importance of the Bahamas

Simple question about the Bahamas: Why weren't they more important in terms of the Caribbean? A look at the history of the Bahamas Wikipedia pages shows pirates, a brief time around the American revolution, and not much else. Considering its prime location in shipping lanes, how was it not more fought over? I know that the Bahamas are lacking in natural resources (other than salt), but wouldn't it be a better naval base than say Kingston?
 
They are far away from the other major islands, switched hands multiple times, and ultimately had terrible soil.

The islands were made up of too much rock or coral to support the kind of lucrative sugar agriculture we saw elsewhere. Without the ability to support industrial plantation agriculture, and with the islands populated by radical Prods along with the few planters it did have, it wasn't going to be very important.

Kingston was better because Jamaica was closer to the other islands and to the British possessions in Belize and the Miskito Coast. The Bahamas was close to Spanish Florida, and that's about it.
 
Maybe I have the naval routes off but if you went to any of the greater Antilles from Europe, wouldn't you have to sail right by the Bahamas?
 
The importance of the islands in the Caribbean is also due to their excellent conditions for growing new world crops, the Bahamas have pretty thin soils compared to Jamaica, Haiti, and Cuba. The Bahamas can't support a large population except by agricultural imports.
 
Maybe I have the naval routes off but if you went to any of the greater Antilles from Europe, wouldn't you have to sail right by the Bahamas?

I believe that the trade winds dictated that ships sail south and enter the caribbean (from Europe) by a more southerly course past the Lesser Antilles.


 
They are far away from the other major islands, switched hands multiple times, and ultimately had terrible soil.

The islands were made up of too much rock or coral to support the kind of lucrative sugar agriculture we saw elsewhere. Without the ability to support industrial plantation agriculture, and with the islands populated by radical Prods along with the few planters it did have, it wasn't going to be very important.

Kingston was better because Jamaica was closer to the other islands and to the British possessions in Belize and the Miskito Coast. The Bahamas was close to Spanish Florida, and that's about it.

Soil was the key element. It couldn't sustain a population. The only real serious attempt to colonize was by loyalists after the American Revolutionary War. It didn't go real well. When the biggest trades are wrecking and piracy for 300 years, you know it isn't good land.
 
Top