Out Islands
Bahamas |
The Out Islands are the islands that make up the
The Out Islands are also referred to as the Family Islands,[1][2] a term adopted in the 1970s.[4] There are approximately 700 Out Islands, of which only a small number are inhabited.[2]
History and population
A History of the Bahamian People notes that even as Nassau became a more important port, "the majority of the Out Islands remained fixed in the
Specifically, some 300 white families (owning an estimated 5,000 slaves) fled from
In 1980, a Cuban
Economy and demographics
The Out Islands are more sparsely inhabited and less economically developed than New Providence and Grand Bahama.[2] The most populous of the Out Islands are Abaco, Andros, and Eleuthera; the Out Islands tend to be less populous as one moves southward.[11]
Poverty has historically been high in the Out Islands, given the small size of the islands and the lack of natural resources.[12] In 2013, the Bahamas Department of Statistics reported a poverty rate of 17.16% in the Out Islands, compared to 12.58% in Nassau and 9.69% in Grand Bahama.[13]
At the beginning of the 20th century, more than 75% of all Bahamians lived in the Out Islands; by the 1970s, two-thirds of all Bahamians lived in Nassau or elsewhere on New Providence Island.[14] This dramatic population shift was related to a lack of stable job market in the Out Islands; only pineapple cultivation and salt-raking provided steady wage jobs, and only on a few islands.[15] Today, tourism is economically significant in the Out Islands; beaches, snorkeling, and scuba diving are the principal tourist draws.[16] A 2017 academic study reported that the relative economic importance of shark diving was greater in the Out Islands than elsewhere in the Bahamas.[13]
See also
Works cited
- Michael Craton & Gail Saunders, A History of the Bahamian People: From Aboriginal Times to the End of Slavery (Vol. 1: University of Georgia Press, 1992: paperback ed., 2009).
- Michael Craton & Gail Saunders, A History of the Bahamian People: From the Ending of Slavery to the Twenty-First Century (Vol. 2: University of Georgia Press, 1998: paperback ed., 2000).
Notes
- ^ a b David Hamilton-Jones, "Problems of Inter-Island Shipping in Archipelagic Small Island Countries: Fiji and the Cook Islands" in The Political Economy of Small Tropical Islands: The Importance of Being Small (eds. Helen M. Hintjens & Makyn D. D. Newitt: University of Exeter Press, 1992), p. 202.
- ^ a b c d Raeann R. Hamon, "'It's Better in the Bahamas': From Relationship Initiation to Marriage" in Mate Selection Across Cultures (eds. Raeann R. Hamon & Bron B. Ingoldsby, Sage Publications, 2003), p. 22.
- ^ Craton & Saunders, Vol. 2, p. 131.
- ^ Craton & Saunders, Vol. 2, p. 359.
- ^ Craton & Saunders, Vol. 2, p. 74.
- ^ Gail Saunders, Bahamian Loyalists and Their Slaves (Macmillan Caribbean, 1983), p. 58.
- ^ Craton & Saunders, Vol. 1, p. 188.
- ^ Craton & Saunders, Vol. 2, p. 132.
- ^ Anthony P. Maingot, Caribbean International Relations" in The Modern Caribbean (eds. Franklin W. Knight & Colin A. Palmer, 1989), pp. 279-280.
- ^ Stephen Webbe, Bahamas seethes over patrol-boat sinking, Christian Science Monitor (May 19, 1980).
- ^ Stephanie Hackert, "ICE Bahamas: Why and how?" ICAME Journal, Vol. 34, pp. 41–53.
- ^ Bridget Brereton, "Society and Culture in the Caribbean: The British and French West Indies, 1870-1980" in The Modern Caribbean (eds. Franklin W. Knight & Colin A. Palmer, 1989), p. 101.
- ^ a b Andrea R. Haas, Tony Fedler & Edward J. Brooks, The contemporary economic value of elasmobranchs in The Bahamas: Reaping the rewards of 25 years of stewardship and conservation, Biological Conservation, Vol. 207 (March 2017), pp. 55–63.
- ^ Craton & Saunders, Vol. 2, pp. 131 & 176.
- ^ Howard Johnson, "Labour Systems in Postemancipation Bahamas" in Social and Economic Studies, vol. 37, no. 1/2 (1988).
- ^ Kenneth C. Buchan, "The Bahamas" in Marine Pollution Bulletin, Vol. 41, Nos. 1-6, pp. 94-111 (2000), at p. 101.