BGCSE History (1454) key terms

The indigenous Taíno-speaking people who lived in The Bahamas before Europeans arrived, organised into small communities led by chiefs and living by fishing, farming and gathering.

The hereditary chief of a Lucayan community, who directed fishing, farming and trade and held religious and ceremonial authority over the villages under his rule.

A fan-leafed palm whose leaves the Lucayans dried and plaited into mats, baskets and roofing, and which remained a basic craft material for Bahamians in later centuries.

The transfer of plants, animals, people and diseases between the Americas and Europe after 1492, which brought new foods and fatal epidemics to the Caribbean islands.

The Bahamian island, called Guanahaní by its Lucayan inhabitants, where Christopher Columbus first landed in October 1492 during his first voyage to the Americas.

A Spanish colonial grant giving a settler the right to demand labour from a group of indigenous people, a system that helped destroy the Lucayan population of The Bahamas.

English settlers led by William Sayle who arrived in The Bahamas in 1648 seeking religious freedom, founding a colony on Eleuthera after conflict with the Bermuda government.

The group of English noblemen granted ownership of The Bahamas by King Charles II in 1670, with authority to govern, tax and grant land in the islands.

The town on New Providence that became the colony's capital and main port, named after the royal House of Orange-Nassau and repeatedly attacked by foreign fleets.

A colony governed directly by the Crown through an appointed governor and council rather than by private proprietors, a status The Bahamas gained in 1718.

The first royal governor of The Bahamas, appointed in 1718, who suppressed piracy, restored orderly government and organised the colony's defences against Spain.

The seizing of ships and cargo by armed crews, widespread in Bahamian waters in the early 1700s and suppressed under royal governors who offered pardons and imposed order.

American colonists who remained loyal to Britain during the American Revolution and moved to The Bahamas after 1783, bringing enslaved people and plantation ambitions with them.

A large estate growing cotton with enslaved labour, established by Loyalist settlers on Bahamian islands after 1783 but largely ruined by soil exhaustion and insect pests.

The system in which people were treated as property, bought and sold, and forced to work without pay, which shaped Bahamian society and the economy until abolition in 1834.

The ending of the slave trade and then of slavery itself by British law, with the trade banned in 1807 and slavery abolished throughout British colonies in 1834.

The legal freeing of enslaved people, achieved in The Bahamas in 1834 when the British Abolition Act took effect and enslaved people became legally free.

The transitional system after 1834 that required freed people to work unpaid for former owners for a set period, ended early in 1838 after protests and pressure.

The elected lower chamber of the Bahamian legislature, established in the eighteenth century, which became the main forum for challenging colonial governors and later for advancing majority rule.

The body of rules setting out how a country is governed and what rights its people hold; The Bahamas' current constitution took effect at independence in 1973.

The salvage of cargo and vessels from ships stranded on Bahamian reefs, a major source of income and employment in the nineteenth century regulated by licensing laws.

The harvesting and export of natural sea sponges from Bahamian waters, which became a leading industry in the late nineteenth century before disease destroyed the beds.

The system in which Bahamian workers were recruited under written agreements for fixed terms, often on foreign plantations or in the United States, with limited legal protection.

The movement of Bahamians to other countries, especially the United States and Cuba, in search of work, which shaped the islands' population and family life.

The industry of hosting visitors, which grew from the late nineteenth century and replaced wrecking and sponging as the mainstay of the Bahamian economy.

A nineteenth-century law granting subsidies to steamship lines and hotels that brought winter visitors to Nassau, an early example of government promotion of tourism.

The smuggling of goods past enemy naval lines, notably by Bahamian merchants during the American Civil War, which brought brief prosperity to Nassau.

The principle that political power should rest with the elected majority of citizens rather than a small elite, achieved in The Bahamas with the 1967 election.

The political party founded in 1953 that led the movement for majority rule and formed the government after winning the 1967 general election.

The leader of the Progressive Liberal Party who became the first premier and then prime minister of The Bahamas, guiding the country to majority rule and independence.

The party formed in the 1950s by the merchant elite, sometimes called the Bay Street Boys, which dominated the House of Assembly until its defeat in 1967.

The achievement of full self-government, which The Bahamas attained on 10 July 1973 when it ceased to be a British colony and became an independent nation.

The voluntary association of states, most formerly British colonies, that cooperate on shared goals; The Bahamas joined as an independent member in 1973.

The representative of the monarch in an independent Commonwealth realm, who performs ceremonial and constitutional duties such as appointing the prime minister.

A Bahamian festival of costumes, drums and dancing held on Boxing Day and New Year's Day, rooted in enslaved people's traditions and now a national cultural symbol.