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Nassau history - learn what once happend
Like other areas of the Caribbean, Nassau-Paradise Island has a romantic history-both centuries-old and decades-old-of foreign intervention, foreign occupation, piracy, slavery and smuggling. It all culminated in 1973, when the islands gained their independence from England, although they remain a part of the British Commonwealth but with autonomy. Until 1492, when Columbus "discovered" America, Bahamians lived a life so uncomplicated and straightforward, relying for sustenance on the bountiful fish the sea virtually washed to their shores. Mix that with a healthy diet of fruits and berries, and you had an organic diet that some would consider oh-so-trendy in this, the third millennium. Theirs was a life, quite simply, that was quite simple. Go back to 300 or 400 AD, which drawings and other artifacts indicate the Bahamians date back to. It was a life of living off the island land, and not much else. And it was a life destroyed when the Spanish decided they had found a slave-labor force easily put to work. This led to the near-depopulation of the islands, in the mid 1500s. Now fast-forward to the early and mid 1600s, long after Columbus discovered the sun-drenched cays. English settlers in other Caribbean Islands realized that Nassau's proximity to the recently settled New World provided opportunities never before seen in terms of shipping and trade, as well as an escape from England's religious persecution. However, the unfortunate time of piracy reared its ugly head around the same time, and lasted for more than a century. With numerous hiding places in the remote and densely vegetated islands, the buccaneers had found a crime-friendly place few of them could have dreamed. The proximity to mainland North America was the primary reason. In 1756, the Seven Years War broke out and trade - not only illegal but legal, as well positively flourished. Issues were colonists from North America and India. The fighting led to prosperity in trading on Nassau. But peace, as it often does today, flattened the economy-black-market and otherwise-when it was achieved in 1763. Piracy again became the primary economic market for those who were successful at it, Blackbeard perhaps the most famous. For those who weren't, it was a life so tough and difficult. Then the slave trade was discovered, in the 1800s, and Nassau/Paradise Island and other islands were used as weigh stations for ships transporting slaves to North America. The large ships not could steam or sail only for only a few days at a time. This made Nassau a perfect stopover to the United States. That meant Nassau's maritime workers flourished. But the end of the Civil War in the United States came, and with it the end, again, of prosperity for Nassau. Nassau's economy was unwittingly revived due to the US Congress, which enacted Prohibition in 1919. Born was a lively and profitable liquor bootlegging industry. But Prohibition was deemed a failure, largely due to the bootlegging, and Nassau's prosperity came to an end with the end of the liquor ban in the US At the time, bootlegging was a major industry in Nassau, and island residents were left somewhat impoverished when Prohibition came to an end in 1933. Following independence in 1973, Bahamians in general and in Nassau especially realized the jewel they live on, and exploited it. No longer would the islands rely on shipping, legal and otherwise, alone. They could rely, they reasoned collectively, on the millions of people curious about this most beautiful collection of Caribbean Islands.
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Nassau Vacations site
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