Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
LOYALISTS LAND
Following the American Revolution, more than 8000 Loyalists and their slaves resettled in
the Bahamian islands between 1783 and 1785, tripling the existing population. They intro-
duced two things that would profoundly shape the islands' future: cotton and slaves, but the
land was ill-suited to cotton. Then in 1807 the British banned slave trading, and brought
their liberated 'cargoes' to the Bahamas. The abolition of slavery in 1834 and transition to a
free society went smoothly, but a white elite minority of merchants and administrators now
ruled over an ill-represented black majority, a state of affairs that would last for more than a
century.
