BGCSE History flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Lucayans

Indigenous Taíno-speaking people who settled the Bahamas from the Greater Antilles around 700–900 CE and were largely destroyed by Spanish raids and disease after 1492.

Guanahaní

The Lucayan name for the island where Columbus first landed in 1492, conventionally identified with San Salvador in the Bahamas.

Eleutheran Adventurers

English settlers from Bermuda who established a colony on Eleuthera in 1648, seeking religious freedom and new land.

Woodes Rogers

First royal governor of the Bahamas (arrived 1718), who suppressed piracy and restored orderly government at Nassau.

Slavery Abolition Act 1833

British law that abolished slavery in most British colonies, taking effect on 1 August 1834, including in the Bahamas.

Apprenticeship system

Post-emancipation scheme (1834–1838) binding former slaves to former owners as unpaid apprentices; it ended early in 1838 after resistance and administrative failure.

Liberated Africans

Africans freed from slave ships by British naval patrols after 1807 and settled in the Bahamas, especially in Nassau's Grants Town and Bain Town.

Loyalist settlement

Influx of American Loyalist refugees and their enslaved people into the Bahamas after 1783, expanding the plantation economy and population.

Cotton boom

Brief Bahamian cotton-planting expansion in the 1780s–1790s that collapsed around 1800 due to soil exhaustion and pests.

Wrecking

Salvage of cargo and vessels stranded on Bahamian reefs and banks, a major nineteenth-century industry that declined with steam ships and lighthouses.

Sponge fishing

Harvesting of sponges from the Bahama Banks, peaking around 1900 and collapsing after a blight in the late 1930s.

Salt raking

Extraction of salt from shallow ponds on islands such as Inagua and Exuma, a steady export industry from the eighteenth century.

House of Assembly

Elected lower house of the Bahamian legislature, established in 1729 and central to the colony's political development.

1964 constitution

Bahamian constitution granting internal self-government with a premier and cabinet responsible to the legislature.

1969 constitution

Constitutional change renaming the premier as prime minister and the colony as the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.

1973 constitution

Constitution of the independent Bahamas, establishing a Westminster-style parliamentary system with a governor-general and bicameral Parliament.

Burma Road riot

1942 labour disturbance in Nassau reflecting low wages and poor working conditions, a landmark in the Bahamian labour movement.

Women's suffrage 1962

Bahamian campaign that secured the vote for women in 1962, led by figures such as Mary Ingraham and Georgiana Symonette.

Progressive Liberal Party

Bahamian political party founded in 1953 that mobilised the black majority and won the 1967 election, beginning majority rule.

Majority rule 1967

The 1967 general election victory of the PLP under Lynden Pindling, transferring political power to the black majority.

Duke of Windsor

Governor of the Bahamas (1940–1945) during World War II, a period of wartime administration and American presence.

Independence 1973

The Bahamas became independent on 10 July 1973 as a Commonwealth realm with Queen Elizabeth II as head of state.

Governor-general

Representative of the Bahamian monarch in the independent Bahamas, performing ceremonial and constitutional functions.

Offshore finance

Bahamian economic sector providing banking and financial services to non-residents, which grew strongly after independence.

Tourism economy

Dominant Bahamian economic sector based on visitors, especially from the United States, shaping employment and development after World War II.

CARICOM

Caribbean Community, a regional organisation for economic and political cooperation that the Bahamas joined in 1983.

Haitian migration

Movement of Haitians to the Bahamas, especially since the 1960s, shaping demographics and immigration policy debates.

OAS membership

The Bahamas joined the Organisation of American States in 1982, linking it to hemispheric diplomacy and cooperation.

Primary source

A document or artefact created at the time under study, such as a letter, official record, or newspaper, used as direct evidence.

Secondary source

A later interpretation or synthesis, such as a history textbook, that analyses primary evidence rather than originating it.

Causation

Historical reasoning that identifies and weighs long-term causes and short-term triggers, avoiding single-cause explanations.

Historiography

The study of how historical interpretations have changed over time, including the assumptions and debates of historians.