The Commonwealth of The Bahamas consists of approximately 393,248 people as of 2023 census estimates, with 246,329 residing on New Providence alone and 56,584 on Grand Bahama. The remaining population distributes across approximately thirty inhabited islands from the roughly seven hundred islands and cays that form the archipelago. Ninety percent of Bahamians identify as of African descent, descendants primarily of enslaved Africans transported during British colonial administration. Twelve percent classify as European or mixed ancestry. The country achieved independence from Britain on July 10, 1973, making it among the younger sovereign nations in the Western Hemisphere.
Lucayan people inhabited these islands from approximately 900 CE until Spanish colonial disruption after 1492. Christopher Columbus made landfall on October 12, 1492, at an island Lucayans called Guanahani and which Columbus renamed San Salvador, though debate continues whether modern San Salvador Island matches that location or if Samana Cay or Plana Cays hold stronger claims based on Columbus's log descriptions of shallow waters and specific bearings. Spanish forces and slavers removed an estimated twenty-five thousand to forty thousand Lucayans to Hispaniola mines between 1492 and 1520. By 1520 no Lucayan population remained documented in the islands. The archipelago stayed effectively unpopulated by permanent residents for nearly one hundred fifty years.
English Puritans from Bermuda established the first lasting European settlement on Eleuthera in 1648 after William Sayle led the Company of Eleutherian Adventurers seeking religious autonomy. The settlement at Preacher's Cave struggled with agricultural failure on the thin limestone soil and depended on salvaging wrecks from nearby reefs. British authorities formally claimed the islands in 1670 but provided minimal governance. Between 1680 and 1720 Nassau operated as a republic of pirates under figures including Benjamin Hornigold, Charles Vane, Calico Jack Rackham, and Anne Bonny before Woodes Rogers arrived as royal governor in 1718 with the mandate to suppress piracy. Rogers executed eight pirates in December 1718 and fortified Nassau with Fort Nassau, later expanded to become Fort Charlotte.
The plantation economy Britain attempted to establish failed because Bahamian soil proved too shallow and calcium-depleted for cotton or sugarcane cultivation at profitable scale. Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution brought approximately eight thousand enslaved Africans to the islands between 1783 and 1785, attempting cotton on Cat Island, Long Island, Crooked Island and Exuma. Within twenty years most plantations collapsed and white owners departed, leaving behind a majority-Black population and abandoned estates. Emancipation came August 1, 1834, decades before the United States. Former slaves established settlements throughout the Family Islands, adopting subsistence farming, fishing, salt raking on Inagua and Ragged Island, and sponge harvesting.
The Bahamas operated under direct British colonial administration until internal self-government began in 1964 and full independence came in 1973 under Prime Minister Lynden Pindling of the Progressive Liberal Party. Pindling governed from 1967 to 1992, a period that saw Bahamian majority rule replace the minority white merchant class in political power but also coincided with significant cocaine transshipment through the islands during the 1980s. The 1984 Commission of Inquiry documented that drug money had penetrated government institutions though Pindling was never convicted. Hubert Ingraham of the Free National Movement succeeded Pindling in 1992.
English functions as the sole official language and Bahamian Creole operates as the vernacular among most citizens. Bahamian Creole evolved from West African grammatical structures overlaying English vocabulary introduced by British colonizers and Loyalists. Pronunciation features include dropping of initial "h" sounds and substitution of "t" and "d" for "th" sounds. Haitian Creole speakers form the second-largest linguistic group concentrated in Nassau and Freeport, accompanying Haitian immigrants who numbered forty-three thousand legal residents in 2019 government estimates with perhaps an equal number undocumented.
Seventy percent of Bahamians identify as Protestant Christian per 2010 census data, with Baptists forming the single largest denomination at thirty-five percent, followed by Anglicans at fifteen percent and Methodists, Church of God, and Pentecostals each between four and eight percent. Roman Catholics comprise fourteen percent, predominantly among Haitian and European-descended populations. Father Jerome Hawes, born John Hawes in 1876 in England, converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1911 and constructed the Hermitage atop Mount Alvernia on Cat Island at sixty-three meters elevation, the highest point in the archipelago. Jerome died in the stone hermitage in 1956. Christ Church Cathedral on George Street in Nassau serves as the Anglican diocese seat established 1861.