The Abaco Islands lie in the north of

The Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of ...

, about 193 miles (167.7

nautical miles A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude at the eq ...

or 310.6 km) east of

Miami, Florida Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, US. The main islands are Great Abaco and Little Abaco, which is just west of Great Abaco's northern tip. There are several smaller barrier

cay A cay ( ), also spelled caye or key, is a small, low-elevation, sandy island on the surface of a coral reef. Cays occur in tropical environments throughout the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans, including in the Caribbean and on the Grea ...

s, of which the northernmost are Walker's Cay and its sister island

Grand Cay Grand Cay is one of the districts of the Bahamas. It is geographically located in the Abaco Islands. Grand Cay is a small island or cay situated south of Walker's Cay in the Bahamas Islands. It is a settlement of Abaco, a major island of the ...

. To the south, the next inhabited islands are Spanish Cay and Green Turtle Cay, with its settlement of New Plymouth, Great Guana Cay, private Scotland Cay, Man-O-War Cay and Elbow Cay, with its settlement of Hope Town. Southernmost are Tilloo Cay and Lubbers Quarters. Also off Abaco's western shore is Gorda Cay, a Disney-owned island and cruise ship stop renamed

Castaway Cay Disney's Castaway Cay, or simply Castaway Cay (), is a private island in the Bahamas which serves as an exclusive port for the Disney Cruise Line ships. It is located near Great Abaco Island and was formerly known as Gorda Cay. In 1997, The Walt ...

. Also in the vicinity is Moore's Island. On the Big Island of Abaco is Marsh Harbour, the Abacos' commercial hub and The Bahamas' third-largest city, plus the resort area of Treasure Cay. Both have airports. Mainland settlements include Coopers Town and Fox Town in the north and Cherokee and Sandy Point in the south. Administratively, the Abaco Islands constitute seven of the 31 Local Government

Districts of The Bahamas Local government in the Bahamas exists at two levels: 32 districts and 41 towns. The boundaries of districts are defined by the First Schedule of The Bahamas Local Government Act 1996 (as amended by law and declarations of the Minister respo ...

North Abaco North Abaco is one of the districts of the Bahamas, on the Abaco Islands. It has a population of 9,578 according to the 2010 census.Green Turtle Cay, Central Abaco, South Abaco, Moore's Island and Hope Town.

Geography

The Abaco Islands consist of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

, with some elevation, and are protected on the Atlantic-facing sides by the third-largest barrier reef in the world. The cays are primarily made up of tidal

mangrove swamps A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen and remove sal ...

, as well as white-sand beaches. Most of the islands are uninhabited. The Abaco Islands and their associated cays are the Out Islands, Family Islands, and Friendly Islands.

History

The Abaco Islands were first inhabited by the

Lucayans The Lucayan people ( ) were the original residents of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands before the European colonisation of the Americas. They were a branch of the Taínos who inhabited most of the Caribbean islands at the time. The ...

, who called the Abaco Islands ''Lucayoneque'', meaning "the people’s distant waters". The first European settlers of the islands were

Loyalists Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...

fleeing the

American War of Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

who arrived in 1783, as was also the Cat Island case. These original Loyalist settlers made a modest living by salvaging wrecks, by building small wooden boats, and basic farming.

Pre-Columbian and Spanish eras

The Lucayans were the first people to inhabit the Abaco Islands. They were a branch of the

Taíno The Taíno are the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, Indigenous peoples of the Greater Antilles and surrounding islands. At the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the principal inhabitants of most of what is now The ...

s who inhabited most of the Caribbean islands at the time. The Lucayans were the first inhabitants of the Americas encountered by

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...

. The Spanish started seizing Lucayans as slaves within a few years of Columbus's arrival, and they had all been removed from the Bahamas by 1520. After the extermination of the Lucayans, there were no known permanent settlements in the Bahamas for approximately 130 years. Spain laid claim to the Bahamas after Columbus discovered the islands but showed little interest in them. The Italian explorer

Amerigo Vespucci Amerigo Vespucci ( , ; 9 March 1454 – 22 February 1512) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Florence for whom "Naming of the Americas, America" is named. Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the A ...

spent four months exploring the Bahamas in 1499–1500.

Juan de la Cosa Juan de la Cosa (c. 1450 – 28 February 1510) was a Basque navigator and cartographer, known for designing the earliest European world map which incorporated the territories of the Americas discovered in the 15th century. De la Cosa was the o ...

