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Bahamas are a group of island in the Atlantic Ocean located off of Florida coast.

In 1492 Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Western Hemisphere in The Bahamas. Spanish slave traders later captured native Lucayan Indians to work in gold mines in Hispaniola and within 25 years all Lucayans perished. In 1647 a group of English and Bermudan religious refugees the Eleutheran Adventurers founded the first permanent European settlement in The Bahamas and gave Eleuthera Island its name. Similar groups of settlers formed governments in The Bahamas until the islands became a British Crown Colony in 1717.

The first Royal Governor a former pirate named Woodes Rogers
ought law and order to The Bahamas in 1718 when he expelled the buccaneers who had used the islands as hideouts. During the American Civil War The Bahamas prospered as a center of Confederate blockade-running. After World War I the islands served as a base for American rumrunners. During World War II the Allies centered their flight training and anti-submarine operations for the Caribbean in The Bahamas. Since then The Bahamas has developed into a major tourist and financial services center.

Bahamians achieved self-government through a series of constitutional and political steps attaining internal self-government in 1964 and full independence within the Commonwealth on July 10 1973. Queen Elizabeth II remains head of state represented by the Governor General.

The Bahamas has successfully promoted itself as a destination for US jetsetters, and a lot of it is Americanised. Yet there are still opportunities among its 700 islands and 2500 cays to disappear into a mangrove forest, explore a coral reef and escape the high-rise hotels and package-tour madness.

The 18th-century Privateers' Republic has become a modern banker's paradise, at least on New Providence and Grand Bahama. On the other islands - once known as the Out Islands but now euphemistically called the Family Islands - the atmosphere is more truly West Indian.

You'll certainly be more in tune with the local environment, and have a less generic experience, listening to a rake 'n' scrape band in a bar on a backwater cay than sunning by the pool at a Paradise Island resort.

The traditional culture of The Bahamas lives away from the American-influenced urban centers of Nassau and Freeport. The islands' folkways stem in large part from the tales, bush medicine, music and religion ought over by African slaves. A opular 'folk' religion is obeah, a system of beliefs governing interactions between the living and the spirit world. The vast majority of Bahamians, however, belong to mainline Christian denominations (though many Anglican priests hedge their bets and mix a little good-willed obeah into their practice). Most islanders are steadfast in their religious beliefs: many taxi drivers and office workers keep a Bible at hand. Church affairs make headline news, while major international events are relegated to the inside pages. The country claims the greatest number of churches per capita in the world.

English, the official language and that of business and daily life, is spoken by everyone but a handful of Haitian immigrants, who speak their own Creole. Most black Bahamians speak both standard English and patois. While The Bahamas has yet to produce a writer of world renown and its visual arts scene has been slow to take shape, the islands have a viant musical culture. The country has produced several traditional forms of music, including goombay, a synthesis of calypso, soca and English folk songs; and down-home, working-class 'rake 'n' scrape,' usually featuring guitar, accordion and shakers made from the pods of poinciana trees.

Bahamian kids play basketball with a passion. They live on the basketball court, and most towns have a small court with makeshift stands. Bahamians follow the US basketball (and baseball) leagues with intense fervor.

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