The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an independent, English-speaking country consisting of 2,387 rocks, 661 cays and 29 islands. It is located in the Atlantic Ocean southeast of the United States of America; northeast to east of Cuba, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti) and north to east of the Caribbean Sea; and west to northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Its size is almost 14,000 km2 with an estimated population of 330,000.

Its capital is Nassau. It remains a Commonwealth realm. The seafaring Taino people moved into the uninhabited southern Bahamas from Hispaniola and Cuba around the 7th century AD.

These people came to be known as the Lucayans. There were an estimated 30,000+ Lucayans at the time of Columbus' arrival in 1492. Christopher Columbus' first landfall in the New World was on an island named San Salvador (known to the Lucayans as Guanahani), which is generally accepted to be present-day San Salvador Island, (also known as Watling's Island) in the southeastern Bahamas.

Here, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayans and exchanged goods with them. The Spaniards who followed Columbus depopulated the islands, carrying most of the indigenous people off into slavery. The Lucayans throughout the Bahamas were wiped out by exposure to diseases for which they had no immunity.

The smallpox that ravaged the Taino Indians after Columbus's arrival wiped out half of the population on what is now the Bahamas. It is generally assumed that the islands were uninhabited until the mid-17th century. However, recent research suggests that there may have been attempts to settle the islands by groups from Spain, France, and Britain, as well as by other Amerindians.

In 1648, the Eleutherian Adventurers migrated from Bermuda. These English puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named Eleuthera — the name derives from the Greek word for freedom. They later settled New Providence, naming it Sayle's Island after one of their leaders.

To survive, the settlers resorted to salvaged goods from wrecks.

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