the bush and grew up eating conch and sapodillas” says T. A. Toote 1921

In November 1921, Assembly Members were debating whether or not, an electricity building contract, had been drafted by the Attorney ...

St. Augustine’s College, Fox Hill named after St. Augustine of Canterbury 1947 – By 1950 Leviticus Adderley was its top Student

St. Augustine’s was founded in 1946 by Father Frederic Frey. By 1947, it was a busy, working monastery and Boys’ ...

Ruth Married William Munnings, After He Comes Out Of Jail For ‘Chapping’ Her Mother With Cutlass in 1949 – Then He Murders Her Child and Hangs in 1959

Domestic violence always has a long, sad and brutal history. It is a phenomenon which pays itself forward. It is ...

William Shot Daughter Willamae, Afterward Was More Concerned His Puppy Was Okay 1959

Domestic violence shapes a nation, as much as, any given social or economic factor. It gouges out a brutal place ...

‘Charter a plane, send 300 SANDWICHES’ as Whole Families and Dynasties Win Seats In 1949 House of Assembly

Sandwiches meant money in 1949. Crisp pound notes, legal currency, to be exact! 1949 was also the year of bribery, ...

1946 Child Marriage Still Legal in Bahamas Two Decades After Change in Britain

By 1946, The Bahamas was almost twenty years behind Britain, in amending its minimum age for marriage laws. For girls, ...

Hundreds of Arranged Marriages In Nassau To Get Greek Nationals Into America 1947, 1948, 1949 and longer

Necessity is the mother of invention, as an old saying goes. Necessity, in The Bahamas, in the late 1940s, was ...

Newly Appointed Magistrate Turnquest Has Disturbing Case On First Day At Work – October 1959

On October 9, 1959, Orville Turnquest, a young lawyer, took his seat for the very first time as Acting Magistrate ...

Jailor of Runaway Slaves Saw Opportunity To Make Money – He Opened School For Free Coloured Children Charging 8 shillings per month

Free people of colour, or the mixed raced, in Nassau, were in desperate need of schooling for their children. So ...

7,000 Attend Triple Hanging On Bay Street 1827 and 3,000 Attend Gwyn Hanging on Eastern Parade 1850

As late as 1900, felony offences, such as rape and larceny, under Bahamian law, were punishable by hanging. This coincided ...

Taylor and Stevenson Who Started the PLP Run AGAINST PLP in Historic 1967 Elections

Part of the history of the PLP, in an unexpected way, resembles something akin to a pivotal point, in the ...

Only the PLP Could Have Started Rumour That Caused 700 Squatters To Try Claim Pop Symonette Land – 1967

Juicy government leaks only truly began with the PLP government in 1967. Don’t believe me? Well, consider that, for the ...

Rape Murder of 14-year-old Teresetta McGregor – Crime Which Should Have Shocked The Bahamas For A Generation – But Didn’t 1967

There are no statues to the many innocents, who have died at the hands of predators, pedophiles and domestic brutalisers ...

Bahamians Fought in the Vietnam War 1967

The Vietnam War, grew to become an unpopular war, for Americans. It lasted 19 years, 5 months, 4 weeks and ...

PLP Congratulated on ‘New Day’ Win As Over 2,000 Work Permits Are Approved In First Six Months While Shantytowns Expand – 1967

‘Square Deal’ was the Progressive Liberal Party’s campaign slogan for the 1967 General Elections. For many, at the time, there ...

Where the people’s Money GONE? Here’s where YOUR money gone! 1967

Just 72 hours before the 10th January 1967 general elections, Minister of Finance, Sir Stafford Sands, decided to tell the ...

A Second Queen’s Staircase Proposed To Honour Bahamians Killed In World War I – 1921

The death of Private Allen Johnson, from Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera was announced in the Nassau newspapers of 20th July 1916, ...

On the shoulders of Giants: Leon E. H. Dupuch, father of Sir Etienne and Founder of The Tribune newspaper dies 1914

When the roll of heroes, legends, creators and change makers, is called, Leon Edward Hartman Dupuch, Founder and Editor of ...

Bahamian Negro Emigrated To Canada attended McGill University 1921

Bahamians have been emigrating to Canada for over 100 years. Consider that, in 1910, more than 100 years ago, a ...

Convene ARAGONITE Commission of Economic Inquiry as a matter of Public Transparency – Then, let the chips fall where they may!

There needs to be a Commission of Economic Inquiry, convened, as a matter of urgent public interest and promised transparency, ...

Historical Lie of the Selfless Politician in 1967 Produced Problem of Political Demigods in the Modern Day

How do you get people, generations in fact, to believe something that is patently untrue. A lie. A bold faced, ...

‘No Votes’ Paul Adderley’s Party Defeat in 1967 Not One Candidate Got His Deposit Back

1967 was a tough year to be a political third party. The United Bahamian Party had old money at their ...

First 3 Bahamian Depositors When Royal Bank of Canada (Bahamas) Opened 1908

Royal Bank of Canada (Bahamas) RBC, opened its doors to savings customers on 2nd November 1908. The bank’s first three ...

Sidney Poitier Stands Godfather For Premier Lynden Pindling’s Youngest – 10th December 1967

In The Bahamas, by 10th December 1967, other than Premier Lynden Pindling, the most famous Bahamian was Hollywood actor Sidney ...

Milo Butler’s “seclusively segregated” draws guffaws from Opposition UBP, then Cecil, Foulkes, Hanna and Clarence Bain jumped in 1967

The Bahamas doesn’t need lectures in political democracy - it can give lectures. For three hundred years now, and counting, ...

Savaletta Hanna – forged will of black, illiterate, poor farmer and LAND – You know how it ends – Freeport 1967

Savaletta Lewis Hanna died of a stroke on 30th December 1953. She was 80 years old. Savaletta would have been ...

Stafford Sands was so mad after UBP lost in 1967, he sold the lucrative monopoly City Markets

Politics in The Bahamas isn’t for the thin-skinned or the faint of heart. When your political party loses, there is ...

Advertisement for Principal of new College of Bahamas – Salary B$14,000 per year – 1969

From 1969, it was always the dream that the new College of the Bahamas, would eventually become a University of ...

Dr. John Coakley’s Slave Branded On The Chest With I.C.

Long before the colonial administrative system for slave registration was introduced, there was quite an elaborate information network for the ...

Dichotomies During Slavery: Sold, Runaway, Revered – Mackay, Maria and Flora 1808

In 1808, three women, Flora, Maria and Mackay, all slaves, offer an altogether common picture surrounding the institution of slavery ...

Barak Morton, William Whylly and other Planters who owed Government for granted land as Slavery ended 1834

“The land is the only thing in the world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it's ...

