| If you are looking for tranquil peace the Bahamas is | | | | work the cotton plantations until 1834, when Britain |
| the right option for you. Most of the Bahamian | | | | abolished slavery in all its territories. Most white |
| population is black at about 85% and the next largest | | | | residents of are descendants of the first English |
| population group are whites at 12%. Other minorities | | | | settlers, who emigrated from Bermuda in 1647 to |
| include Hispanics and Asians at 3%. Many Bahamian | | | | gain religious freedom. Some are also related to the |
| whites are concentrated on Harbour Island, Abaco | | | | Loyalists who fled the southern United States during |
| Island, Spanish Wells, Harbour Island, Montagu bay, | | | | the American Revolution and built enormous |
| and the Long Islands district of New Providence. | | | | plantations here.Religion is an important and integral |
| There are also a significant number of noncitizen | | | | part of Bahamian life. Even the tiniest village has a |
| white expatriates from Europe and the United | | | | church, sometimes two. The people's religious ardor |
| States.The Commonwealth of the Bahamas is an | | | | and high regard for education are evidence of their |
| independent English-speaking nation in the West | | | | Puritan heritage, derived from the Eleutheran |
| Indies. An archipelago of 700 islands and cays (which | | | | Adventurers. Music is also very popular and is in the |
| are small islands), the Bahamas is located in the | | | | very bones of the people. Caribbean Calypso, African |
| Atlantic Ocean, the United States and east of Florida, | | | | rhythms, English folk songs and the uniquely Bahamian |
| north of Cuba and the Caribbean, and northwest of | | | | Goombay beat echo in the air.Weddings and funerals |
| the British dependency of the Turks and Caicos | | | | in The Bahamas are especially important social events. |
| Islands.Documented Bahamian history begins with the | | | | People begin celebrating a marriage weeks before |
| words, "Baja Mar," the name the Spanish bestowed | | | | the official ceremony begins, and the passing of |
| on the islands. This term is misleading, however; it | | | | loved ones is commemorated by parties long after |
| means "shallow sea," but the islands are really | | | | they are gone.Anyone in search of the perfect beach |
| mountain plateaus that emerged from the Atlantic | | | | might very well start with the Islands of The |
| hundreds of thousands of years ago. Christopher | | | | Bahamas, whose relatively small land mass belies the |
| Columbus's first landfall in the New World in 1492 is | | | | sheer quantity of its beachfront. With the vast |
| believed to have been on the island of San Salvador | | | | majority of the islands shaped like slivers, one |
| (also called Watling's Island), in the southeastern | | | | imagines two gorgeous stretches of beach separated |
| Bahamas. He encountered Taino (also known as | | | | by the most perfunctory of inlands. The beaches of |
| Lucayan) Amerindians and exchanged gifts with | | | | The Bahamas are often coupled with shallow |
| them.The 294,982 people who live in The Bahamas | | | | transparent water for hundreds of yards out to sea, |
| are predominantly of West African descent. Their | | | | rising gently to sandbars before finally dropping into |
| ancestors were slaves brought to the islands to | | | | the depths. |