Bahama Pundit

Immigration Policy and Political Propaganda in the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

The recent controversy over Immigration policy is clear evidence of the inability of Bahamian governments to rationally tackle the core issues that hold our economy back.

As Franklyn Wilson noted, the country's overall approach to immigration was settled as far back as the early 1970s, and yet we can still waste time over it today. The issue was put to rest by the implementation of a strict Bahamianisation policy by the new PLP government, accompanied by a massive investment in education. 

These two policy shifts reversed a trend towards the wholesale recruitment of expatriates, and broadened educational opportunities for Bahamians who could then expand the nation's middle class.

As the late Dr Keva Bethel described the period immediately following the Second World War: "The highest forms of employment to which the majority of Bahamians were likely to be able to aspire...were posts in the civil service, teaching, nursing, or the church. Moreover, only a proportionately modest number actually achieved those positions."

But in the first years after majority rule in 1967, the government spent as much as 19 per cent of the annual budget on education, building new schools throughout the country to provide better education for all Bahamian children.

The Once and Future Community of Great Harbour Cay in the Berry Islands

by Larry Smith

GREAT HARBOUR CAY, the Berry Islands -- "I call it the knowing. I know what's going to happen," 58-year-old Craig Wells confided to me from beneath a raggedy straw hat at the dilapidated beach bar here, just across from the airport terminal. 

"I knew someone was coming to meet me today because I saw the spider last night."

Craig is the son of one of the first real estate salesmen brought to the island by Great Harbour Cay developer Lou Chesler in the halcyon years of this once spectacular resort community. He arrived at the age of 16 with his father, a Long Islander who passed away in the 1980s - at about the same time that the development failed. But Craig never left.

When he is not spearfishing, or playing petanque at the beach bar, Craig whittles away the time at Harold Christie's original 1960s beach house, an appropriately rustic shack set in a grove of tall casuarinas that are spectacularly adorned with the flotsam and jetsam of years of eclectic beach combing.

It was arch realtor Christie who introduced Chesler to the Berry Islands after the Canadian entrepeneur fell out with Freeport founder Wallace Groves. In 1960 Chesler was a successful land developer brought in by Groves to spearhead resort activities on Grand Bahama. 

But according to architect Peter Barratt, Freeport's retired town planner, Groves and Chesler didn't get on, and in the mid-1960s Chesler received a $17 million payout and began searching for other opportunities.

"I remember him storming out of a meeting with Groves late one Saturday morning after they had a falling out," Barratt told me. "Chesler made a packet in Freeport and with the spare cash decided to invest it back in the islands."

Meanwhile, Christie had been busily acquiring property ever since the 1930s, becoming the most successful land promoter in the country. In fact, he was at least partly responsible for almost every major development that took place in the Bahamas until his death in 1973 on a European promotional tour.

The Berry Islands had been sparsely settled by freed slaves after 1835. Great Harbour Cay is the most northerly and the largest of these cays, and Christie had acquired most of it by the time Chesler was looking for something to do with his money.

Aside from the tiny Bullock's Harbour settlement there was nothing on the seven-mile-long island when Chesler bought it, except an airstrip that Christie had built to fly in prospects. Chesler master-planned the entire resort community - golf course, clubhouse, airport, marina, beach and sailing club, villas, home lots, roads and utilities.

Lighthouse Point and the History of South Eleuthera

by Larry Smith

ROCK SOUND, Eleuthera -- Other than sun, sand and sea, South Eleuthera's attractions are modest - a landlocked ocean hole where you can feed the snappers, an 87-year-old fig tree spreading along the highway, and an historic Methodist manse.

The Methodist Mission House dates back two centuries, and has been meticulously restored as a museum and community centre. A foundation, led by Chandra Sands (daughter of the late Rock Sound entrepeneur Albert Sands), raised over half a million dollars to support the project.

The Mission has seen a lot of history in its time. Among the items featured in its museum are obsolete medical equipment. That's because in 1942 the building became a community clinic, courtesy of American industrialist Arthur Vining Davis.

According to Albert Sands, in a 2002 speech, Eleuthera survived on small-scale farming and fishing before 1939 "when Arthur Vining Davis stepped onto the scene, introduced to the island by Sir Harold Christie. He bought all the land there was, and our forefathers went to work for him."

The African Diaspora to the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

 

Following hard on the heels of his earlier book - The Migration of Peoples from the Caribbean to the Bahamas - Bahamian Keith Tinker has come up with another scholarly page-turner, entitled The African Diaspora to the Bahamas.

