The Abaco Islands were first inhabited by the
Lucayans, who called the Abaco Islands
Lucayoneque, meaning "the people's distant waters". The first European settlers of the islands were
Loyalists fleeing the
American War of Independence who arrived in 1783, as was also the
Cat Island case. These original Loyalist settlers made a modest living by salvaging wrecks, by building small wooden boats, and basic farming.
Pre-Columbian and Spanish eras The
Lucayans were the first people to inhabit the Abaco Islands. They were a branch of the
Taínos who inhabited most of the Caribbean islands at the time. The Lucayans were the first inhabitants of the Americas encountered by
Christopher Columbus. The Spanish started seizing Lucayans as slaves within a few years of Columbus's arrival, and they had all been removed from the Bahamas by 1520. After the extermination of the Lucayans, there were no known permanent settlements in the Bahamas for approximately 130 years. Spain laid claim to the Bahamas after Columbus discovered the islands but showed little interest in them. The Italian explorer
Amerigo Vespucci spent four months exploring the Bahamas in 1499–1500.
Juan de la Cosa's first map of the New World, printed in 1500, shows the Abaco Islands with the name Habacoa. The
Peter Martyr map, in the first edition of
De Orbe Novo in 1511, shows the Bahamas' islands but does not name them. The Spanish explorer
Juan Ponce de León landed on Abaco in 1513. The Turin map of 1523 clearly shows Abaco, then named Iucayonique. The Turin map remained the most accurate map of the area until the Bahamas' first English maps were produced. Both John White's map of 1590 and Thomas Hood's map of 1592 show the islands, as did a map produced in 1630 by the Dutchman de Laet. At this time, the Spanish empire in the Caribbean was focused on Havana. Spain regarded the depopulated Bahamas as unprofitable and treacherous to navigate;- in 1593, a Spanish fleet of 17 ships wrecked off the Abaco. Also, English and French pirates and freebooters had begun preying on Spanish vessels north of Cuba. A Spanish ordinance of 1561 forbade any merchant ship to enter the Bahamas without an escort. Ownership of the Bahamas passed back and forth between Spain and Great Britain for 150 years. A treaty was established in 1783 by Great Britain. Great Britain ceded East Florida to Spain, receiving the Bahamas in return.
British colonial era In 1783, a call for those wishing to help settle Abaco was published in the Royal Gazette in New York City. About 1500
Loyalists left New York and moved to Abaco in August 1783. The Loyalists settled on a small sandy harbor about six leagues north of Marsh Harbour near modern-day Treasure Cay. They planned and built the town of Carleton, named after Sir Guy Carleton. Disputes over food distribution and misinformation about the resources available led some of these settlers to found a rival town near
Marsh Harbour called Maxwell. The conflict between disgruntled settlers and the officials responsible became a constant life feature on the islands.
Sea island cotton was sown by the settlers in 1785, and although both 1786 and 1787 produced good crops, the 1788 crop was blighted by caterpillars.
Slave Revolt Two slave ships from the United States, The Encomium and the Comet, wrecked off the coast of Abaco in December 1830 and 1834 respectively. The customs officers of Nassau seized the 165 slaves from the Comet and the 48 slaves from the Encomium, freeing them despite the protests of the crew. A later indemnity passed hands between the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States in 1855. The Hermosa, another slave ship, wrecked in Abaco in 1840. The slaves aboard were unilaterally emancipated by the Bahamians involved. These situations influenced the later revolt led by
Madison Washington.
Bahamian Independence In June 1971, the Prime Minister of The Bahamas,
Lynden Pindling, announced his government's independence from Britain. On Abaco, the
Greater Abaco Council formed to lobby for continued British rule. In July 1971, the Greater Abaco Council submitted a petition to the
Queen asking that Abaco become a 'completely self-contained and fully self-supporting' territory under British jurisdiction. Defeated in the
House of Commons and The Bahamas Independence Order, this amendment was approved on 22 May 1973. Three weeks later, a similar motion on Abaco was defeated in the
House of Lords. A last-ditch attempt by Errington Watkins to pass a resolution in The Bahamas House of Assembly calling for a United Nations-supervised referendum on Abaco was easily defeated in June 1973, and The Bahamas became independent on 10 July 1973.
Abaco Independence Movement and onward In August 1973, shortly after The Bahamas became independent, the Abaco Independence Movement was formed as a political party whose stated aim was
self-determination for Abaco within a federal Bahamas. Chuck Hall and Bert Williams created AIM. The
Progressive Liberal Party victory in the
1977 general election effectively marked the end of the movement.
Hurricane Dorian On 1 September 2019,
Hurricane Dorian made landfall on
Elbow Cay in the Abaco Islands at 16:40
UTC with winds of and wind gusts up to , tying Dorian with the
1935 Labor Day hurricane as the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricane on record. Reports of major damage throughout the islands were described as "catastrophic damage" and "pure hell". 75 percent of the island's homes were damaged or destroyed. The total cost of Hurricane Dorian's impacts and effects on The Bahamas was $3.4 billion. As of October 18, 2019, there were 67 confirmed deaths as a result of Hurricane Dorian, with 282 people still missing. The damage also impacted the homes and assets of another 29,472 people. Hurricane Dorian wreaked havoc on Grand Bahama and Abaco, with damaging winds and storm surges, as well as the island of New Providence. The $3.4 billion in damages, losses, and additional costs were split as follows: 72 percent damage, 21 percent losses, and 7% additional costs, with the private sector absorbing nearly 90 percent of total losses. Abaco was responsible for 87% of the losses and 76% of the damage. ==Demographics==