Silver Cup Made In London Given To James Carmichael Smyth by Free Coloured Inhabitants of Bahamas 1834

By March 1833, the Bahamas Assembly, who unequivocally loathed Governor, Sir James Carmichael Smyth, had succeeded in having his governorship ...

Bahamas Assembly Pays £36 To Stop Slave Compensation Claim For Negro Hanged Four Days After Emancipation 1835

Castletown Roberts, a slave, was hung on August 5th, 1834. It was a Tuesday. Castletown was hung, from the top ...

Mary Ann, slave of Member of Assembly for Exuma, delivered twins and triplets 1835

Mary Ann was a slave on the island of Exuma. She was the property of Henderson Ferguson, who became a ...

Friday 22nd. June, 1832, Columbus Statue Erected Amid Battle Over Slavery Between Assembly and Governor Carmichael Smyth

On 22nd June, 1832, a statue of Christopher Columbus, was unveiled, at Government House for the very first time. While ...

Photos of The General Strike of 1958

The General Strike of 1958, initially began as a taxicab strike. The government created and politically appointed, Airports Board, gave ...

Vote Granted To Murray G. Farquharson, Free Person of Colour, By An Act of the Assembly Was Undoubtedly Political 1830

In January 1830, Murray G. Farquharson, a free, person of colour, was politically gifted with one of the highest honours ...

Elections 1832 – Fights, Cheating, Negroes and Coloureds Vote and Riot, Candidates Beaten Up, Winners Woke Up As Losers

Freeholder blacks and coloureds, in the Bahama Islands, voted in 1832 - a full two years - before the end ...

Turks and Caicos Forced To Pay Separation Debt To Nassau To Be Free Of Bahama Islands 1848

Independence debt or Separation debt, however one wishes to call it, historically speaking, meant that territories were forced to pay ...

Crimes of Slaves, Free Blacks and Whites in Mid-Colonial 1800s Bahamas

During the 1800s, the mid-colonial era of the Bahamas, theft of property, was a very serious a crime. Serious theft, ...

General Elections 1962 – UBP Wax Lyrical About Losing – Winning Came As A Surprise

By mid-year, 1961, the United Bahamian Party, was undoubtedly feeling the cold tide of political change, swirling around them. General ...

Bahamian Millionaires Run For Parliament 1982, 1987, 2007, 2012 and 2021

In 1982, the number of self-declared millionaires to the total number of candidates, vying for the 43 available parliamentary seats ...

17-year-old A. F. Adderley Wins Top Essay Prize Denstone College, England 1909

The extraordinary life and achievements of Alfred Francis Adderley continue to reveal themselves. In an era of colonial British Bahamian ...

Tartan To Commemorate Bahamian-Scottish Heritage Officially Recognised 1966

Scottish-Bahamian heritage, survives in The Bahamas today, through many historical surnames, as well as, a tartan print, officially recognised by ...

A Clever Man Marries A Drunkard – A Week Later One Of Them Is Dead – Was it Murder? 1881

Murder is a tricky business - ask anyone serving 20 to life in prison - if you don’t believe me ...

Government Tries But Fails To Recover Money Embezzled by Jailed Member of Assembly Thomas N. G. Clare 1891

Thomas Narcisse George Clare was one of the youngest men ever to be elected to the House of Assembly. Born ...

Member Of Assembly Convicted of ‘Tiefin’ Da People’s Money’ Election Declared Void 1890

In 1889, the conviction of Thomas Narcisse George Clare for ‘tiefin’ da people’s money’ while in public office, caused his ...

Rosiliza Price, 100-year-old Great-Grandmother of Sprinter Tommy Robinson loses claim to valuable acres on Paradise Island in favour of War Time Nazi Sympathiser Alex Wenner-Gren 1961

100-year-old Ms. Rosiliza Price went to her grave fighting for the generation rights to a valuable strip of land on ...

When Sir Roland Rejected Harry Oakes’s Daughter’s Deal For Her Own Casino Licence In Exchange For Education Money 1965

If truth be told, Harry Oakes’s money and influence, resided in The Bahamas longer than the man himself. More than ...

“Spottie” Most Famous Potcake Adopted From Nassau By Movie Actor Peter Lawford 1938

In The Bahamas, street dogs, once called simply wild dogs, then Nassau dogs or Bahama dogs are now commonly referred ...

Black Bahamian Bootleggers’ Money Did Not Turn Into Generation Wealth – Why?

Black Bahamian rum-runners or bootleggers, made a lot of money - it just didn’t last. There are quite straightforward explanations ...

Year The Bahamas Entered Billion Dollar GDP Club and Largest Single Jump In GDP Brought Unwanted Attention To Offshore Banking Sector

Is the naked Bahamas, still a wealthy country? That is, without its golden, dream coat of foreign money and foreign ...

“Represents the enterprise and determination of the Bahamian people to develop and process the rich resources of land and sea…” 1973

One of the best interpretations, as to what the colours of the Bahamian flag signify, doesn’t invent adoration for symbols ...

Bahamians Samuel Kard, colored, Jew and Simon Brown, white, Protestant Forced to convert to Catholicism Hours Before Executed in Cuba 1873

Maybe, Bahamians Samuel Kard and Simon Brown, were simply hapless ship workers, caught up in world events, finding themselves, albeit ...

Founder of Sandilands Village and FoxHill —Justice Robert Sandilands Had To Find God After Getting Shot For Being Biggety – 1831

Robert Sandilands arrived in the Bahama Islands in 1830. Sandilands was a rich slave owner and plantation owner. This earned ...

Account Number 505 – My Father’s Bank Book 1967-1973

For that generation of Bahamians, born in 1943 like my dad, the bank book represented unique hopes and aspirations. 1943 ...

William Anthony Musgrave Sheriff Wins City of Nassau Election Unopposed With 55 Votes Then Immediately Introduces A Bill To Ensure His Pension 1880

Colonialism represented a type of oneness, in terms of the administration of territories. Colonialism was also a great career builder ...

Former Slave Sharper Montell and his former slave masters Francis Montell and Son 1864

By 1864, slavery in the Bahama Islands, had only been abolished some 30 years. This was no time at all ...

Governor John Gregory Dies After Catching Yellow Fever At Funeral Of Man Who Died From Yellow Fever – Nassau July 1853

Bahamas Governor John Gregory took ill with yellow fever on Monday. Got worse on Tuesday. Rallied on Wednesday. Declined on ...

The Executive has no power to enforce compulsory vaccination – October 1864

In October 1864, a war of words erupted over commentary posted in the local Nassau newspaper. The very inference that ...

