Overview
A parliamentary democracy with a high standard of living, the Bahamas is one of the closest countries to the United States, as its Bimini Island is only 45 miles from the Florida coast. This proximity has created the basis for a thriving tourism industry, with about 1.3 million Americans visit the Bahamas each year.
Basic Information
Lay of the Land: The Bahamas, an archipelago of 700 islands and more than 2,000 cays and rocks, spread themselves across 700 miles of the Atlantic Ocean southeast of Florida and north of Cuba. Only 30 of the islands are inhabited. All told, the Bahamas comprises 5,382 square miles, slightly larger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. Nearly all of the islands are coral, low and flat, with varied and colorful plant and animal life including huge colonies of flamingos. The closest island to the United States is Bimini, also known as the gateway to the Bahamas. The island of Abaco is to the east of Grand Bahama. The southeasternmost island is Great Inagua. Other notable islands include the Bahamas’ largest, Andros Island, and Eleuthera, Cat Island, Long Island, San Salvador Island, Acklins, Crooked Island, Exuma and Mayaguana. Located on the island of New Providence, the capital city of Nassau is home to 210,000 people, about two-thirds of the country’s population.
Population: 307,451
Religions: Baptist 35%, Anglican 15%, Catholic 14%, Pentecostal 8%, Church of God 5%, Seventh-day Adventists 5%, Methodists 4%, other Protestant 4% Baha'i 0.4%, Jewish 0.1%, other (Voodoo, Rastafarian) 1.9%, non-religious 5.4%.
Ethnic Groups: black 85%, white 12%, Asian and Hispanic 3%.
Languages: Bahamas Creole English 75.1%, English (official) 16.5%, Haitian Creole French 6.7%, Greek 0.3%.
History
The Bahamas were first inhabited by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawak, in the 7th century.. In 1492, Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Western Hemisphere at San Salvador Island (also known as Watley Island) in the Bahamas, finding at least 30,000 Lucayans living in the archipelago. The Spanish completely depopulated the islands by kidnapping its inhabitants to work as slaves in the gold mines of Hispaniola, but the Spanish never colonized the Bahamas. During the 17th century “golden age” of piracy, the Bahamas were a favorite home base for numerous buccaneers, including Blackbeard, Henry Morgan, Charles Vane, and Anne Bonney. In 1647, English Puritans from Bermuda began to colonize Eleuthera Island, and by 1717 the Bahamas were a crown colony of the British Empire, a status that persisted until self-rule began in 1964, followed by independence within the British Commonwealth in 1973.
History of U.S. Relations with Bahamas
Relations between the United States and the Bahamas have been generally friendly and cooperative. For more than a century, smugglers of many kinds have hidden among the hundreds of uninhabited islands and cays to avoid detection. During the American Civil War, the Bahamian city of Nassau prospered as a center of Confederate blockade-running, while American rumrunners of the 1920s used the islands as a base to avoid Prohibition. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has expressed concern over drug running and money laundering occurring in the Bahamas, and the two government have worked together to address these issues. Owing to the 1962 imposition by the United States of a ban on Americans’ right to travel to Cuba, which had been a prime travel destination, the Bahamas has become a successful alternative for vacationing Americans.
Current U.S. Relations with Bahamas
The Bahamas are the most popular Caribbean travel destination for Americans. In 2006, for example, 1,364,468 Americans visited The Bahamas. In fact, Americans constitute 80% of the visitors to the islands. In return, 243,300 Bahamians visited the U.S. in 2006. Since 2002, the number of Bahamians visiting the U.S. has remained between 237,140 (2005) and 265,681 (2004). There are many expatriates of each country living in the other. At present, 31,984 Bahamians live in the U.S., while about the same number of Americans resides in the Bahamas. The Bahamas is also a major transshipment point for narcotics on the way to the U.S. The Bahamas also maintains normal diplomatic relations with Cuba, a nearby Caribbean neighbor, and has called on the U.S. to normalize its relations with Cuba as well. While the U.S. government has occasionally criticized the Bahamas for its relations with Cuba, U.S.-Bahamian relations seem unthreatened by this difference of opinion.
