The Out Islands are the islands that make up the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...

with the exception of

New Providence Island New Providence is the most populous island in the Bahamas, containing more than 70% of the total population. It is the location of the national capital city of Nassau, whose boundaries are coincident with the island; it had a population of 24 ...

, where the capital and largest city, Nassau, is located and

Grand Bahama Island Grand Bahama is the northernmost of the islands of the Bahamas, with the town of West End located east of Palm Beach, Florida. It is the third largest island in the Bahamas island chain of approximately 700 islands and 2,400 cays. The island i ...

, where Freeport is located.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.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. The Abaco Islands and

Eleuthera Eleuthera () refers both to a single island in the archipelagic state of The Commonwealth of the Bahamas and to its associated group of smaller islands. Eleuthera forms a part of the Great Bahama Bank. The island of Eleuthera incorporates the ...

islands are among the Out Islands. The Out Islands are also referred to as the Family Islands, a term adopted in the 1970s. There are approximately 700 Out Islands, of which only a small number are inhabited.

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 age of sail well into the twentieth century." A significant number of

American Loyalists Loyalists were colonists in the Thirteen Colonies who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War, often referred to as Tories, Royalists or King's Men at the time. They were opposed by the Patriots, who support ...

fleeing from the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

migrated to the Bahamas (including the Out Islands), along with their slaves, profoundly influencing the islands' history. Specifically, some 300 white families (owning an estimated 5,000 slaves) fled from

East Florida East Florida ( es, Florida Oriental) was a colony of Great Britain from 1763 to 1783 and a province of Spanish Florida from 1783 to 1821. Great Britain gained control of the long-established Spanish colony of ''La Florida'' in 1763 as part of ...

to New Providence; among these, the majority of the whites stayed on New Providence, while two-thirds of the slaves went to the previously undeveloped Out Islands. ''A History of the Bahamian People'' notes that the Out Islands were historically "a miniature replica of Nassau's socialeconomic system based on race, differential wealth, and economic power" with some settlements were inhabited entirely by Afro-Bahamians, others by white Bahamians; and others by mixed communities generally dominated by whites. In 1980, a Cuban

MiG Russian Aircraft Corporation "MiG" (russian: Российская самолётостроительная корпорация „МиГ“, Rossiyskaya samolyotostroitel'naya korporatsiya "MiG"), commonly known as Mikoyan and MiG, was a Russi ...

fighter jet attacked a Bahamian patrol boat, the ''HMBS'' Flamingo, in the Out Islands, killing four Bahamian marines. Survivors of the attack came ashore on Ragged Island. The Cuban government maintained that it had mistaken the ship for a

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

vessel. The incident greatly angered Bahamians, and Cuba later issued an apology and reparations.

Economy and demographics

The Out Islands are more sparsely inhabited and less economically developed than New Providence and Grand Bahama. The most populous of the Out Islands are Abaco,

Andros Andros ( el, Άνδρος, ) is the northernmost island of the Greek Cyclades archipelago, about southeast of Euboea, and about north of Tinos. It is nearly long, and its greatest breadth is . It is for the most part mountainous, with many ...

, and

; the Out Islands tend to be less populous as one moves southward. Poverty has historically been high in the Out Islands, given the small size of the islands and the lack of natural resources. 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.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. 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. This dramatic population shift was related to a lack of stable job market in the Out Islands; only

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...

cultivation and salt-raking provided steady wage jobs, and only on a few islands. Today, tourism is economically significant in the Out Islands; beaches,

snorkeling Snorkeling ( British and Commonwealth English spelling: snorkelling) is the practice of swimming on or through a body of water while equipped with a diving mask, a shaped breathing tube called a snorkel, and usually swimfins. In cooler waters ...

, and

scuba diving Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface air supply. The name "scuba", an acronym for " Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus", was coined by Chr ...

are the principal tourist draws.Kenneth C. Buchan, "The Bahamas" in ''Marine Pollution Bulletin'', Vol. 41, Nos. 1-6, pp. 94-111 (2000), at p. 101. A 2017 academic study reported that the relative economic importance of shark diving was greater in the Out Islands than elsewhere in the Bahamas.

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

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History and population

Economy and demographics

See also

Works cited

Notes