Warm sun, rum drinks, and your toes in the sand are some of the best images that immediately come to mind when you hear the word ?Bahamas?. Besides them being an island paradise in the Caribbean, this popular vacation destination forms an archipelago that stretches 100,000 square miles and includes seven hundred islands. The world's largest barrier reef can be found in the waters surrounding the Bahamas and the most popular destination sites for swimming snorkelling and general fun in the sun may be one of the many uninhabited islands or cays.



The fourteen most notable islands in the chain are the central hubs for all the rest. They include Nassau, Grand Bahama Island, and the twelve ?Out Islands? that include Cat Island with its highest point in the chain, and San Salvador, the island Christopher Columbus first set foot on 1492. The name of the island chain came from ?baja mar?, which means ?shallow water or sea?. The proximity to Florida and the many shipping lanes that were discovered after Columbus landed there opened the chain up to settlers, traders, and invaders. It was also home to some very famous pirates over the centuries.

Based on archaeological digs across the islands, the Bahamian natives were there as early as 300 to 400 AD and most likely came from Cuba. The Lucayan Indians settled the area about six hundred years later after fleeing their enemies in Lesser Antilles. They were summarily enslaved by Columbus centuries later and the entire tribe was wiped out by disease and famine twenty-five years later.

The Bahamas were once again settled by strangers when English Puritans landed there in 1648 in search of religious freedom. Settlements and trade routes with Massachusetts were established and eventually Harbour Island was settled to protect the towns from Spanish raiders. Of course by the 1700's, the archipelago chain had other, nastier raiders to deal with. They went by the names of Blackbeard, Calico Jack, Sir Henry Morgan, and Anne Bonney. As a point of trivia interest, Henry Morgan became the governor of Port Royal, Jamaica, the city featured so prominently in the ?Pirates of the Caribbean? trilogy.

By the 1860's, the Bahamas became a stopping point for British merchants looking to obtain cotton produced in the southern states of America. Because of the Civil War, they were blockaded from the coast. Bahamian blockade runners intervened, running from the islands to Charleston and back again with cotton loads. The Bahamas prospered until 1919 when the United States prohibited alcohol. Smuggling, like in the days of the pirates, became popular once again. The islands economy collapsed, though, when prohibition was lifted and the sponge harvesting off the reef collapsed.

By this point, the islands shifted gears and began to promote tourism to the islands. After all, there were hotels and steam service to the country. It quickly became an economic boon for the islands even though they suffered through two World Wars. When Cuba was closed to American tourists in 1961, the Bahamas? tourism catapulted. They made accommodations available for cruise ships and connected Nassau and Paradise Island by a bridge. In 1969, Great Britain released one of her last colonies, and the archipelago became officially known as the Commonwealth of the Bahamas on July 10, 1973.