As Negroes Realised Political Power, Bahama Friendly Society and Anglo-African League Engage in a Public War of Words on Emancipation Day 1888

By 1888, it had been approximately fifty years, since the early end of slave apprenticeship. Many changes to the negro ...

Earliest Black Student at St. Catherine’s College Cambridge was Bahamian Alfred Francis Adderley 1912

To this very day, according to St. Catherine’s College Cambridge’s website, there is an academic prize, established by a legacy ...

First of August Eventually Became Emancipation Day

The anniversary of the abolition of slavery, in The Bahamas, was originally called ‘The First of August.’ It would be ...

Nassau Negro Working On Blockade Boat Refuses Confederate Money For His Pineapples and Nassau Man Kept His Confederate Flag for 60 years

Slavery had been abolished in the British West Indies in 1834. By 1863, some 29 years later, a new generation ...

Pindling Planned Protest For Prince Philip’s First Visit to Bahamas April 1959

The news of the passing of His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and husband of Her Majesty, Queen ...

Henry Milton Taylor Founder of PLP Party in 1953 Formally Joins UBP Party in 1971

In 1971, Henry Milton Taylor, founding member of the Progressive Liberal Party in 1953, was rueing the day that he ...

The White Man’s Economics- UBP $10 million Government Surplus in 1967 But Still Voted Out Boasting 75% Negro Membership

1967 wasn’t about economics; but by 1970 it was. The general elections of January 1967 was a fight over love ...

Dr. Horace Perigord and Dr. Alonzo Holly, Haitian Consuls To Bahamas at Its Strategic Southern Gateway of Inagua

Haitian diplomats to The Bahamas, in the early 1900s, were enormously distinguished men. More than career civil servants or political ...

Ousted Haitian President General Firmin Flees To Inagua With Over 300 Hundred Who Never Left 1902

Haiti’s history of revolutions and revolutionary leaders is a long one. In 1902, one ousted Haitian leader, General Joseph Auguste ...

A Black Middle Class Long Before 1967 Challenges Narrative Of Total Abject Poverty For Bahamian Negroes

A Bahamian black middle class existed long before Majority Rule in 1967. Albeit, this social and economic class did not ...

Accomplished Brothers Henry Ethelbert Sigismund Reeves and Cleveland Harrington Reeves 1919

Henry Ethelbert Sigismund Reeves (1882-1970) and Cleveland Harrington Reeves (1891-1985) were tremendously accomplished men. Brothers, born in The Bahamas before ...

Englerston, Romanian born J. S. Engler’s Dream Subdivision 1925

Englerston, as a planned subdivision, was conceived of almost one hundred years ago, during a time when most of the ...

Monetising History (1821-2021): Two Hundred Years Since the Seminoles Settled Andros, Time To Capitalise on Chickcharney, Bosee-Amasee and Yahoos Folklore

Words like Tallahassee, Okeechobee, Coacoohee, Cohedgo and Amathla are all from America’s Seminole Indian tradition. Some are the names of ...

Nassau Prostitutes Selling Their Wares For Less Than a Dollar and One Unforgettable Case of The Clap, Nassau, 1940

Venereal diseases were rampant, in The Bahamas, in the 1800s. Most cases, especially on the Out Islands, went untreated until ...

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats – Progressive Liberalism in The Bahamas 1967

For The Bahamas, since January 1967, Progressive Liberalism it can be said, became the first organised political ideology. It remains ...

William Paterson Founder of the Bank of England was once a Wealthy Merchant In New Providence, The Bahamas

William Paterson, who went on to become the founder of the Bank of England, it was said, made his colonial ...

Uriah McPhee, The Death That Solidified Black Power Politics in The Bahamas 1968

Nestled between Augusta and Nassau Streets, in the heart of old Nassau, there rests in the solemn, underbrush challenged Western ...

Resigned PLP Education Minister Cecil Wallace-Whitfield Beaten When Ten Men Try To Stop Political Meeting – Freeport November 1970

Ten men, bent on rendering violence and mayhem, in order to stop a political meeting of rebel PLP members, were ...

American Armed Robber Buys Bahamian Passport And Becomes Dr. Micheal James Robertson of Cable Beach 1984

For $25,000, an American armoured car robber, managed to buy a Bahamian passport and a new fugitive life in Cable ...

Eric Wiberg Travelled 10,000 Nautical Miles To Chronicle Bahamian Maritime History

For The Bahamas, these incomparable, crystal blue waters have long been an intrinsic part of its economic and social history ...

Unusual Deaths From Long Time 1940 – 1960 Part One

Death in the African tradition is a complicated process. The process of Death encompasses magic and gods and chieftains and ...

Consumption, La Grippe, Syphilis, Typhoid, Fever: Major Causes of Death in The Bahamas 1917 – 1920

Reading historical death records may not be the exciting of things to do on any given day. However, during a ...

Attesting to the Pure Whiteness of George Granville Morton of Palmetto Point, Eleuthera 1907

For Bahamian whites and those hoping to pass for white, there were tough times ahead, as they emigrated from the ...

Tracing Forgotten History of one novel flu virus “Wuhan Flu” H3N2 (1978 – 1998)

As the sun rose over the Bahama Islands, on Thursday, April 16th, 2020, this small island nation, found itself locked ...

Polio Epidemic Hits Bahamas With Ban and Mandatory 14 Day Quarantine For Foreign Arrivals 1946. Polio Outbreak Causes Immunization of Entire Population 1964

In the early 20th century, few diseases were more dreaded, than the crippling infantile paralysis disease, called polio. Polio, short ...

Coronal Cold To Coronavirus To Covid-19 – 1970 to 2020

On 27 March 2020, nine cases of the Covid-19, novel coronavirus, were confirmed for The Bahamas. One recorded hospitalisation and ...

Flu Pandemic Sees Bahamas Bootleggers Making Money From Whiskey Cure for Deadly Influenza 1920

In March 2020, as the coronavirus, or Covid-19, began to negatively affect the fortunes of the Bahamas, it is interesting ...

19-Year-Old Mary Gertrude Baker, A Negro Maid With Great Courage, Got A Lawyer And Fought Back 1951

In 1951, Mary Gertrude Baker was one Bahamian woman, who was determined to stand up for herself. She knew she ...

Lucayan Beach Hotel, From Boom To Bust, From Government Purchase To Commission of Inquiry, From Gangsters To Bankruptcy

The Lucayan Beach Hotel, in Freeport, Grand Bahama, began life, in the early 1960s, as a result of breathtakingly audacious ...

