We recently visited the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas with our kids and grandkids, and completely enjoyed the luxury of the accommodations, the extensive Aquaventure Water Park, interacting with dolphins and sea lions, the vast aquariums, amazing meals, and impeccable service (at a high but what I judged to be a fair price). The driver who took us back to the airport in Nassau after our vacation made me reflect on our trip when he told us we had missed out by not taking a trip into the town. He pointed out numerous historical sites of interest, including a statue of Christopher Columbus. I realized I had very little knowledge of the history of the Bahamas or its people. I did a bit of Internet searching, and found what I consider to be some fascinating facts I wish I had known when we were planning the trip.  The Wikipedia article I will extensively quote observes the information should be reviewed by an expert, but I didn’t find discrepancies on the official Bahamas history site.

The first inhabitants of the Bahamas were the Lucayans or the Taino people, who arrived between 500 and 800 A.D. from other Caribbean islands. Recorded history begins with the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Columbus intended to sail to India for spice trade, and when he landed on an island in the Bahamas he called it “Indies.” He then named the Lucayans “Indians,” and the error resulting from him not knowing where he was would be repeated when explorers encountered indigenous peoples throughout the Americas.

The peaceful nature of the Lucayans was exploited by the Spanish, who enslaved them and transported them to Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti). There were 40,000 people enslaved in twenty years. The Spaniards decided to transport the remaining Lucayans to Hispaniola in 1520, and found only eleven people. The islands remained uninhabited for 130 years. An English Puritan group from Bermuda founded a colony in 1649 and struggled with food shortages. The colony was supported with supplies provided by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

English privateers established themselves in the late 1600s, and Nassau eventually became the “pirate’s republic” with Blackbeard, Calico Jack., Anne Bonny and Mary Read using the islands as their base. A British governor, Woodes Rogers, arrived in 1718 and pardoned pirates willing to surrender and fought those who didn’t. The Bahamas fell to Spanish forces in 1782, but a British-American Loyalist expedition retook the islands without a fight. Most of the current inhabitants are descended from the African slaves brought to work on the Loyalist plantations established from land grants issued by the British. The slaves were freed after the British abolished the slave trade in 1807. The islands were deforested as plantations were built.

The Bahamas prospered during the American Civil War as a base for Confederate blockade runners. Rum running thrived during the American prohibition, and the enormous inflow of revenue ended with the repeal of prohibition.  Drugs eventually replaced rum, and at one time it was estimated that as much as 90 percent of the cocaine destined for the United States passed through the Bahamas.

The Hotel and Steam Ship Service act of 1898 inspired the beginnings of thriving tourism  by providing government support to the construction of hotels and subsidizes to steamship service. The closure of Cuba to Americans gave an additional boost to tourism. The Bahamas achieved self-government in 1964 and full independence on July 10, 1973, and is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Learning something about the history of the islands increased my appreciation of the friendly service by every single person we encountered at the Atlantis resort. We and the other thousands of other guests were obviously the source of great jobs for large numbers of Bahamians, and our experience was universally positive. However, I can’t quite escape an uneasy feeling about the divide between the wealth of the visitors and the economics of those providing all that wonderful service. That uneasy feeling was reinforced when my wife asked me to go the movie The Help. We joined about thirty women and watched the story of how black maids raised white children and did all the work in Mississippi households in an atmosphere of ruthless discrimination. I hope those who served us in Atlantis were comfortable that we were polite and appreciative of our interaction with them.