Bahamas - 19th Century
By 1807 the population had quadrupled. The Loyalist settlers included 330 families and 3,762 new slaves so that for the first time, a majority of Bahamians were black; two thirds of residents were registered as free or enslaved Africans. In contrast to the 17th and early 18th century settlers who were called “conchs” by the Loyalists for their dependence on the sea, many of the newly settled Loyalists were farmers and plantation owners.
The Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833 and the termination of post-abolition apprenticeships and indentured servanthood in 1838 marked the end of slavery in the Bahamas. The cotton plantations were prosperous for a few decades, but by the 1830s, planters abandoned them due to soil exhaustion and loss of profit which accompanied the gradual reduction of slavery and ultimate emancipation of slaves between 1808 and 1833.
Freed slaves — as well as the approximately 3,000 Africans from slave ships captured at sea or shipwrecked in the Bahamas between 1808 and 1838 — were left to make a living in the Bahamas, and many turned to fishing and wrecking. Turtle fishing was an important subsistence activity, and several incidents in the 1830s and 1840s of Bahamian turtling boats arrested for fishing in Cuban territory suggest that turtles in the Bahamas had become scarce.
The most dramatic confrontation occurred in 1844-1845, when twelve fishermen were arrested for “fishing without being duly authorized” after their three boats had come to anchor at a small Key about 8 miles from mainland Cuba. The boats and the 40 to 80 turtles they had captured were confiscated and the men were detained for seven months. Besides illegally captured turtles, the fishing crew included free blacks, which likely contributed to their long detention.
Slavery persisted in Cuba until the 1880s and free blacks were apparently barred from maritime employment. The crew of a fourth Bahamian fishing boat was arrested later in 1845, and Bahamian officials later complained that “[t]he owners have suffered the further serious loss of their turtling season by which alone they maintained their families”.
In the 19th century, the Bahamas was still a poor colony, with an undeveloped economy based on marine resource extraction and wrecking. Wrecking had existed since the 1660s, and the growth of US commerce stimulated an increase in activity after 1815, which is reflected in the concurrent increase in boatbuilding specifically for wrecking business. In 1856 there were 302 ships licensed as salvage boats. Close to half of the able-bodied men were engaged in this industry in 1856 and wreck goods amounted to more than 50% of total imports and more than two thirds of total exports. Salvaging was an opportunistic activity, so that the wrecking vessels also very likely doubled as fishing and turtling boats to provide day-to-day subsistence for the wreckers and their families.
The Bahamian economy prospered during the United States Civil War, as Nassau served as an important base for blockade-running by the Confederate States. At the commencement of 1865 this trade was at its highest point. In January and February 1865 no less than 20 steamers arrived at Nassau, importing 14,182 bales of cotton, valued at £554,675. The extraordinary difference between the normal trade of the islands and that due to blockade-running will be seen by comparing the imports and exports before the closing of the southern ports in i860 with those of 1864. In the first year the imports were £234,029, and the exports £157,350, while in the second year the imports were £5,346,112, and the exports £4,672,398.
The excitement, extravagance and waste existing at Nassau during the days of blockade-running exceed belief. Individuals may have profited largely, but the Bahamas probably benefited little. The government managed to pay its debt amounting to £43,786, but crime increased and sickness became very prevalent.
Blockade running during the American Civil War was extremely profitable and supplemented income made by wrecking. The cessation of the trade was marked by hardly any disturbance; there were no local failures, and in a few months the steamers and their crews departed, and New Providence subsided into its usual state of quietude. However the war's end, however, set in motion an economic tailspin that lasted for the next half-century. Little economic development occurred other than in the areas of sponging, pineapple cultivation, and tourism. In October 1866 a most violent hurricane passed over the island, injuring the orchards, destroying the fruit-trees, and damaging the sponges, which had proved hitherto a source of profit. The hurricane, too, was followed by repeated droughts, and the inhabitants of the out-islands were reduced to indigence and want. By the 1880s, opportunistic maritime activities were declining. At the end of the 19th century, the shipping industry had become more streamlined with a switch from sail to steam, fewer ports of call, and better navigational charts.
Many Bahamian men accustomed to make their living on boats turned their attention more fully to marine resource extraction, in particular sponge fishing. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, products from the sea such as conch shells, turtle shells, and turtle meat had been exported from the Bahamas, but sponging was the first fishing industry that was profitable enough to employ thousands of men for nearly a century. From 1840 to 1910 exports grew exponentially reaching a peak of 1.5 million metric tons.
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