Haiti’s Compensation Debt To France: Is It Really To Blame For The Present Poverty of Haiti? 1825

On 1st. February 1838, the Republic of Haiti and the Kingdom of France signed a new treaty of peace, giving ...

Illegal Haitian Immigration into The Bahamas, Britain Gives Up, Leaving It To An Under Resourced Bahamian Government 1963 – 1965

By 1963, the illegal Haitian migration problem, had all but overwhelmed, British colonial officials, in Nassau. Reliance on regulations contained ...

The CDP, NDP, ABC, CCKG, BYPA – New Bahamian Political Parties and Activist Groups 1966

Secret intelligence files, from 1966, released only after the thirty-year rule, reveal that nothing escaped the watchful eye of British ...

The Rise and Demise of Bahamianization 1967 – 1983

Bahamianization was once a fully formulated, implemented political ideology. Its twenty year popular rise, post 1967, was to address the ...

Prime Minister Pindling Drops His $4m Canadian Filed Defamation Lawsuit Against American Television Station NBC 1989

The drug years ostensibly began in the late 1970s. Drug trafficking started with marijuana smuggled out of South America headed ...

Twenty Percent of Teenagers Giving Birth at PMH Were In Fifth to Ninth Pregnancy 1979

A presumptive causal link between social and economic unrest on the one hand and its growing negro population on the ...

Bahamas Government Act To Compensate Storm Victims For Property Damage and Personal Injury 1850

A witness said they saw four negro children. They had been struck dead. Their bodies buried under the ruins, which ...

The Last Shah of Iran, Frail and Desperately Sick, Forced To Leave Nassau After Two Months June 1979

One of the penultimate photos of the last Shah of Iran, in the Bahamas, was of the deposed ruler being ...

UBP Party Leaves Bahamas Number 1 On International Blacklist February 13, 1967

By 13th February, 1967, less than a month after what would become the most historically significant, and far reaching political ...

Affluent Negroes During Slavery – Who was Free Black Attorney Henry Forbes?1822

Were there affluent, educated free blacks, during slavery in the Bahamas? Simple probabilities say there must have been. Could there ...

Free Black Women and Free Women of Colour Who Owned Slaves Bahamas Slave Register 1822

How did black women and women of colour obtain their freedom and come to possess their own slaves? How were ...

Canada Accuses UBP Education Minister Godfrey Kelly of Trying To Profit From Donation of School Desks 1967

By 1967, Canadian authorities had had just about enough of the millionaire-rich, beggar-poor UBP (United Bahamian Party) Bahamas government. They ...

Whatever Happened To The Slave Relics Found By Sir Harry Oakes As He Cleared His Thousands of Acres In Nassau 1938

If truth be told, Sir Harry Oakes wasted his life and fortune in the Bahamas. He was neither mourned, nor ...

Ebo Venus, Hard Times and Good Luck, the Slaves of Alexander Forbes of Exuma 1822

The surname Forbes, like Rolle, and Bain are some of the more prevalent surnames in the Bahamas. They, like many ...

Chole, Black Female Slave Sold Early 1822, Mulatto Baby Jessie, Born December 1822 Watlings Island, Bahamas

What did it mean to be female and black during slavery? It symbolised nothing good that's for sure. Being constantly ...

Slaveowner Robert Taylor Gifts His Minor Son John, A 10-Year-Old Female Slave Named Scilla 1825

Scilla, was a 10-year-old slave girl, in New Providence, in 1822. She had been sold off from the estate of ...

Registrar’s Tally of Slaves for the Bahama Islands 1825

James Armbrister was the Slave Registrar for the Bahama Islands. He signed off, providing the official seal, on the total ...

Black Slave Owner Richard Owens and Daughter Mary Owens, Free Woman of Colour, Sold Slaves 1825

Black slaveowners remains a quarrelsome subject. A number of free blacks and free coloureds, in the Bahamas, owned slaves. And ...

Freeman’s Hall Plantation, Cat Island and 15 Slaves For Sale in 1812; For Sale Today Minus the Slaves and Sheep

Substantial crown land grants, given to the Loyalists, an assortment of British settlers, and to a miscellaneous hodgepodge of opportunist ...

Forgotten Black Owned Bahamian Bank, Ortland H. Bodie Sr.’s Mutual United Bank of Bahamas Ltd. 1962

Ortland H. Bodie Sr. was a smart, ambitious Bahamian businessman. He had to be. As a black Bahamian opening his ...

Every Curry in the Bahamas Today Are Descendants of Five Scottish Loyalist Brothers Joseph, John, Richard, Benjamin and William Curry

The Curry surname, in the Bahamas, came from Scotland. According to a 1962 research paper entitled The American Loyalists in ...

Governor Ranfurly calling the UBP “recalcitrant, stubborn and politically obtuse” and the coloured people “extremely ignorant and easily led” 1956

Governor Ranfurly wrote that Milo Butler was "hugely fat and unattractive coloured man without a brain in his head." Ranfurly's ...

“The House of Assembly is the House of the People” PLP Party Magazine 1956

In terms of understanding modern Bahamian political history, there is no bypassing the beginnings of the Progressive Liberal Party. In ...

Secret 1970 British File On UBP Party Meeting in London, To Try To Stop Independence, Declassified in 2001

In 1970, three UBP Party members, Reginald Lobosky, Geoffrey Johnstone and Eric Watkins, arranged for a secret meeting with British ...

Haitian Slave in Nassau, said to be past 60 years old, Named Touissant 1822

What if, by some strange twist of secret history, Haitian Military Leader, General and best known figure of the Haitian ...

Secret Political File on Progressive Liberal Party 1957 Declassified (London) 1988

In 1957, when a visiting Colonial Office official from London, came to the Bahamas, he accepted a dinner invitation from ...

Declassified Under British 30 Year Rule Confidential Assessment File on top Bahamian Political Figures 1966

No one in this world, was more obsessed with what colour Sir Roland Symonette was, than white British people. From ...

Former Slave Sam Charged With Hiding Runaway Apprentice Tulip, Disobeying His Master and Working the King’s Land Without Permission, The Bluff, Eleuthera, 1835

In the Bahamas, we know next to nothing about the British colonial governors, who oversaw and administered, the public affairs ...

Could Bahamas History of Deposits In British Joint Colonial Fund Support Idea for Modern Day Sovereign Wealth Fund 1962

Could a Sovereign Wealth Fund be established today to benefit the long term interests of the Bahamian people? Some modern ...

Harbour Islanders Say No To Electricity 1943

Bahamians call electricity - current. Such as strange word in today's vernacular, don't you think? To those unfamiliar with history ...

