Great Stirrup Cay History

Pre-Columbian Bahamas

The original inhabitants of the Bahamas were the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taino people. It is believed that they arrived on the islands circa 500 to 800 AD from Hispaniola and Cuba, sailing in dugout canoes.

The Lucayans were a forest people who lived in theocratic kingdoms, with a hierarchically arranged pantheon of gods, called zemis, and village chiefs, or caciques. The zemis were represented by icons of wood, stone, bones and human remains. Arawaks believed that being in the good graces of their zemis protected them from disease, hurricanes or disaster in war.

The Arawaks--who were light brown, generally short with coarse black hair, with broad faces and flat noses--painted their bodies in bright colors, and some wore small ornaments of gold and shells. Body-painting was common, mostly employed to intimidate opponents in warfare.

They lived in small villages in huts constructed of wooden frames topped by straw, and featured earthen floors. The buildings were strong enough to resist hurricanes.

Their diet consisted of manioc, maize, potatoes, peanuts, peppers, beans, and arrowroot that they cultivated twice each year. In addition, they hunted ducks, geese, parrots, iguanas, small rodents and giant tree sloths. Most fishing, done by hand along the coast and in rivers, was for mollusks, lobsters and turtles. Bigger fish were caught with baskets, spears, hooks and nets.

At the time of the arrival of Columbus, it is estimated that as many as 40,000 Lucayans natives lived in the Bahamas.

Spanish Discovery and Administration

On his first voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus left Palos de la Frontera, Spain, on August 3, 1492 to discover a direct route to Asia. His fleet consisted of three ships--the Santa Maria, Nina and the Pinta.

At 2:00 am on October 12, 1492, Columbus sited a fire burning in the distance, and made way for the light. Columbus called the island San Salvador. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is an unresolved topic; prime candidates are Samana Cay, Plana Cays, or San Salvador Island (so named in 1925 in the belief that it was Columbus's San Salvador). The indigenous Lucayan people he encountered were peaceful and friendly.

The Bahamas held little of interest to the Spanish other than the Lucayans. In later years, when the Spanish exploitation of the labor of the Hispaniolan people rapidly reduced that population, they returned to the Bahamas to capture the Lucayans for use as laborers in Hispaniola. It is estimated that the Spanish captured over 40,000 Lucayans over a 20 year period, leaving the Bahamas unpopulated. When the Spanish decided to evacuated the remaining Lucayans to Hispaniola in 1520, they could only find eleven in all of the Bahamas. Thereafter, the Bahamas remained uninhabited for 130 years.

With no gold to be found, and with no population remaining, the Bahamas effectively abandoned the islands, but did not formally relinquish their claims until the Treaty of Versailles, in 1783.

Christopher Columbus

Early English Settlement

In 1648, a group of puritans and republicans from Bermuda called "The Company of Adventurers for the Plantation of the Islands of Eleuthera" sailed to the Bahamas to found a colony. They elected to leave Bermuda because it was "overcrowded," and the Bahamas could offer both religious and political freedom and economic opportunity. The larger of the two ships making the voyage was wrecked on the reef at the north end of Eleuthera Island, with the loss of all provisions.

The agrarian-based Eleuthera colony struggled for many years, despite the arrival of additional settlers and relief supplies. In the mid-1650s, many of the settlers returned to Bermuda. Those who remained founded communities on Harbour Island and Saint George's Cay at the north end of Eleuthera. In 1670, there were about 20 families living in the Eleuthera communities.

In 1666 other settlers from Bermuda arrived on New Providence Island (the site of today's Nassau), which soon became the center of population and commerce in the Bahamas; almost 500 people lived on the island by 1670.

The first settlers on New Providence made their living from the sea, salvaging (mainly Spanish) wrecks, making salt, and taking fish, turtles, conchs and ambergris. Farmers from Bermuda soon followed the seamen to New Providence, where they found good, plentiful land.

Neither the Eleutherian colony nor the settlement on New Providence had any legal standing under English law. In 1670 the Proprietors of Carolina--a group of English noblemen that included the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Craven, Lord Berkeley, Lord Ashley, Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkeley, and Sir John Colleton--were issued a patent (an ownership deed) by Charles II for the Bahamas, but the governors sent by the Proprietors had difficulty in imposing their authority on the independent-minded residents of New Providence.

The early settlers continued to live much as they had in Bermuda, fishing, taking turtles, whales and seals, finding ambergris, making salt on the drier islands, cutting the abundant hardwoods of the islands for lumber, dyewood and medicinal bark, and wrecking, or salvaging wrecks. The Bahamas were close to the sailing routes between Europe and the Caribbean, so shipwrecks in the islands were common, and wrecking was the most lucrative occupation available to the Bahamians.

