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A Few Facts About Grand Bahama
Island
by Bobby Bahamas
Well, this is one BIG subject ... way too much for one go-round ..
so we will break it up OK? Let's start with some basics and a little
history....
Located 52 miles off the eastern
coast of Florida, Grand Bahama is the fourth-largest island in The
Bahamas and is surrounded by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.
The 700
islands of the Bahamas consist of many peaks and plateaus on a large
shelf that sticks up from the depths creating one of the best
fishing areas on the east coast.
The earliest settlers, the Siboney Indians, were a people who lived off
conch and fishing, and the shells and jewelry they left behind form
the majority of what we know about them. Their remains suggest that
they were here as early as 7,000 years ago, but disappeared after
they were superceded by another Caribbean group, the Lucayans.
The Lucayans (also called Arawaks) were a broad group of tribes who
worked their way up the Caribbean from South America's Amazon
between 5 and 7,000 years ago. When Christopher Columbus sighted San
Salvador on his first crossing in 1492, there were an estimated
40,000 of them living in The Islands of The Bahamas, with a
population of about 4,000 on Grand Bahama Island. Surprisingly
little is known about the Lucayans, a fact that comes from their
rapid extermination by the Spanish shortly after the arrival of
Columbus. It is believed they had an advanced political and social
structure, and lived in well-organized cities.
In
1861, the flow of people increased and the population of the island
virtually doubled overnight. The reason was the American Civil War.
At the outbreak of the war, The Confederacy, a mere 55 miles away,
immediately fell under a strict Union blockade and embargo. Getting
goods such as sugar, cotton, and weapons in and out of the
Confederacy was essential to the war effort, and smugglers operating
out of West End were able to command hefty prices from the South. As
soon as the war ended, however, so did the boom, but the short burst
of prosperity set an important precedent: from then on, the history
of Grand Bahama Island was intimately tied to that of the United
States.
The next smuggling boom came from a much different (and much more sought
after) banned good in the US: alcohol. If the residents of West End
had known that the 14th Amendment would bring unheard of prosperity
to their village, they probably would have lobbied for it
themselves. Prohibition brought warehouses, distilleries, bars,
supply stores, and inns to West End. The town's smugglers had the
system down to a science. They'd sail off at night, with ropes
dragging huge cylinders of liquor behind them. If the American Coast
Guard pursued, they would simply cut the ropes, wait for the patrol
to leave, then recover them.
In the 1940's American millionaire Wallace Groves saw the island's
potential and in
1955 he approached the
Bahamian government with his idea to build a town that catered to
both industry and tourists. Shortly after, a famous document known
as the Hawksbill Creek Agreement was signed, and Freeport was
born. It granted 50,000 acres of land to Groves' company, The Grand
Bahama Port Authority Ltd., with an option of adding an additional
50,000. To encourage investment, it also freed the Port Authority
from paying taxes on income, capital gains, real estate and private
property until 1985 - a provision that has since been extended to
the year 2054.
Visited by nearly a million tourists a year, Grand Bahama Island is now a
tourism hotspot, with shopping (perfume, gemstones, clothing and
crafts from around the globe), dining and activities galore. There
are a wide variety of activities both on land and in / on the water.
We will cover some of these next!
Grand
Bahama Island |
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Have fun,
Bobby Bahamas
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