Ironies underly the history of the land known as Oakes Field. It was Harold G. Christie (H. G. Christie) who was behind the sale of all that land to Sir Harry Oakes in 1937.
Just six years later, it would be H. G. Christie who was the first to find the murdered body of Sir Harry Oakes on the morning of 8th July 1943.
H. G. Christie as he stood over the bludgeoned body of the murdered millionaire— called his brother Frank Christie first— even before calling the police.
Then, just over a decade later, in 1955, it would be Frank Christie as Aviation Chairman who would be selling Oakes Field’s land off, bit by bit, after the airfield was no longer needed.
In 1955, it was Frank Christie MHA and Aviation Chairman who had the final word on the prices of Oakes Field land, in particular, land in Section A, which had originally belonged to poor negroes, but was taken by the government in 1944.
Frank Christie would tell negro landowners that ten years after the government took their land, they could buy it back at 2500% more than they were paid. And, they had just two weeks to pay.
Timeline
In 1944, negro landowners in the renamed area of Oakes Field were told that their land was needed for the war effort.
Even though Windsor Airfield was also in operation at that time, private land of negroes, just outside of Oakes Field, was acquired by the Bahamas government.
By August 1945, both Oakes Field and Windsor Field had been decommissioned. The last 1,000 R.A.F personnel, the last British airmen in The Bahamas were sent back home.
The question then became, what was to become of Oakes Field. During the war, this question was asked and answered as Members of the Assembly foresaw what incredible possibilities were opening up across the world in the field of commercial aviation.
By 1952, Oakes Field Civil Airport was one of the largest commercial airports in the West Indies.
In 1955, Oaks Field airport operations are shuttered in favour of Windsor Field. The idea for a Nassau International Airport is born.
Harry Oakes’s Oakes Field
Land that became Oakes Field in the late 1930s was a combination of property once owned by Joseph Samuel Johnson (J. S. Johnson) and crown land. Over time, the boundaries of what was designated as Oakes Field were expanded.
All things considered, Harry Oakes only lived in The Bahamas for seven or eight short years. He travelled quite a bit as well. During those short years resident in Nassau really for tax purposes, Oakes spent quite a lot of time, months at a time in fact, in England where he had bought a large family home.
Between 1936 when Oakes arrived to July 1943, when he was brutally murdered in his own bed in Nassau, Oakes’s money spoke louder than the man himself.
Oakes had bought up so much land, in The Bahamas, thanks to his friend H . G. Christie that old Harry was called “King” of Nassau because he owned virtually everything.
Before war began in September 1939, Oakes had begun to clear Oakes Field with the aim of building an airport. After war had been declared in Europe, his fledgling airport became an airfield when it was commandeered by the British for the war effort.
During World War II, (1939-1945), The Bahamas was designated as being geopolitically important. Specifically, New Providence, the capital island, became an important training ground for British aircrews. Parts of Nassau served as an aircraft staging and training base for international troops headed for Europe or North Africa.
So noteworthy was the creation of an airfield in Nassau, Oakes Field airport was actually mentioned in Sir Harry Oakes’s July 1943 obituary. Noted was the singular accomplishment of clearing swampland in Nassau to make an airport.
1944 – Negro land taken for £30 per acre expands Oakes Field’s perimeter to keep natives away
In 1944, during the governorship of The Duke of Windsor abdicated king of England, government informed negro landowners, that their meagre properties, which were mostly generation property used for sharecropping, in the renamed and expanded boundary area of Oakes Field, was going to be acquired for the war effort. This was not entirely true!
By that time, privately owned land near Oakes Field, outside of what was directly owned by Sir Harry Oakes, wasn’t needed so much for the war effort, as much as it was needed to: firstly, ensure native negroes stayed well beyond new perimeter lines. By 1944, there were well over 1,000 white British troops in Nassau. Fraternisation was not encouraged.
Secondly, more land was needed, to begin expansion of commercial aviation operations, in Nassau, as soon as the war ended.
Negro landowners had no voice or choice in the matter. Their land was taken to expand Oakes Field. In return they were paid just £30 per acre on a compulsory purchase legislation under the Acquisition of Land Act.
Under compulsory purchase legislation, land owners were told that their property was important to the war effort. Therefore, any hindrance would not only be seen as unhelpful, but unpatriotic as well.
For negroes in a racially divided 1944 Bahamas, to be labelled as troublesome and unpatriotic, would have meant social and employment ostracism or worse.
1955 – Negroes told they can buy their Oakes Field property back for 2500% more than what they were paid by government in 1944
Ten years later, by 1955, with the likes of Stafford Sands, Roland Symonette, H. G. Christie and the Bay Street Boys now fully in charge of the House of Assembly, and the entire Bahamas for that matter, it was decided that Nassau had outgrown its parochial Oakes Field Civil Airport.
It was decided that in order for tourism, development and new aviation opportunities to begin, the airport at Oakes Field needed to move to a larger location.
Monies were needed to build a new airport at Windsor Airfield. This Windsor Airfield would eventually become Nassau International Airport.
One of the principal reasons for moving the airport from Oakes Field to Windsor Field was a new luxury development taking shape in the west called Lyford Cay. To accommodate Lyford Cay development, the airport was moved.
Who would help pay for it? Poor Nassau negroes in Oakes Field!
Oakes Field’s former private landowners were told they could buy back their own land. In many instances, land acquired by the government in 1944 was never actually used for anything. After the war ended in 1945, Oakes Field became the first commercial airport.
However, whereas the government bought it in 1944 for £30 per acre. In 1955, negroes were told, that it would cost them £750 per acre to get their land back at a 2500% markup. Land that was once theirs, free and clear of any mortgages or encumbrances, would now require a mortgage to purchase.
Landowners trying to buy back their Oakes Field properties were informed that the price of £750 per acre, required 10% down with balance due two weeks later.
Some landowners were further advised, they would have to settle for alternative sites, as their original land was already earmarked for someone or something else.
Bert Cambridge MHA Southern District tells House of Assembly “Oakes Field Land Prices Too High” for former owners to repurchase
The Nassau Guardian Wednesday 12th January 1955
The Nassau Guardian Wednesday 11th April 1956
It was Bert Cambridge Senior Member for the Southern District who rose in the House in 1955 to declare that land prices being offered to former Oakes Field landowners was simply too high.
Gerald Cash MHA offered that maybe the government would allow negroes to buy some back at a reasonable price and some at the new price. Etienne Dupuch MHA agreed with Cash. Neither offered any ideas, what a reasonable price could possibly be, for poor negroes who never wanted to give up their land in the first place.
Randol Fawkes holds meeting for former negro property owners of Oakes Field
December 1955, as former property owners faced losing any chance of reacquiring their Oakes Field properties back, Randol Fawkes arranged a meeting.
Negroes were paid £30 an acre in 1944, but just a few years later, government was trying to sell them back their own land for £750 an acre.
In 1944 they had no bargaining power and no choice. They had to take the £30 and move. In 1955, they had to find £750 to get back what they never wanted to sell in the first place.