Most Brilliant Speech Ever Made at Bahamas Bar by Negro Barrister the Hon. A. F. Adderley During Oakes Murder Trial 1943

"He who goes to law holds a wolf by the ears." In 1943, the most accomplished lawyer in the Bahamas ...

Wealthy Bahamian Negro and Father of 49 Children Claims Hospital Wrongly Removed Testicle 1970

In July 1965, wealthy Bahamian negro Ortland H. Bodie Sr. checked himself into the Osteopathic General Hospital in Florida, for ...

American Thanksgiving in the Bahamas 1935

A 1935 photo of a Bahamian woman, carrying a rather large turkey on her head, gives some indication of just ...

Haitian Revolutionary Party Manages To Assemble 3,000 Strong Force Under The Nose of the Bahamas Government 1963

In August 1963, the United Bahamian Party (UBP) government, was caught off guard. A substantial national security threat was looming ...

“Guard Our Heritage” Celebrating 250 Years of Parliamentary Democracy 1979

With its 1973 independence, a new Social Contract had been psychosocially and constitutionally enacted between the Bahamian government and the ...

Adelaide’s Poor Negro Population of 80 Raises 18 Shillings and Bahamas Government Sends Priceless Antique Cannon to Scrap Metal War Effort in England 1941

Sacrifice, is a word so gratuitously used today, that it is easy forget superlative moments in the history of mankind, ...

E. P. Taylor’s Vast New Providence Land Stock Listed on Toronto Stock Exchange 1979

From Mount Pleasant to South Ocean to Lyford Cay to Old Fort Bay, Canadian land speculator Ernest Plunket Taylor once ...

Murder of Peter Abrahams, 97-Year-Old South African Pan-Africanist in Jamaica Typified The Predictable End To So Many Black Social Movements 2017

Pan Africanism once represented the high aspirations of negro intellectualism and black self-determination philosophy. It began as a thought experiment, ...

Britain’s Plan To Settle 50,000 Assyrian Christians From Iraq To Their Former Slave Colony British Guiana 1934

Once upon a time, the globe was like a giant chessboard for Great Britain. It could move and manipulate assets ...

100 Scottish-Irish Bahamians and Thousands of Black Bahamians Exported As Labourers To America 1945

If we look to great stories of historical importance, especially those whose origins begin in the ocean crossing annals of ...

Famous Deportations Part 1 – Man Who Claimed He Loaned Pindling Money For 1967 Campaign, Deported 1969, Named In Plot To Kill Pindling 1973

Deportation is a tool, either anonymously administered through procedure or strategically targeted through vigilance. In the end, it is an ...

Bahamian MP Agrees To $14.5 Million Out Of Court Settlement For Fatal Car Crash In Florida 1985

On June 4, 1984, near Port Saint Lucie, Florida, a horrific car accident left American Paul Coombs, a husband and ...

Miami Woman Exhibits Deed To 120 Acres In Abaco Granted By King William 1925

Every war that has ever been fought, in the world, was because of it. Early man walked out of Africa ...

A Ship Wreck of 300 Slaves on Green Turtle Cay Brings Call Of Too Many Free Negroes From New Providence 1816

By 1816, continued wrecks and capture of slave ships, across the archipelago of the Bahamas, suddenly brought unexpected social and ...

French Buy Egyptian Negroes To Send Them Unknowingly To Fight War In Mexico 1863

By 1863, more than four hundred long, miserable years had passed since the first negroes had been taken, from the ...

Popular Bahamas Police Band Performance “Beat Retreat” Explained

Some of greatest military manoeuvres in history involved the retreat. The Retreat of Dunkirk during World War II, the March ...

No Cubans Allowed! Bahamian Government Decree To Deport Every Arriving Cuban National 1964

Communism and the threat of it spreading into democratic nations, in the West, was to be stopped at all costs ...

When The Seas So Cherished Came Upon This Land – An Ode To The Afterward of Hurricane Dorian 2019

For the Bahamas, the sea has afforded every beauty and bounty, to every life that has ever existed on its ...

Common Journey better known as Johnny Cake, An Early Mention In A Poem About Two Women Marrying Each Other 1799

Common Journey is perhaps the most appropriate name for the bread, which has, over the past two hundred years or ...

Bahamas Receives Haitian Flag in 1830 But By 1843 France Sends War Ships When Haiti Tries To Pay Debt They Agreed To With Haitian Money

In 1830, the Bahamas Governor, James Carmichael Smith, had been instructed by England to receive the Haitian flag and afford ...

Whatever Happened To The 200 Haitian Pickers on the Bahama Star Citrus Farm in Abaco 1993

Migration has often been depicted as a major problem for struggling developing countries, whether as receiver or sender nation. The ...

Green Turtle Cay People Hardly Bathed And Marsh Harbour Was Just A 1,500 Orange Tree Plantation 1851

In 1851, people from Green Turtle Cay hardly bathed for fear of catching cold. We might laugh at this old ...

Abaco Farm Owned By Member of Parliament Attracts 800 Haitians Every Season To Plant And Harvest Cucumbers “the grounds turn mushy with mud” 1982

The polemic over the Haitian presence, in the Bahamas, is an 80-year-old ongoing, unsettled debate. For Haiti, its economic and ...

First Idea For British West Indian Federation Rejected In 1891 Then Revived To Be Rejected Again 1897

In 1891, more than half a century before it actually came to fruition, the idea for a British West Indian ...

60 Hour Hurricane Sends British Administrator Dundas Running For His Life, Puts Nassau and Grants Town Underwater And Kills Former Evangelist and First Proclaimed Poet Laureate H. C. Christie of Bahamas 1929

Hurricane, is one of the oldest words, in the Western Hemisphere. Incredibly, it has survived, since it was first heard ...

Getty Oil Awarded Exploratory Licences To Drill In Bahamas For An Undisclosed Bonus Amount 1982

When companies, with a globally recognised name like Getty Oil, throw their hundreds of millions behind an oil exploration venture, ...

Promoting Light Industries Brings Cigarette Manufacturing To Bahamas 1953

In the 1950s, cigarette smoking, was the ultimate leisure time activity. Movie stars to millionaires could be seen lighting up ...

UBP Brand Still Strong As Electrician Cleophus Adderley Wins Over PLP Milo Butler Jr In By-Election 1967

Politics, in the Bahamas, is like a fickle sweetheart. Many have taken her to their warm bed at night, only ...

$3,000 Move That Began A Slow End To Tony Curry’s Promising Baseball Career 1961

In 1959, Bahamian Tony Curry was named the MVP of the Eastern Minor League, leading with 179 hits, 108 runs ...

Stafford Sands Hired Private Police For Bahamas Government Work And Later To Protect His Daughter From Her Husband 1967

In May 1967, during a U. S. Senate investigation hearings on electronic eavesdropping, it was disclosed that Sir Stafford Sands, ...