Tinker, 57, is a historian who led the Antiquities, Monuments and Museums Corporation from its inception in 1998 until 2011. Before that he was a civil servant in the Ministry of Finance and the Department of Co-operatives, while teaching part-time at the College of the Bahamas. He holds history degrees from West Indies College in Jamaica, Florida Atlantic University, and Florida State University.

In this book, Tinker has compiled information on "the story of the origin of the black masses into a comprehensive, thematic work." A project, he says, inspired by research carried out in the 1990s by two former attorneys-general - Sean McWeeney and Alfred Sears - as well as conversations with Patricia Glinton-Meicholas, a former lecturer at the College of the Bahamas.

The book opens with an overview of the African slave trade. Between 1650 and 1860 as many as 15 million enslaved people were transported from West Africa to the Americas. And from the 9th to the 19th century millions more were dispersed throughout Asia and the Middle East. The African Diaspora refers to the movements of these people and their descendants throughout the world.

 

Hemingway Legacy Brings Bimini Into Focus

by Larry Smith

Later this month, Ernest Hemingway's grandson, John, a 52-year-old writer from Montreal, will take part in a fishing tournament sponsored by the Bimini Big Game Resort & Marina, 

Founded in 1955 by Bahamian entrepeneur Neville Stuart, the Big Game Club (as it was originally known) was NOT one of the places frequented by Ernest Hemingway in the 1930s when Bimini was his second home.

Back then, Stuart was a fuel salesman for the West India Oil Refining Company, and Bimini was one of his preferred stopovers. It was Hemingway who persuaded him to acquire a Prohibition-era bar called the Fountain of Youth and offer accommodation to anglers. He called it the Anchors Aweigh Hotel.

After the Second World War, Stuart began organising fishing tournaments, and operated the island's iconic mailboat - the Bimini Gal, which sank in 1972. In 1955 he built the Big Game Club, whose marina was the sportfishing headquarters of the Bahamas for years.

After Stuart sold out to the Bacardi family in 1969, the property changed hands several times. Following major renovations, it re-opened two years ago as part of the Bimini Bay development. Stuart, often hailed as the "father of Bimini", died in 1987.

It is a measure of just how much Bimini has changed that Hemingway will share the fishing spotlight at the Big Game Resort this month with Playboy model Shawn Dillon - a blonde from Sarasota, Florida.

While Dillon poses for tacky pictures, Hemingway will write an online essay for Sport Fishing Magazine's website about the history of big-game fishing in Bimini, accompanied by photo galleries. It is something he is familiar with - having represented the family legacy in Bimini many times over the years.

The Policeman who Took on the Numbers Boss

Edited by Larry Smith
In 1952 Paul Thompson was recruited by the Royal Bahamas Police Force in his native Trinidad. One of his early postings was to a special squad assigned to raid the Numbers houses. Thompson was a legendary detective who rose through the ranks at CID to become an assistant commissioner of police before retiring in 1981. Since then he has been a security consultant. Now 85, Thompson is about to publish his memoirs. The following extract from his forthcoming book - A Policeman's Story - describes a dramatic encounter with the equally legendary Numbers boss, the late Talbot "Stokes" Thompson. The encounter led to a blazing shootout on Mackey Street - most unusual for the time. 

From A Policeman's Story, by Paul Thompson
The Numbers racket has been widespread on New Providence for many decades. In my day, Bahamians bought numbers from street vendors, or in bars and petty shops over-the-hill. Some number sellers visited offices, shops and other businesses to provide custom service. 

Buyers would choose a number (often based on their dreams) and the vendor would give him a piece of paper with his number on it. The seller would record the name of the buyer in a notebook for reference when the draw was made. This differed from the present-day operations, in which the numbers are drawn outside of The Bahamas, usually in the United States, and all of the administrative work is done by computers.

Back then, the Numbers houses held the draws locally - except for the Cuban lottery, which was drawn in Havana every Saturday and broadcast over Cuban radio stations. There were three main Numbers houses on New Providence operated by very wealthy men - Talbot Thompson, Percy Munnings and Eugene Toote. 

Apart from their Numbers houses, Thompson and Munnings were known to be involved in heavy personal gambling, often winning or losing small fortunes in a single night. In later years, Father Allen, a well-known restaurant owner, established a fourth Numbers house. All of these men are now dead.

