Indigenous Peoples, Settlement and Colonial Beginnings
Who was where, and who came next
Candidates must know that the Bahamas' first inhabitants were the Lucayans, a Taíno-speaking people who migrated north from the Greater Antilles perhaps seven centuries before Columbus and lived on fishing, shellfish gathering, cassava and other root crops. Spanish slaving voyages after 1492 depopulated the archipelago within decades; the islands then lay largely empty of permanent settlement until English-speaking arrivals in the 1640s.
Eleutheran Adventurers and the Proprietors
Eleutheran Adventurers led by William Sayle settled Eleuthera around 1648 after religious disputes in Bermuda. In 1670 Charles II granted the Bahamas to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina; the Proprietors appointed governors and claimed rents and quitrents, while settlers on New Providence, Eleuthera and Harbour Island farmed, salvaged wrecks and traded. Royal government replaced proprietary rule in 1718 when Woodes Rogers arrived with a commission and a pardon for pirates.
Traps to expect
Questions often blur the sequence: Lucayans, then Spanish depopulation, then English settlement, then proprietary rule, then royal government. Do not confuse the Eleutheran Adventurers with the Loyalists, who came more than a century later. Also note that early Bahamian agriculture was small-scale and often failed; the colony's early survival owed more to trade, salt raking and wreck salvage than to plantations.
Rule of thumb
Date every group by its arrival: Lucayans (pre-1492), Spanish raids (early 1500s), Eleutheran Adventurers (c.1648), Proprietors (1670), Crown colony under Rogers (1718). A timeline like this settles most multiple-choice items.