First Black US Presidential Candidate In Nassau’s Foxhill Prison 1979

Clennon Washington King, was the first black man to run as an independent for president of the United States, in ...

Famous But Forgotten Suicides in Bahamas: Cuban Awaiting Extradition to Only Son of Universal Studios President to Nassau Mass Murderer 1888 – 1964

How one views the act of suicide, greatly depends on one's outlook on life and one's time of life. Throughout ...

Spying For The Nazis From Cat Cay Bahamas 1940

In 1939, a German-born woman, working as a hotel maid in New York, married the wireless operator on Cat Cay, ...

Catharine Richardson, The Negro Sweetheart, Sold Into Slavery Because His Wife Wouldn’t Understand, Nassau 1809

Catharine Richardson, a free born negro woman from New York, was sold into slavery, in Nassau, in 1809. Then, but, ...

‘What Tommy Robinson Know About Business Or Running Any Pharmacy’ Black Crab Politics 1967

Politics, in the Bahamas, changed after January 1967. Attitudes changed as well. Orchestrations that the United Bahamian Party (UBP), white-minority ...

Oldest Bell In Western Hemisphere Taken From Andros Island in 1885

Is the bell, which once hung in the African Methodist Church in Haleyville, New Jersey between 1886 to 1947, the ...

CALL THE MIDWIFE 1953

In 1953, there were 257 licensed midwives in the Bahamas. In fact, there were more licensed midwives than there were ...

Alexander C. Stuart, Seven Feet Tall Bahamian Albino Negro, London 1847

In 1847, Nassau born, Alexander Charles Stuart, was walking down the streets of fashionable Mayfair, in London. Stuart, described as ...

Touissant Lagorille, Negro Money Maker Whose Genius Financed Haitian Emperor Faustin Soulouque

Touissant Lagorille, was the genius, negro moneymaker and banker for the Kingdom of Haiti, under the rule of Emperor Faustin ...

£15m Loan In 1835 To Compensate British Slaveowners Finally Paid In 2015

On February 9, 2018, HM Treasury (Her Majesty's Treasury) via its Twitter account, from London, tweeted a most extraordinary bit ...

Sir Roland Symonette “It is my considered opinion that the roach did not consume much of the rum” House of Assembly 1961

Some reckon that part of the good old days, was when Bahamians weren't scared of anything. Your old Grammy and ...

August 1st Emancipation Day Should Also Remind The Bahamas Their Historic Role In Enabling Slavery In America 1861 – 1865

As the August 1st annual celebration of Slavery Emancipation, is observed once again, present day Bahamians, should also be cognisant ...

Bahama Islands Were Once One Giant Landmass or Mountain Range Says Scientists 1893, 1934, 1953, 1956, 1965, 1970, 1985

A myriad of curiously shaped landmasses comprise the islands of the Bahamas. They represent just a brief 120-million-years of earth's ...

American Race History: Louis Till Hanged In Italy 1945, His Son Emmett Till Hanged In 1955

On July 2, 1945, Private Louis Till, a negro soldier, of the 177th Port Company was executed in Italy for ...

Precedent Charitable Trust Case Based On Money Left By Wealthy Foreigner For The Education of Whites Only In Bahamas 1953, 1970, 1983, 1986

In 1953, Stafford Sands became the trustee, of a discretionary fund established to underwrite the education of white Bahamians, exclusively ...

Trying To Reopen Harry Oakes Case Almost Costs Cyril Stevenson His Life 1959

The killer of Sir Harry Oakes, was still alive and well, and living brazenly in the open, in Nassau, in ...

Climate Study Concludes Bahamian Heat Makes Generationally Lazy People 1915

Fear drove the ideas behind the eugenics, master race, movement of the 20th century. Books, like Civilisation and Climate, written ...

Probate Notice For Samuel Minors A Free Black Man 1799

Who was Samuel Minors, a Free Black Man, who died in 1799? With so much of Bahamian history, lacking in ...

Was The Stench From Outdoor Toilets Blocking Sale of Royal Victoria Hotel For 33 Years 1866

It took 33 years to finally sell the Royal Victoria Hotel. It sold in 1898 to E. L. Flagler. Was ...

Indian Lascar Killed And Two Runaway Negroes Captured By Slave Catchers Nassau 1785

How did a Lascar, all the way from the East Indies, become a runaway slave, in Nassau? Moreover, why was ...

Cyril Stevenson Uncovers Who Got The Most Road Building Contract Money 1958

Prior to 1967, the 7Cs did not apply to the process of awarding Bahamas government contracts. Contract. Costs. Competencies. Connections ...

19th Century Propaganda: Most Poisonous Plant In The Bahamas Linked to Obeah 1888

One day, the principles and teachings of Obeahism, the once ancient practices of African-Caribbean people, will be to the world, ...

COFFEE SHOP MEETING ORGANISED BY JOHN CRUDEN LEADS TO EVENTUAL MERCHANT CLASS RULE Nassau 1785

John Cruden, an angry, disgruntled Loyalist driven out Florida in 1784, called a meeting of British Merchants, in Nassau, in ...

Loyalists Tax Exemption Extended From 7 To 15 Years: AND THEN THEY TOOK THE GOVERNMENT 1784 – 1785

If we are bound to repeat the unheeded lessons of history, then, in the future, the Bahamas will fight for ...

Bahamas Patent Registration 1889 – 1967

Of the few hundred or so patents registered in the Bahamas, between 1889 to 1967, there are only a handful ...

10.12 p.m. House of Commons, London: Bahamas Independence Bill Read Lord Balniel Begins…15 May 1973

By 21st September 1972, mere moments after the results of the general elections were called, the date of national independence ...

First UBP Convention After Political Loss, First PLP Convention After Political Win 1968

1968 was a tumultuous, rollercoaster year for politics in the Bahamas. A new political cement was hardening. Realities had sunk ...

Negro Bahamas Friendly Society, Lodges and Other Societies Finance Political Movement To Circumvent Bay Street Capitalists 1944

In 1944, the 110-year-old, Bahamas Friendly Society, under the leadership of W. E. Dorsett, began to pave a new road ...

128 Slaves of Wealthy James Moss Member of the House of Assembly Sold To Jamaica… Here Are Their Names 1822

All who sat in the House of Assembly, before 1834, were slave owners. Slaves were the only source of wealth ...

United Daughters of the Confederacy Present Book To Stafford Sands For Nassau Public Library 1962

I hope that revisionist, racist book on the glory of Confederate history, given to the Nassau Public Library in 1962, ...

