Ethnicity In The Bahamas

In order to interpret what an ethnicity is, one must first know what the definition of the word “ethnic” means. According to Merriam-Webster the word “ethnic" means as of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background. With that definition, one can understand that the word ethnicity means culture and race. In the Bahamas, there are many people from different cultures and races that migrated from the time of the nineteenth century and are still continuing to practice this. Some of the people who brought their ethnicities to The Bahamas are the Greeks, Lebanese, Jews, Chinese and West Indians.

In 1887, the first group of Greeks arrived in The

These were persons who were politically and economically involved. One family had changed their last name from Owuade to Baker and eventually became a part of the white, rich Nassau merchants called the Bay Street Boys. Mr. George and Useph Baker both involved in Parliament at the House of Assembly. Another family named K.S Moses became wealthy migrants that sold a variety of items from buttons to rice. The two common families: the Baker family and the K.S Moses family, became each other's competition as they were both selling dry goods. The Lebanese were people who represented companies like the National Cash Register Company, Monroe Calculating and Adding Machines, Federal Radio, Stony and Clark Piano Company and the Remington Typewriter

They came from the some of the Caribbean islands like Cuba, Jamaica, Guyana, Haiti, Barbados and even Trinidad and Tobago for job opportunities after seeing the Bahamian men leaving to work in Florida.They came in 1922 and are still continuing to come today. They’ve brought surnames that include Reid, Lawrence, Holder, Gibbs, Watson, Gooding, Ifill, Springer, Lopez, deGregory and our beloved Pindling. A majority of teachers in Bahamian schools are not Bahamian, a majority of them are from the Caribbean. They did not just begin to have teaching jobs in the Bahamian schools, they’ve done it since the 1920s. In our law enforcement duties, they assisted us and helped us to form our own Royal Bahamas Police Force. They became policemen and served for a number of years reaching to higher ranks. Besides having a social contribution, they were involved politically. Mr. Clement T. Maynard was the father of the former Deputy Prime Minister and also Mr. Lionel Leach was from Barbados and Trinidad. Currently, some of these ethnicities still reside in The Bahamas and are still making impacts in our land. Unfortunately, a few are making a negative impact because the jobs that they interfered with could've been a great opportunity for Bahamians to have. The Bahamas has had many different ethnicities contribute to our society. From the late nineteenth century to the current time period foreigners like the