Acklins is an island and

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

of 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 ...

. It is one of a group of islands arranged along a large, shallow

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...

called the

Bight of Acklins The word is derived from Old English ''byht'' (“bend, angle, corner; bay, bight”). In modern English, bight may refer to: * Bight (geography), recess of a coast, bay, or other curved feature * Bight (knot), a curved section, slack part, or loo ...

, of which the largest are Crooked Island () in the north and Acklins () in the southeast, and the smaller are Long Cay (once known as Fortune Island, ()) in the northwest, and Castle Island in the south.

History

The islands were settled by American

Loyalists Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...

in the late 1780s who set up

cotton plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

s maintained by over 1,000 slaves. After the

abolition of slavery Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

in the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

the plantations became uneconomical, and the replacement income from

sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate throug ...

diving has now dwindled as well with the rest of the natural sponge industry after the advent of synthetics. The inhabitants now live by fishing and small-scale farming. Bf-map names SE

Although Acklins Island has relatively few historical landmarks, there are some noteworthy places. Acklins is home to numerous

Lucayan people The Lucayan people ( ) were the original residents of the Bahamas before the European conquest of the Americas. They were a branch of the Taínos who inhabited most of the Caribbean islands at the time. The Lucayans were the first indigenous Ame ...

sites. An ancient site, thought to be one of the largest Lucayan settlements in The Bahamas, sits along Pompey Bay Beach, just south of Spring Point. Ten ancient Lucayan sites have been unearthed by

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, an ...

archeologists on

Samana Cay Samana Cay is a now uninhabited island in the Bahamas believed by some researchers to have been the location of Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the Americas on October 12, 1492. It is an islet in the eastern Bahamas, northeast of Ackli ...

alone, which is northeast of Spring Point in Acklins. Plana Cays, also northeast of Spring Point, is a protected reserve for endangered great

iguana ''Iguana'' (, ) is a genus of herbivorous lizards that are native to tropical areas of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The genus was first described in 1768 by Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti in his ...

s and the very rare Bahamian hutia (a guinea pig-like rodent), the only native mammal of The Bahamas. The population of Acklins was 565 at the 2010 census, with the largest populations at Lovely Bay in the northwestern tip of the island and in Salina Point in the southernmost area of the island.

Transportation

The island is served by Spring Point Airport.

References

Districts of the Bahamas Islands of the Bahamas {{bahamas-geo-stub