The author is a British trained architect with a degree in
urban planning from Harvard University. He first visited Bahamas Islands in
1960 as a town planner of FreePort city of the Bahamas. He is also an
archaeologist and founder of the Lucayan National Park and author of many
articles and research papers about the islands. His love for the Bahamas led
him to write about the advent of humanity into these islands right from the
beginning to its development in the present days.
It all starts with few hundreds of a nomadic tribe belonging
to the Mongolian race somewhere in Gobi desert of Central Asia decide to move
out in search of better lands. They start their long journey with their captive
animals like Bactrian camels, yaks, goats, bighorn sheep etc. They pass through
the Sayan mountains, Orchon River, Lake Baikal, Lena River and reach the sea of
Orkotsk in eastern Siberia. Since the two continents of Asia and America were
joined at that time in winters due to low sea levels, the tribe trekked across
the now Bering Strait and made the first landfall on the western most part of
America, also called as the First Crossing. This main migration of the Asians
to the Americas down south, some fifty thousand years ago led to the creation
of empires of the Maya, Aztecs and Inca across the new American continents.
Several tribes gave their names to the lands they occupied but soon perished
after the arrival of European explorers.
The islands of the inland sea between the two Americas were
first inhabited by the jungle tribe called Casimiroids. The first of these
islands to be colonised by them was Cuba then Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto
Rico somewhere in 4190 BC. When the population of these Stone Age people (now
called as Antilleans) swelled, they further moved North to find the magnificent
Bahamian Archipelago. This archipelago extends for about 550 miles from its
southernmost island of Inagua to the northernmost island of Abacos, near
Florida of USA, consisting of around 700 islands and cays (roughly the size of
Italy) out of which only a maximum of 30 namely Abacos, Eleuthera, Cat Island,
Exumas, Long Island, Andros and Inagua to name a few that are inhabited. The
Bahamas islands are known for its vast coral reefs which actually protect them
from ocean swells. The word ‘barbeque’ has come from these islands where
cooking over open fire was called by the Antilleans ‘barbecu’. Even the words
like tabacu (tobacco), batata (potato), hurricane (uruka), hammock (hamaka),
cannibal (caniba), canoe (canoa) seem to have originated from the tribes of
Bahamas.
In around 200 BC, the Arawak tribes from northern part of
Amazon rain forest migrated to Venezuela and from there to the Caribbean basin
and then colonised the Bahamas. By around 400 AD, these Arawaks assimilated the
native Antilleans and have adopted a new language Taino and were called as
Ciboneys or rock dwellers. By 600AD, Bahamas was fully occupied by the Ciboneys
and formed the rootstock of Lucayan Indians. The Lucayans were described by
Columbus as handsome people with graceful bodies, broad foreheads, coarse hair,
yellowish skin tone, erect spines and without bellies. Women were equally
beautiful and sexually very attractive and active. The tribe was healthy,
athletic, immune to many diseases, almost naked, sexually active, fun loving
and practiced “Sati” (an act of burning down of the woman in the same funeral
pyre of husband). Their priests presided over a religion that had several male
and female gods. They believed in life after death and worshipped sun, bats,
tortoises, conch and other zoomorphic beings, trees and mountains too. Their
worship included garlands made with flowers and leaves and a universal chant
“ommmmm”.
The Lucayan Indians later developed their own language and
culture. It was Columbus from Spain, over 500 years ago, in his quest for gold,
who first landed on an island called San Salvador of Bahamas and found that the
islands were already inhabited by some local tribes who spoke a strange
language believed to be from India. The Treaty of Tordesillas signed in 1494,
granted Spain the exclusive right to colonise lands found 2000 km west of Cape
Verde Islands of Europe and the same distance east to Portugal. Hence, Bahamas
unwillingly fell into great new Spanish empire. The Lucayans had no immunity to
diseases brought by the Europeans and soon one half of the population perished
due to fierce epidemics. Those who have survived have been carried away as
slaves to Europe and other distant lands in America.
The Spanish lost interest in the Bahamas after the discovery
of more fertile lands like Peru, Mexico and other western parts of North
America which led to the entry of the British into the islands. The British
after colonising Bermuda, deeply penetrated Bahamas with their Christian
religious impositions on the locals, by banning idol worship and their local
customs. In 1670, the British Crown granted exclusive rights to some eight
‘Lords Proprietors’ to own and enjoy Bahamas Islands in perpetuity and
established an administrative centre at an island called New Providence, with
Nassau (earlier Charles Town) as its capital port city, comprising of a total
of 913 inhabitants out of which 413 were slaves. Later, in 1718, the greatest
Governor of Bahamas, Woodes Rogers, was appointed. The brutal charter of the
Lords Proprietors granted the owners autocratic and militaristic rights for
penalty, imprisonment or death upon the people in case of rebellion or anarchy.
Woodes was the man who suppressed the most troublesome
problem of the colonial Bahamas, and that was the Pirates. Famous pirates like blood
thirsty Edward Teach (BlackBeard), Hornigold, Jennings, Burgess, White and Vane
apart from female pirates like Anne Bonne and Mary Read operated from the
capital city of Nassau. As early as 1505, slaves were transported from Western
Africa to Bahamas, auctioned and sold away to wealthy settlers in America later
to be brutally put to inhuman living conditions. Even the smallest offences by
these slaves would attract most cruel punishments like being burnt alive and
tortured till death. This cruelty finally ended with the Emancipation Act of
1834 when slavery was finally abolished. At a later stage, the local British
settlers of America, who were not given ample recognition by the Crown in
England, participated in a secret alliance with the French to rebel under the
leadership of George Washington and later declare independence. Bahamas thus
became part of the American Revolutionary War.
In the nineteenth century, Bahamas grew as a vibrant economy
due to its export of cotton, arms and ammunition with Nassau as its epi-centre.
Tourism picked up in the twentieth century with Bahamas offering its long
turquoise beaches, exquisite sea food, alcoholic beverages, and warm weather to
international tourists. The lifestyle of the Africans in the Bahamas has
changed drastically along with its economy and Christianity is the major
religion by the beginning of the twentieth century, supplemented with emotional
sermons, rousing music, lively singing and clapping hands. The African soul of
Bahamas is represented by its grand parade on New Year’s Day called “Junkanoo”
(probably the name of John Canoe, an African chief from Ghana). Bahama islands
have been one of the several countries of the former British Empire which 1973
onwards catapulted from the status of a colony to that of a sovereign and
independent nation with its tricolour flag comprising of black (strong people),
turquoise (sea) and gold (sun) and stood on its own feet under the new name of
Commonwealth of the Bahamas with its own political party called The Bahamas
National Party (BNP).
Pros: A beautiful saga of man’s inhabitation of distant
unknown islands narrated with some fictionalised characters, starting at Gobi
Desert of Asia to present day Bahamas Islands between the Americas. The
discovery of Bahamas Islands by man and the origin of its culture, traditions,
customs, politics, economy and lifestyle is so well narrated that the reader
will be tempted to visit the place at least once in a life time. This book can
be a treated as treasure for knowledge hunters who have the thirst to learn
about history of European colonisation of the Americas and how Africans have
originated there. The Indian connection is also cited in-between with the infamous
“Sati” practice finding a common ground between the two distant lands. Wish,
some day, it turns into a Hollywood romanticised historical fiction movie!
Cons: The reader might have to consider many fictional names
and characters in the book as real. History students must be careful on this
fact. Though the author highlights the disclaimer about this fiction mixed in
the saga, the reader is carried away by clever blend of such characters into
the real history.
My rating : 4 out of 5
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