's first map of the New World, printed in 1500, shows the Abaco Islands with the name Habacoa. The

Peter Martyr map The Peter Martyr map is a Spanish Wood engraving, woodcut map composed in 1511 or 1514 and included in most or some copies of the 1511 edition of ''Decades of the New World'' by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera. The map depicts the insular and contin ...

, in the first edition of ''De Orbe Novo'' in 1511, shows the Bahamas' islands but does not name them. The Spanish explorer

Juan Ponce de León Juan Ponce de León ( – July 1521) was a Spanish explorer and ''conquistador'' known for leading the first official European expedition to Puerto Rico in 1508 and Florida in 1513. He was born in Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain, in ...

landed on Abaco in 1513. The Turin map of 1523 clearly shows Abaco, then named Iucayonique. The Turin map remained the most accurate map of the area until the Bahamas' first English maps were produced. Both John White's map of 1590 and Thomas Hood's map of 1592 show the islands, as did a map produced in 1630 by the Dutchman de Laet. At this time, the Spanish empire in the Caribbean was focused on Havana. Spain regarded the depopulated Bahamas as unprofitable and treacherous to navigate;- in 1593, a Spanish fleet of 17 ships wrecked off the Abaco. Also, English and French pirates and freebooters had begun preying on Spanish vessels north of Cuba. A Spanish ordinance of 1561 forbade any merchant ship to enter the Bahamas without an escort. Ownership of the Bahamas passed back and forth between Spain and Great Britain for 150 years. A treaty was established in 1783 by Great Britain. Great Britain ceded East Florida to Spain, receiving the Bahamas in return.

British colonial era

In 1783, a call for those wishing to help settle Abaco was published in the Royal Gazette in New York City. About 1500

left New York and moved to Abaco in August 1783. The Loyalists settled on a small sandy harbor about six leagues north of Marsh Harbour near modern-day Treasure Cay. They planned and built the town of Carleton, named after Sir Guy Carleton. Disputes over food distribution and misinformation about the resources available led some of these settlers to found a rival town near Marsh Harbour called Maxwell. The conflict between disgruntled settlers and the officials responsible became a constant life feature on the islands. Sea island cotton was sown by the settlers in 1785, and although both 1786 and 1787 produced good crops, the 1788 crop was blighted by caterpillars. Other settlements on the islands were Green Turtle Cay, Man-o-War Cay, and Sandy Point. In the 1790s, a group of Loyalists from the Carolinas arrived on the islands via Florida, founding the isolated settlement of Cherokee Sound.

Slave Revolt

Two slave ships from the United States, The Encomium and the Comet, wrecked off the coast of Abaco in December 1830 and 1834 respectively. The customs officers of Nassau seized the 165 slaves from the Comet and the 48 slaves from the Encomium, freeing them despite the protests of the crew. A later indemnity passed hands between the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States in 1855. The Hermosa, another slave ship, wrecked in Abaco in 1840. The slaves aboard were unilaterally emancipated by the Bahamians involved. These situations influenced the later revolt led by Madison Washington.

Bahamian Independence

In June 1971, the Prime Minister of The Bahamas,

Lynden Pindling Sir Lynden Oscar Pindling, Order of St Michael and St George, KCMG, Privy Council of the United Kingdom, PC, Order of National Hero (Bahamas), NH, Justice of the peace, JP (22 March 193026 August 2000) was a The Bahamas, Bahamian politician who ...

, announced his government's independence from Britain. On Abaco, the Greater Abaco Council formed to lobby for continued British rule. In July 1971, the Greater Abaco Council submitted a petition to the

Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

asking that Abaco become a 'completely self-contained and fully self-supporting' territory under British jurisdiction. In August 1971, the British government refused to consider the petition. The September 1972 general election in The Bahamas showed a clear majority for independence across the country. However, on Abaco, the results were less clear-cut; the pro-independence

Progressive Liberal Party The Progressive Liberal Party (abbreviated PLP) is a populist and social liberal party in the Bahamas. Philip Davis is the leader of the party. History The PLP was founded in 1953 by William Cartwright, Cyril Stevenson, and Henry Milton ...

won one of Abaco's two seats by a small majority and, by comparison, the

Free National Movement The Free National Movement (abbreviated FNM) is a political party in the Bahamas formed in the early 1970s and led by Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield. The current leader of the party is Michael Pintard and the current deputy leader is Shanendon C ...

(which opposed early independence) won the other chair by a large majority. Starting in December 1971, all-party talks took place in London, to draft a new constitution for The Bahamas. The Greater Abaco Council sent their representatives to London for a 'collateral conference' to run alongside the official talks. The British refused to consider granting Abaco independence (

secession Secession is the formal withdrawal of a group from a Polity, political entity. The process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession (such as a declaration of independence). A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal i ...

