Bahamas History

History
The Bahamas (/bəˈhɑːməz/), known officially as the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is a country within the Lucayan Archipelago. The archipelagic consists of more than 700 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is located north of Cuba and Haiti and the Dominican, northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the United States state of Florida, and east of the Florida Keys. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes the Bahamas territory as encompassing 180,000 sq miles of ocean space.

The Bahamas became a British crown colony in 1718. After the American War of Independence, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists in the Bahamas and they established plantations on land grants. Africans constituted the majority of the population from this period. The slave trade was abolished by the British in 1807; slavery in the Bahamas was abolished in 1834. Today, Afro-Bahamians make up nearly 90% of the population.

The sovereign state of the Bahamas became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1973, retaining the British monarch. 

Timeline
1718 - Became a British crown colony 1834 - Slavery in the Bahamas was abolished 1973 - Bahamas became an independent Commonwealth realm, retaining the British monarch.