Lord Ashley

The Pirate Era in the Bahamas

The Bahamians soon came into conflict with the Spanish over the salvaging of wrecks. The Bahamian wreckers drove the Spanish away from their wrecked ships, and even attacked the Spanish salvors and seized goods the Spanish had already recovered from the wrecks. The Spanish raided the Bahamas, and the Bahamians in turn commissioned privateers against Spain, even though England and Spain were at peace. In 1684 the Spanish burned the settlements on New Providence and Eleuthera, after which they were largely abandoned. New Providence was settled a second time in 1686 by settlers from Jamaica.

In the 1690s English privateers (England was at war with France) established themselves in the Bahamas. In 1696 Henry Every (or Avery), using the assumed name Henry Bridgeman, brought his ship Fancy, loaded with pirate's loot, into Nassau harbor. Every bribed the governor with gold and silver, and by leaving him the Fancy, still loaded with 50 tons of elephant tusks and 100 barrels of gunpowder.

Following peace with France in 1697, many of the privateers became the pirates. From this time the pirates increasingly made the Bahamian capital of Nassau, founded in 1694, their base. The governors appointed by the Proprietors usually made a show of suppressing the pirates, but most were often accused of dealing with the pirates. By 1701 England was at war with France and Spain. In 1703 and in 1706 combined French-Spanish fleets attacked and sacked Nassau, after which some settlers left and the Proprietors gave up on trying to govern the Bahamas.

With no effective government in the Bahamas, Nassau was taken over by English privateers, in what has been called a "privateers' republic," which lasted for eleven years. The privateers attacked French and Spanish ships, while French and Spanish forces burned Nassau several times. The War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1714, but some privateers were slow to get the news, or reluctant to accept it, and slipped into piracy. One estimate puts at least 1,000 pirates in the Bahamas in 1713, outnumbering the 200 families of more permanent settlers. The "privateers' republic" in Nassau became a "pirates' republic".

At least 20 pirate captains used Nassau and other places in the Bahamas as a home port during this period, including Henry Jennings, Edward Teach (Blackbeard), Benjamin Hornigold and Stede Bonnet. Many settler families moved from New Providence to Eleuthera or Abaco to escape harassment from the pirates. On the other hand, residents of Harbor Island were happy to serve as middlemen for the pirates, as merchants from New England and Virginia came there to exchange needed supplies for pirate plunder.

The "pirates' republic" came to an end in 1718, when Woodes Rogers, the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas, reached Nassau with a small fleet of warships.

Edward Teach (Blackbeard)

Loyalist Emigration to the Bahamas

During the American War of Independence, the Bahamas fell to Spanish forces under General Bernardo de Galvez in 1782. A British-American loyalist expedition later recaptured the islands. After the American Revolution, the British issued land grants to American Loyalists, and the sparse population of the Bahamas tripled within a few years. The planters had planned to grow cotton, but the thin, rocky soil was unsuited to large-scale cultivation, and the plantations soon failed.

Most of the current inhabitants of the Bahamas are descended from the slaves brought to work on the Loyalist plantations, or from liberated Africans set free by the British navy after the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807. Plantation life ended with the British emancipation of slaves on August 1, 1834. However, the Bahamian slaves remained bound to their former owners' service until 1838, under what was called the "Apprenticeship System."

During the American Civil War, the Bahamas prospered as a base for Confederate blockade-running, bringing in cotton for the mills of England and running out arms and munitions.

Gen. Bernardo de Galvez

The Bahamas in the 20th Century

During Prohibition after World War I, the islands were a base for American rum-runners, smuggling liquor into the US.

During World War II, the Allies based their flight training and antisubmarine operations for the Caribbean in the Bahamas. The wartime airfield became Nassau's international airport in 1957 and helped spur the growth of mass tourism, which accelerated after Havana was closed to American tourists in 1961. Freeport, on the island of Grand Bahama, was established as a free trade zone in the 1950s and became the country's second city. Bank secrecy combined with the lack of corporate and income taxes led to a rapid growth in the offshore financial sector during the postwar years.

Bahamians achieved self-government in 1964 and full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations on July 10, 1973. The country's first prime minister was Lynden O. Pindling, leader of the Progressive Liberal Party. Pindling ruled for nearly 20 years, during which the Bahamas benefited from tourism and foreign investment.

By the early 1980s, the islands had also become a major center for the drug trade, with 90% of all the cocaine entering the United States reportedly passing through the Bahamas.

