The topic of Genocide when it comes to the Bahamas is an interesting one. Because at a glance the Bahamas has never experienced a genocide. However, it can be argued that this isn’t the truth.
While it is in fact true that the Bahamas hasn’t experienced a genocide in modern history, that sentiment neglects two very important things. What we define as “modern history,” and who wrote that history.
Our current definition of modern history, is very “Eurocentric” in that it is often defined by the countries in the world that hold the power. This does not include developing countries, ergo the people of the Bahamas did not write their own history. Instead the ones who wrote the history of the Bahamas, and the broader Caribbean where the ones who conquered it.
When Columbus first sailed to “the Americas” he was interested in little more than the monetary gain such a trip would provide. He was looking for raw resources, spices, sugar, gold. Imagine his surprise when he found instead, people. The issue here though was that the explorers did not see the people who lived in the region as people. Because they were not “developed” in the European sense, they had no value, at least not to the Europeans.
The people living in the Bahamas at the time of the arrival of European explorers, were known as the Lucayans, and they were undeniably the subjects of genocide. Within 25 years of the arrival of Columbus and the rest of the explorers, the Lucayans population was decimated, with almost all either killed by slavery or disease, or reduced to virtually nothing by the same factors. A quick, efficient genocide, that met little to no opposition. Why then, is it not more known?
Because human nature is in a way based on competition. And for many thousands of years, the only accounts of history that mattered to anybody, where those of the perceived victors of any conflict. Thus those who didn’t already hold large amounts of power in the world were easily exploited, and the news of these atrocities either never saw the light of day, or fell on deaf ears.
