Loyalists, Cotton, Wrecking and Sponges
Loyalist arrival and the cotton boom
After the American Revolution, thousands of Loyalists and the people they enslaved arrived in the Bahamas, especially from East Florida and the southern colonies, in the 1780s. They received land grants and attempted cotton cultivation on New Providence, Cat Island, Exuma and elsewhere. Cotton brought a short boom but failed because Bahamian soils and rainfall were poor and the crop exhausted the land. The collapse of cotton in the early nineteenth century reinforced dependence on the sea.
Wrecking and salt
Wrecking, the salvage of cargo from ships wrecked on the reefs and shoals, became a major industry, especially in the nineteenth century, with wreckers from Nassau and Harbour Island sailing to stranded vessels under licences and legal rules. Salt raking, notably on Inagua and the Turks Islands, supplied North American fisheries. Both trades show how geography shaped the economy: shallow banks and reefs produced profit as well as danger.
Sponge fishing and its decline
Sponge fishing grew into a leading export in the late nineteenth century, employing many Bahamians and supporting a sponge exchange in Nassau. Overfishing and a blight in the 1930s destroyed the beds, throwing thousands out of work and pushing the colony toward tourism and other activities.
Traps to expect
Do not claim cotton succeeded; it was a brief boom followed by failure. Do not treat wrecking as simple piracy: it was licensed salvage governed by law. Note the order: cotton decline, wrecking and salt, then sponges, then tourism.
Rule of thumb
Explain each industry's rise and fall by environment and external demand, not by luck alone.