Document Opens a Window onto the Bahamian Past

by Larry Smith

A "delightful document" published by the Bahamas Historical Society in 1968 opened a fascinating window on a long-lost age. Other than history buffs, few are familiar with this publication today, but it offers a refreshing alternative to the bilious political circuses we have to put up with now.

The document was a personal journal kept by an American physician named Peter Solomon Townsend, who lived in Nassau from December 1823 to September 1824. It is, historians say, one of the earliest private documents surviving from the Loyalist slavery era.

Townsend's 68-page diary - lodged between well-worn board covers that also enclosed a 113-page medical day book - was found decades ago in a Boston bookshop by one William Miller, a New York college professor who happened to have been born in Nassau. After Miller's death, his widow gave the journal to the Bahamas Historical Society, which transcribed the handwritten notes and published it as a slim booklet.

The diary begins with Townsend's embarkation for Nassau aboard a square-rigged sailing ship from New York: "There being a good breeze from the northward, the sails were unbent, and in a few seconds after the ship loosened from the wharf she was under weigh," he wrote on December 10, 1823. His fellow passengers included wealthy Loyalist merchants and their servants, as well as several "poor Irish people in steerage".

During his sojourn in Nassau, Townsend witnessed the declining days of the decadent plantation society that the Loyalists had tried to build in the Bahamas following the American War of Independence. His notes mostly record the activities of the Bahamian social elite and make no political references at all. But this was a portentuous period— the slave trade had already been abolished, and it would be only a few more years before slavery itself came to an end throughout the British Empire.

The History of Migration to the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

A new book by former Antiquities, Monuments & Museums Corporation chief Keith Tinker collates everything we need to know about regional migration to the Bahamas - from prehistoric times to the present.

Tinker, 57, is a historian who led the AMMC from its inception in 1998 until last year. Before that he was a civil servant in the Ministry of Finance and the Department of Co-operatives, also teaching part-time at the College of the Bahamas. He holds degrees in history from West Indies College in Jamaica, Florida Atlantic University, and Florida State University.

The Migration of Peoples from the Caribbean to the Bahamas was published last year by University Press of Florida. Unfortunately, although it is only 200 pages with no photographs, the hardback edition is expensive - over $70 retail - which will limit its accessibility.

Tinker describes migration to the Bahamas from English-speaking countries in the West Indies since Emancipation. His interest was sparked by the relatively large West Indian presence here - Trinidadian prison overseers, Barbadian policemen, Haitian tailors, Jamaican teachers, Guyanese surveyors - and the lack of scholarship on the subject.

Majority Rule at Forty-Five

by Simon

The success of great political events and movements inspire all manner of grandstanding by secondary figures who played tangential or minor roles in such events.  As often, those who played more critical roles, and are disinclined to preen and prance, are not given their fuller due.     

Thankfully, in the light of greater historical accuracy, the pretensions of the airbags desperately attempting to inflate themselves into great leaders are often deflated.  And, the extraordinary contributions of the great men and women of history are recorded for accuracy and posterity.

Three events of the past few weeks highlighted aspects of the struggle for and legacy of Majority Rule.  They include the 45th anniversary of January 10th, 1967, the passing of Sir Clifford Darling, and the opportunity for ordinary Bahamians to own shares in the new Arawak Port Development (APD).

The 1958 General Strike and the Making of the Modern Bahamas

by Larry Smith

Last Friday marked the 54th anniversary of the 1958 general strike, one of the seminal events of the modern Bahamas. On January 13 of that year hundreds of public and private sector workers walked off their jobs, shutting down New Providence for almost three weeks and forcing some much-needed social and political change.

The key labour leaders of the time are no longer with us, but both have left behind a rich legacy in the form of their personal memoirs. Those leaders were Sir Clifford Darling, who died last month at the age of 89, and Sir Randol Fawkes, who died in 2000 at the age of 76.

Sir Randol's 1977 book, The Faith that Moved the Mountain, gives his personal (and what historian Michael Craton described as "somewhat self-serving") perspective as a leader of the Bahamas Federation of Labour, the umbrella union which called the strike. A memorial edition is available online at http://sirrandolfawkes.com.

Sir Clifford's 2002 book, A Bahamian Life Story, provides much of the background necessary to form an appreciation of this unique event. In addition to his personal perspective as leader of the Taxi Cab Union, which instigated the strike, his account includes secret communiques from the colonial authorities, as well as contemporary newspaper reports.