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Two main factors that contributed to increased Bahamian migration were the poor economic climate and opportunities in the Bahamas, as well as the short distance from the Bahamas to Miami. Southern Florida developed Bahamian enclaves in certain cities including Lemon City, Coconut Grove, and Cutler .
Sometime between 500 and 800 AD, Taínos began crossing in dugout canoes from Hispaniola and/or Cuba to the Bahamas. Suggested routes for the earliest migrations have been from Hispaniola to the Caicos Islands, from Hispaniola or eastern Cuba to Great Inagua Island, and from central Cuba to Long Island (in the central Bahamas).
Keegan posits a north-ward migration route from Great Inagua Island to Acklins and Crooked Islands, then on to Long Island. From Long Island expansion would have gone east to Rum Cay and San Salvador Island , north to Cat Island and west to Great and Little Exuma Islands.
Greek migrants were expert spongers from the Aegean Islands, who had lived an impoverished life as fishermen in their home country; however, after their arrival in the Bahamas, they employed local native Afro-Bahamian labourers and used their international connections to move up the economic chain. [2]
In the Bahamas, the government had also passed migration legislation, as early as 1920, but even in the 1928 Immigration Act, there was no definition of Bahamian nationality. [57] Under the terms of the British Nationality Act 1948 British nationals in the Bahamas were reclassified at that time as "Citizens of the UK and Colonies" (CUKC). [58]
This migration made the Bahamian population majority of African descent for the first time, with a proportion of 2 to 1 over the European inhabitants. [5] There was also an additional 9,560 people brought directly from Africa to the Bahamas from 1788 - 1807. 1807 was when the British abolished the slave trade. [6]
The U.S. and The Bahamian government have worked together on reducing crime and addressing migration issues. With the closest island only 45 miles from the coast of Florida, The Bahamas often is used as a gateway for drugs and illegal aliens bound for the United States. The United States and the Bahamas cooperate to handle these threats. [2]
The Lucayan Archipelago, also known as the Bahamian Archipelago, is an island group comprising the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and the British Overseas Territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands. The archipelago is in the western North Atlantic Ocean, north of Cuba and the other Antillean Islands, and east and south-east of Florida.