We Called Ourselves The First Republic In The Western Hemisphere To Get Tourists 1947

Did the Bahamas really begin life as a Republic! It's second life that is. The first one belonged to the ...

New Minister of Health Milo Butler In Conflict of Interest Because He Was An Undertaker 1967

Conflict of interest for Bahamian government ministers only became an issue after 1967. After that is, a negro-led party took ...

Stafford Sands Spends Some Of His Corruptly Gotten Millions in Italy 1968

The 1960s was good to Sir Stafford Sands CBE, MP; that is, until 1967. In January 1967, the seat of ...

Whatever Happened To The Priceless 1652 Silver Bar Found Off Gorda Cay In 1950

Treasure found in the Bahamas represents the proceeds of slavery. There I said it! I say it because we need ...

Whatever Happened To The Hoard Of Priceless Coins Turned Over To The Bahamas Government in 1965

There has never really been a formal, nationally published accounting of all the archeological treasure, in the possession, of the ...

Winston Churchill Heard Singing Bahamian Tune ‘Mama Don’t Want No Rice’ 1942

There is probably a rather simple reason why Winston Churchill would remember a song he heard in the Bahamas in ...

Schoolmasters Beating Coloured Boys and Old White Men From America Sneaking Off To Meet Dusky Ladies in Grants Town’ 1884

Schoolmasters bending negro boys over desks to get a whacking and old white men from America, telling their wives that ...

“And After Ya Hang Me, Kiss Mah A**” Jamaican Slaves Henry and George Hanged in 1824, Captured in ‘No Surrender’ Scene in the movie Mandingo 1975

"...And after ya hang me, kiss mah ass," are the final words of the slave Cicero before he his hanged ...

Selling Land They Never Paid For: Plantations and Slaves For Sale 1822

Land, is a contentious topic, in the Bahamas. And for good reason. A famous person once wrote, "Unhappy the land ...

Man Hush Ya Mouth! The Elusive Rum Runner Capt. Symonette Was No Negro 1922

With that fiery Bahamian island sun, turning the very tar on the streets to boiling molasses, it's just too hot ...

Dr. Archie Donaldson, First Ever Black Multimillionaire Thoroughbred Horse Owner 1978

The Bahamas can claim a famous 'Archie' of its very own in world history. By 1978, Bahamian physician, Dr. Archie ...

Yellow Negro From Bahamas Exhibited at Zoological Society In Ireland 1843

The truth about the negro, as an experimentally exhibited, poked and prodded living object, in history, has been largely forgotten ...

Visitations of Violence: Slavery and Negro Children

A ten month old beaten to death on a slave ship. A fifteen year old girl with gonorrhoea, hung naked, ...

Conchy Joe Problems! When Bay Street Oligarchs and Foreign Investors Fight 1942

When the rich fight, they don't play by the same rules as the poor. In the Bahamas, poor negroes like ...

Governor Refused Assistance of George Washington Carver Because There Would Be No Place For Him To Stay 1942

There are only two possible Bahamas Governors who could have refused the help of Dr. George Washington Carver because he ...

Did George Washington Contract Smallpox In Nassau and Did His Brother Really Die in the Bahamas in 1751

In 1899, the American media had been carrying a story on the life of George Washington, which mentioned that he ...

Edgar Mayhew Bacon, Third Generation Bahamian and Prolific American Writer 1889

In 1889, Bahamian born Edgar Mayhew Bacon, then an acclaimed American author with many published books to his credit, returned ...

British Transport 109 Irish Convicts To Settle Abaco 1785

As early as 1752, in an effort to populate the many near uninhabited islands of the Bahamas, the British began ...

Divorced Bahamian Mothers Finally Get Equal Custody Rights To Their Children 1961

Prior to 1961, in the Bahamas, one of the reasons why many unhappily married women stayed in broken marriages was ...

Pig Feet Souse Is No More Bahamian Than Duff Is

The Bahamian staple food dish of pig feet 'souse' is not of native island origin. Souse is, in fact, an ...

Las Vegas Prostitutes For Bahamian Officials in 1969 Revealed In Gambling Licence Testimony in 1979

How did paying for prostitutes, for Bahamian government officials, who ran out of money, on a trip to Las Vegas, ...

Cannibalism to Incest: Stories in Bahamian Negro Folklore 1895

Cultures and traditions, outside of Europe, between the 15th to 19th centuries, were roundly dismissed as primitive. Whatever intellectual property ...

Was Dr. Meyer Rassin’s Permit Application Denied Because He Was Jewish 1946

During World War II, if there had been no RAF Wing Commander Meyer Rassin, stationed in Nassau, to be in ...

Skyline Heights, No Portion Shall Be Sold To Anyone Who Is Not of the Pure Blood White Race 1957

A word of advice. When you see the old generation of Bahamians, sitting on the front porch, talking about the ...

His Highness Prince Bishnu Shumshere of Nepal Found Dead in Cable Beach, Nassau 1946

Prince Bishnu Shumshere, the fantastically wealthy son of the Maharajah of Nepal, was found dead, in bed, in his home, ...

Praying So Hard To Stop Casino Gambling, We Never Saw The Storm Of Drugs Coming 1977

From the days of slavery, to emancipation, to the push for civil rights, the journey for negro people, since 1492, ...

Police Even Took His Balls! “Father Allen” Caught Selling Numbers From His Chicken Shack 1965

Four very important things one needs to understand about the numbers racket and the predominantly negro area of East Street, ...

Whatever Happened to FIRST BAHAMAS INVESTMENT TRUST OFFERING SHARES TO BAHAMIANS 1965

In the 1960s, for the average Bahamian, access to the wealth creating stock market of the United States wasn't even ...

Bahamas Are Not In The Caribbean and That’s Final 1960

By 1960, after a few hundred years of historical associations, the link, putting the Bahamas somewhere in the Caribbean Sea, ...

Sliced Beef Tenderloin À la Pindling February 10th 1967

À la, in the gourmet culinary world, as well as in the popular vernacular, was shortened when borrowed from the ...

Walter Wilfred Parker, An Early 20th Century “Sunshine Boy” 1922

The ethos of the original Sunshine Boys, who founded, the Sunshine Group Ltd., in the Bahamas, in the mid 1970s, ...

Fervour and Simplicity – The PLP CAMPAIGN MANIFESTO (in pictures) 1962

A published declaration of intentions, motives, or views of the issuer. That's really all a manifesto is. But throughout history, ...

First Negro Motorcycle Policemen In The World Nassau 1927

The history of negro policemen, in The Bahamas, goes all the way back to the early 1800s. Nassau Police Force ...