) from the rest of The Bahamas. The GAC accepted this, and the group ceased activity at the end of 1972. Shortly afterward, Errington Watkins, the Free National Movement representative for the Abaco-Marsh Harbour seat, formed a successor group called the Council for a Free Abaco. A second petition was organized and signed by half of the registered voters on the island. Errington Watkins took this petition to London in May 1973, hoping to influence The Bahamas Independence Order, then-debated in the British Parliament. A sympathetic MP, Ronald Bell, introduced an amendment that would have excluded Abaco from an independent Bahamas and have the islands remain a British colony. Defeated in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

and The Bahamas Independence Order, this amendment was approved on 22 May 1973. Three weeks later, a similar motion on Abaco was defeated in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

. A last-ditch attempt by Errington Watkins to pass a resolution in The Bahamas House of Assembly calling for a United Nations-supervised referendum on Abaco was easily defeated in June 1973, and The Bahamas became independent on 10 July 1973.

Abaco Independence Movement and onward

In August 1973, shortly after The Bahamas became independent, the Abaco Independence Movement was formed as a political party whose stated aim was

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

for Abaco within a federal Bahamas. Chuck Hall and Bert Williams created AIM. They sought support from the US Libertarian Party and an American financier named Michael Oliver, who through his

libertarian Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according ...

Phoenix Foundation agreed to support AIM financially.

Mitchell WerBell Mitchell Livingston WerBell III (March 18, 1918 – December 16, 1983) was a U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operative, mercenary, paramilitary trainer, firearms engineer, and arms dealer. Early life and OSS service WerBell was born in P ...

, an American arms dealer and mercenary, also supported AIM. His talk of an armed insurrection and attempts to recruit mercenaries to go to Abaco greatly discredited AIM. The

victory in the 1977 general election effectively marked the end of the movement.

Hurricane Dorian

On 1 September 2019,

Hurricane Dorian Hurricane Dorian was an extremely powerful and catastrophic tropical cyclone, which became the most intense on record to strike The Bahamas. It is tied with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane for the strongest landfall in the Atlantic basin in term ...

made landfall on Elbow Cay in the Abaco Islands at 16:40

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

with winds of and wind gusts up to , tying Dorian with the

1935 Labor Day hurricane The 1935 Labor Day hurricane was an extremely powerful and devastating Atlantic hurricane that struck the southeastern United States in early September 1935. For several decades, it was the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record in terms of ...

as the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricane on record. There are reports of major damage throughout the islands which has been described as "catastrophic damage" and "pure hell". Hurricane Dorian caused 87 percent of the damage in the Abaco Islands. 75 percent of the island's homes were damaged or destroyed. The total cost of Hurricane Dorian's impacts and effects on The Bahamas was $3.4 billion. As of October 18, 2019, there were 67 confirmed deaths as a result of Hurricane Dorian, with 282 people still missing. The damage also impacted the homes and assets of another 29,472 people. Hurricane Dorian wreaked havoc on Grand Bahama and Abaco, with damaging winds and storm surges, as well as the island of New Providence. The $3.4 billion in damages, losses, and additional costs were split as follows: 72 percent damage, 21 percent losses, and 7% additional costs, with the private sector absorbing nearly 90 percent of total losses. Abaco was responsible for 87% of the losses and 76% of the damage.

Demographics

The combined population of the islands was about 17,224 , and the principal settlement and capital is Marsh Harbour. In addition to Marsh Harbour there are several other settlements on Great Abaco including Cherokee Sound, Coopers Town, Crossing Rock, Green Turtle Cay, Hope Town, Little Harbour, Rocky Point, Sandy Point, Spring City, Treasure Cay, Wilson City, and Winding Bay. Surrounding Great Abaco are several smaller islands known as

s, many of which are popular with tourists visiting the islands. A few notable cays include

(formerly Gorda Cay), Elbow Cay, the Grand Cays, Great Guana Cay, Green Turtle Cay, Man-O-War Cay, Moore's Island, Tilloo Cay, and Walker's Cay.

Activities

The Bahamas National Trust maintains six national parks in the Abacos Islands. These are: * Pelican Cays Land and Sea Park * Abaco National Park * Black Sound Cay National Reserve * Walker's Cay National Park * Tilloo Cay National Reserve * Fowl Cays National Park The Great Abaco Family Fitness Weekend takes place every March in Treasure Cay, attracting both domestic and

international tourism International tourism is tourism that crosses national borders. Globalization has made tourism a popular global leisure activity. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual ...

