”The things that make us what we are”

National Identity, Tourism and “The Fergusons of Farm Road”

1970–75

In the 1900s, the Bahamas remained an isolated backwater colony of the British Empire.¹ Its economic history to that point has been described by some as a series of ‘booms and busts’. ² Episodes of short-lived prosperity were followed by long droughts of poverty. However, when prosperity returned in another period of ‘boom’, it was always by a different name; Ship wrecking gave way to blockade running during the American Civil War then onto rum-running during US prohibition then sponge harvesting and so on. ³ No economic activity seemed that it could endure in the shallow soils and shallower seas of the Bahamas for very long.

So too with tourism when it was introduced to the islands in the 1850s, when the government began to actively promote the industry, it was at best a seasonal activity that lasted only during the winter months of the year. ⁴ The colonial government invested in the tourism product over the years which meant increasing the number of rooms available, building hotels, securing steamship transport from the United States, yet by 1900 the visitors to the Bahamas “were still counted in the tens and hundreds.”⁵

In the 1950’s Bahamian lawyer and businessman and Chairman of the Development Board,”⁶ Sir Stafford Sands saw the promise of the still seasonal industry and was determined to make Tourism a year-round occupation.⁷ With the introduction of air conditioning to Bahamian hotels the hot and humid summer months could at last be colonized by northern sun worshippers who began coming to the country in droves.⁸ The response was outstanding; by 1975 the Bahamas the highest per capita GNP (Gross National Product) in Latin America.⁹

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