Merchants and Government Conspire To Create Food Import Dependency 1915

At some point, in the late 1800s, the penny, the economic penny that is, dropped for the merchant class, and ...

Queen’s Honours Bestowed On Bahamas Police Force 1966

The year was 1966. Thursday, April 21st. Elizabeth II, Queen of England, was celebrating her 40th birthday. Her Majesty was ...

300,000 Acres of Crown Land in Grand Bahama Leased for 99 years in 1925

At the beginning of the 20th century, Grand Bahama presented a significant problem, in terms of economic, and social development ...

Leslie Miller Breaking Track and Field Records for 440 yard dash 1966

Sport has long been a pathway to scholarships for secondary and tertiary education abroad, for many naturally gifted Bahamian athletes ...

A Nassau Family Photo Of Nine Little Ni**ers 1897

Within the pages of a 1897, pictorial coffee table book entitled, The Queen's Empire, there sits a photo, of a ...

2,000 Illegal Bahamian Immigrants Hunted By U.S. Federal Agents 1935

Shockwaves from the catastrophe created by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, reverberated like an economic tsunami, through the Bahamas ...

Bahama Negroes Contracted To Work on Panama Canal Sent To Monkey Hill Station 1905

When Bahama negroes complained about living conditions, just days after arriving as labourers on the Panama Canal, they were called ...

Bahamas Democratic Party (BDP) Decimates The Free National Movement (FNM) Then Disappears Like Dust 1977

By 1977, there were any number of appropriate aphorisms that could have been used to describe the curious debacles, which ...

Afro-Bahamian Club Calls For African and Black Man’s History To Be Taught In Schools 1966

The black man's history began long before slavery. Popular African history, however, for as long as many can remember, centred ...

Miss Germany Wins The Miss Bahamas International Beauty Contest For The Second Time 1966

Sir Stafford Sands, had an immense economic vision for the Bahamas. It is why he is credited with being the ...

Commonwealth Meant Family 1968

How to create a "Family," in every sense of the word, was one of the greatest challenges the Bahamas government ...

When Bahamian Women Finally Got The Vote They Didn’t Vote For A Woman 1962

Critically speaking, the beginning of the struggle for women's suffrage, in the Bahamas, had nothing to do with women or ...

Randol Fawkes First Person In Parliament To Shout Independence August 1966

Oddly enough, the first call for Bahamian independence came long before Prime Minister Lynden Pindling would make it a primary ...

Tribune Responds To Baseball Legend Jackie Robinson’s Observation on Majority Rule February 1967

The victory of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) in January 1967, which ushered in the first Majority Rule government in ...

‘The Bahamian Woman Has Always Been A Highly Sexed Individual… And I Say Thank God For That’ 1975

At some point, after 1967, the all too accepted "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" way of life in the Bahamas, ...

The Men Who Built Rock Sound, Eleuthera In A Pre-Independent Bahamas 1940 (part one)

Rock Sound, Eleuthera was once known as Wreck Sound. It was called Wreck Sound during the ferocious pirate years when ...

“Wasn’t Me. One White Man Did It” Said Negro Church Deacon Convicted Of Extortion Of The Widow of Sir Harry Oakes 1950

In the Bahamas, prior to 1950, the word extortion was probably used as much as the word Jupiter. Few knew ...

What do Jehovah’s Witnesses, Rock Concerts and Ziggy Marley’s Band All Have in Common in the Bahamas?

As it relates to The Bahamas, what do Jehovah's Witnesses, Rock Concerts and Ziggy Marley's Band all have in common? ...

800 Slaves Sacrificed in Tribute on the Death of GEZO the Great Slave King of Dahomey 1858

For the Bahamas, there are many reasons, hundreds, probably a few thousand reasons why it's negro descendants of liberated African ...

Slavery Across The British West Indies (part 3) Wife Jealous of the Bed Wench Jamaica 1786

It was in 1655, under the rule of Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector, that the British took Jamaica from the ...

Cascarilla of the Bahamas Was Once the Marijuana of the Early 1900s

With all the brouhaha surrounding Jamaica and its new medical marijuana export industry, it is easy to forget that the ...

Dundas Civic Center – Training Negroes For A New Style Plantation 1931

Many contentious arguments have been made over the years, that the Bahamas seemingly traded one plantation type existence for another, ...

Battle Lines Drawn Over Control of Freeport 1969

In 1969, regarding the battle over Freeport, a London paper wrote, "Black power is an element, certainly, in the Bahamas ...

Cotton Tree Law – Blessed Be The Law of the Elders

Apparently, the Great Silk Cotton Tree, that once stood on Bay Street, came from South Carolina courtesy of a British ...

Lynden Pindling and Adam Clayton Powell and the One Share Which Almost Derailed The Quiet Revolution 1967

In January 1967, just as negro Bahamians were celebrating a pinnacle point, in their quiet revolution for political and economic ...

Spree Killer Murders 6 People, Wounds 6, Then Kills Himself Nassau 1964

On Wednesday, May 20th., 1964, around 7:00 p.m. or so in the evening, somewhere in Over-the-Hill, Nassau, Rueben Rolle, a ...

Slavery Across the British West Indies (part 2) Two Young Boys Get One Hundred Lashes Each Over A Pair of Stockings – Nevis 1817

During slavery, there was one singular, openly declared, and lawfully protected rule in the West Indies. It was that the ...

Slavery Across the British West Indies (part 1) – Master Who Killed His Slave Because He Allowed A Mango To Fall From His Tree – Tortola 1811

A most important question has been posed to Bahamianology.com - "What was slavery like in other British colonies and around ...

World’s First Under The Sea Post Office Nassau Bahamas 1939

The Photosphere was so famous that the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, came to the Bahamas, to see ...

Off The Streets If Your Shorts Are Too Short 1942

You wouldn't think it looking around Nassau today, but there was once a very strict dress code in place, in ...

Intimidation and Terrorism By The New Loyalists On New Providence 1784

In 1784, the Loyalists began a campaign of intimidation, bordering on terrorism, in Nassau. What else would you call a ...

Husband Finds Wife In Bed With Another Man Then Slices Lover’s Ears Off on Grand Bahama 1824

John D. Smith of Grand Bahama was one angry white man in 1824. Smith had only one thing on his ...

Two Bahamian Negroes Killed By Miami Police 1927/1928

In the southern States of America, of the early 1900s, the Bahamian negro encountered a form of vicious racism and ...

Oil Drilling Rights Given To Company Headed By Former FBI Agent and Person Active in the Formation of the State of Israel 1958

In 1958, as the situation in Cuba was becoming increasingly unstable, the Bahamas government gave land drilling rights, to a ...