. The events include an open water swim, sprint and Olympic triathlons, a children's race, and a 5k/10k fun run/walk. The Abaco Club features an 18 hole championship golf course, designed by Donald Steel and Tom Mackenzie, which is home to Great Abaco Classic. Hopetown-lighthouse

Fishing, diving, snorkeling, and boating are available in the Abacos. Green Turtle Cay has an interactive Bahamas Pig Tour and Hope Town has a historic lighthouse. Restaurants and bars serving Bahamian food can be found in the hotels on Abaco Island.

Transportation

Marsh Harbour Airport Leonard M. Thompson International Airport, formerly known as The Marsh Harbour International Airport , is an airport serving Marsh Harbour, a town in the Abaco Islands, The Bahamas. Marsh Harbour is a major tourist attraction. The airport offe ...

(MHH) and Treasure Cay Airport (TCB) serve the needs of the Abacos, and all Abaco travel connects or originates in Florida or Atlanta. On the main island cars and boat rentals are available. On some of the cays, rental golf carts and boats are the main mode of transportation, along with bikes or scooters. Marsh Harbour Airport was the site of a plane crash on 25 August 2001, that claimed the lives of nine passengers, among them R&B singer

Aaliyah Aaliyah Dana Haughton ( ; January 16, 1979 – August 25, 2001) was an American singer, actress, dancer, and model. Known as the " Princess of R&B" and "Queen of Urban Pop", she is credited with helping to redefine contemporary R&B, p ...

. The cays can be reached by ferries. The southern cays can be reached from Marsh Harbour and another ferry leaves from the Treasure Cay ferry dock about a half-hour from Marsh Harbour by road. Ferry service is also to be found between Nassau and Sandy Point on the southern end of Great Abaco on weekends.

Sandy Point

Sandy Point is a small settlement at the tip of southwest Abaco, Bahamas. It is the location of "Sandy Point Airport", which has yet to serve any regular scheduled carrier, and a new police station. Sandy Point also has a few shops, some churches and a few bonefish lodges. The annual "Homecoming and Conch Fest" is held around Bahamian Labour Day, the first Friday in June. In the 1990s,

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...

bought Gorda Cay and renamed it ''Castaway Island'' and made it a stop on their "Island in the Sun" cruise ship offering. Many Disney employees live in Sandy Point. There is no public access for tourists from shore. Also off shore and a little more to the north, lies Moore's Island. It has two settlements " Hard Bargain" and " The Bight". Hole-in-the-Wall, which is the site of a lighthouse, may seem nearby but should be a trip unto itself and only in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle when coming from Marsh Harbour.

Economy

The Abaco Islands have been long famous for

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other Watercraft, floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation th ...

. Their chief exports are lumber, fruit, and pearl shells. Crawfish ( Caribbean spiny lobster) are exported to the United States. Pulpwood is shipped to a Florida plant for processing. Tourism is a major portion of the economy. Tourism has grown to the 300,000 visitors mark in 2019. This growth makes the Abacos the second most visited destination in The Bahamas. The reason for the recent increase in tourism is because of the waters. Boating, swimming, and fishing are popular activities in the islands and cays that make up the Abaco archipelago, which have hosted fishing tournaments and regattas. The real estate sector has grown due to the growing tourism; Elbow Caw saw the most activity in 2018.

Environment

The Abaco Islands boast important natural areas, especially important coral reef areas, barrier-island terrestrial habitats and large

forests A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological functio ...

of Bahamian pine ( ''Pinus caribaea'' var. ''bahamensis''), some of which still contain

old-growth An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without Disturbance (ecology), disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organizati ...

trees. As development expands in the Abacos, local groups have begun to fight for the preservation of their natural resources, such as in the development case on Great Guana Cay. Species of birds include the Bahamian subspecies of Cuban amazon (''Amazona leucocephala bahamensis''), which exists only in

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

, the

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory, and the largest by population. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located so ...

, the southern Bahamas and Abaco. This population is unique in that it nests in

solution cavities rather than tree cavities. Abaco is also known for its intact elkhorn and staghorn coral structures, and for a breed of feral horse, the Abaco Barb, which became extinct in 2015.

Notable people

* Thomas Winer Malone, boat builder * Steven Gardiner, sprint athlete and Olympic medalist * Shavez Hart, sprint athlete and Olympian * Elroy McBride, sprint athlete who competed at the World Championships

References

{{Authority control Archipelagoes of the Bahamas