In September 2004, Hurricane Frances swept through the Bahamas, leaving widespread damage in its wake. Just three weeks later, Hurricane Jeanne flattened the islands. Jeanne uprooted trees, blew out windows, and sent seawater flooding through neighborhoods on the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama. Receding floodwaters left boats tossed on roads and homes battered.

Hurricane Frances

The Development of Great Stirrup Cay

Great Stirrup Cay remained a pirate hideout while the British settled in Nassau and the larger islands until 1815, when slavery arrived. This time marks the first documented settlers of Great Stirrup Cay, and many of the structures from this settlement still stand today. The white house at the top of the hill served as a customs house for westbound slave trade and later, as a primitive plantation house. Stone walls built by resident slaves to contain animals and to mark sugar cane boundaries are still standing in the overgrown jungle. The history is not clear, but most assume that this is when Great Stirrup was named, after the proprietor of this plantation. Charts of this era show simply "Stirrup's Cay."

"Stirrup's Cay" remained active during the American civil war, as the Confederates wished to continue to export cotton to Europe. The island was used as a landfall for provisioning while Union warships patrolled the area to thwart their efforts. Coral encrusted cannon balls have been found in the waters surrounding the island, evidence of the resulting battles.

After the abolishment of slavery in 1838, the British slowly withdrew from the out island settlements, and the plantation at Great Stirrup was abandoned. Over the next one hundred years, the island served as home for a number of would be Robinson Crusoe's. The majestic coconut palms that sway in the breeze around the picnic area are there thanks to one of these rogue settlers. Although abundant in the area today, coconut palms are not native to the Bahamas. The imported coconuts were planted in an attempt to manufacture palm oil and soap.

The most well known of these settlers during this period was Captain Bertram, a captain in the British navy. Captain Bertram loved the island, and resided there until his death. At his request, he was buried on the island, and his grave rests just in front of the flagpole near the main beach. The cove area directly in front of the grave is charted as Bertram's Cove, and the small island forming the cove is called Susan's Rock, presumably named after his daughter.

Great Stirrup is the northern most island in a chain of islands known as the Berry Islands, and is situated in an area along the Northwest Providence Channel. As sailing vessels gave way to steamships, shipping traffic increased through this channel. As a result, in 1863, the Imperial Lighthouse Service erected the lighthouse on Great Stirrup Cay. This construction was brought with much protest as the locals considered the salvaging of shipwrecks to be part of the national commerce. The lighthouse site was manned for many years, but it is now timed and solar powered, making it self-sufficient. The structure stands nearly 80 feet tall, and its light is visible for over 20 miles.

World War II brought the next major activity the island. The United States, in an effort to protect its eastern shores, came to the Bahamas and Great Stirrup with a wide array of observational and defensive equipment. Among these were submersible cables that were run along the ocean floor to listen for enemy submarines. Two "cable houses" still stand on the southeastern shore of the island, today overgrown by jungle.

The United States Air Force later constructed a satellite tracking station, which is on the path en route to the lighthouse. This facility was later leased to Motorola and other private sector companies. New technology has made the station obsolete, and it was closed in 1991. An independent salvage company bid on the property, and removed anything of any value from the site. Thus, it now lies in its current state of disrepair. The 240 foot tracking tower was blown up, and its twisted remains lie at the top of the hill. Also in this area you will find the "Great Stirrup Cay International Airport," which is in reality a helipad used now only for medical evacuations.

Belcher Oil Company of Miami staked claim to the north section of the island for many years. Their interests there included real estate speculation, oil exploration, and a possible site for a corporate retreat. In 1977, Norwegian Caribbean Lines (the former name of today's Norwegian Cruise Line) acquired this section from Belcher Oil and began improvements to create an "out island experience" for its passengers. The missing roof was put on the house and powerful generators were put into service. The first NCL passengers to call at Great Stirrup were taken ashore in lifeboats.

In 1988-89, NCL made several improvements to the island, including the construction of four new buildings: the main bar and deck, a bar and water sports hut on the west beach, another bar at the main beach, and the Dive In Center. Additions were added to the house, and a seawall was built to reduce beach erosion.

Beginning in January 2010, NCL embarked on a 2-year, $25 million construction program to make several enhancements to the island. The program's first phase, concluded in 2010, included the construction of a new marina basin featuring four docks for the island's tenders, and a new 8,500 square foot dining facility, complete with two bars and four picnic pavilions. The second phase involves the creation of expanded beach areas, the installation of a private cabana area and a new straw market.