World Wars, Labour, Suffrage and Majority Rule
War and its consequences
In the First World War Bahamians served and the colony suffered economic disruption; in the Second World War the Bahamas hosted Allied facilities, and the Duke of Windsor served as governor from 1940. Wartime employment and migration to Nassau changed expectations and exposed poor wages and conditions.
Labour and suffrage
Post-war discontent produced the labour movement of the 1940s and 1950s, with trade unions organising workers and the Burma Road riot of 1942 as a landmark of protest against low pay and poor conditions. The women's suffrage movement, associated with figures such as Mary Ingraham and Georgianna Symonette, pressed for votes for women, achieved in 1962. A new constitution in 1963 widened the franchise and introduced ministerial government.
Majority rule and independence
In 1967 the Progressive Liberal Party won government under Lynden Pindling, ending the political dominance of the white merchant elite, a change remembered as majority rule. The Bahamas became internally self-governing and then independent on 10 July 1973 within the Commonwealth, with Pindling as first prime minister. Candidates should link labour organising, suffrage reform and party politics as a chain of pressure producing majority rule.
Traps to expect
Do not date women's suffrage to independence or to 1967; it came in 1962. Do not describe majority rule as independence: they are separate events, 1967 and 1973.
Rule of thumb
Build a chain: war experience, labour unrest, women's suffrage 1962, new constitution 1963, majority rule 1967, independence 1973.