Where Does the Money Flow
The Bahamas is one of the wealthiest countries in the Caribbean, with an economy heavily dependent on tourism and offshore banking. Tourism, together with tourism-driven construction and manufacturing, accounts for approximately 60% of the GDP and directly or indirectly employs half of the archipelago’s labor force. Steady growth in tourism receipts and a boom in construction of new hotels, resorts, and residences had led to solid GDP growth in recent years, but tourist arrivals have been on the decline since 2006. Financial services constitute the second-most important sector of the Bahamian economy and, when combined with business services, account for about 36% of GDP.
The United States is the Bahamas’ biggest trading partner, purchasing 66.6% of Bahamian exports and selling 84% of the goods imported by the Bahamas. Of the $2.4 billion worth of goods exported by the U.S. to the Bahamas in 2007, petroleum and other fuel products comprised $941 million (39%), food and agricultural products $193 million (8%), plastics and other chemicals $150 million (6%), and trucks, autos, and parts $110 million (4.5%). In the same year, the U.S. imported $504 million worth of goods from the Bahamas, including $174 (34.5%) million worth of fuel oil and other fuels, $139 million (27.5%) worth of plastics, and $49 million (9.7%) worth of seafood.
In 2006, the $1.8 million in U.S. aid was divided into Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism and Demining ($754,000), International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement ($495,000), International Military Education and Training ($399,000), and Foreign Military Financing ($99,000). In 2008, the $1.2 million in U.S. aid will be divided into Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism and Demining ($500,000), International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement ($500,000), International Military Education and Training ($200,000).
Human Rights
The Bahamas is a parliamentary democracy with regular elections and robust respect for individual rights, such as those of press, speech, and religious freedom. The country’s politics are dominated by two political parties, the Free National Movement (FNM) and the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP), both of which have recently won peaceful elections that observers characterize as free and fair. The government generally respects the human rights of its citizens, but there are problems in some areas, including complaints of abuse by police and prison and detention center guards, lengthy pretrial detention, poor detention conditions, delays in trials, violence against women and children, and discrimination against persons of Haitian descent, many of whom are in the country without proper immigration status.
Past Ambassadors
Name: Ronald I. Spiers
State of Residency: Vermont
Foreign Service officer
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Jul 24, 1973
Presentation of Credentials: Sep 7, 1973
Termination of Mission: Left post, Sep 2, 1974
Spiers was a career diplomat who attained high-ranking posts at the State Department and the U.N. before retiring in 1992. He gained a bit of fame in 2004, when he joined “Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change,” a group of prominent retired officials who publicly criticized the foreign policy of President George W. Bush and urged the election of Democrat John Kerry.
Name: Seymour Weiss
State of Residency: Maryland
Non-career appointee
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Jun 20, 1974
Presentation of Credentials: Sep 11, 1974
Termination of Mission: Left post, Dec 15, 1976
Name: Jack B. Olson
State of Residency: Wisconsin
Non-career appointee
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Nov 17, 1976
Presentation of Credentials: Dec 22, 1976
Termination of Mission: Left post, Apr 30, 1977
Note: Commissioned during a recess of the Senate.
Name: William B. Schwartz
State of Residency: Georgia
Non-career appointee
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Sep 15, 1977
Presentation of Credentials: Oct 11, 1977
Termination of Mission: Left post, Jan 31, 1981
Name: Lev E. Dobriansky
State of Residency: Virginia
Non-career appointee
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Dec 10, 1982
Presentation of Credentials: Mar 15, 1983
Termination of Mission: Left post, Aug 30, 1986
Dr. Dobriansky was a PhD economist, longtime professor at Georgetown University, and anti-communist activist.
Name: Carol Boyd Hallett
State of Residency: California
Non-career appointee
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Sep 12, 1986
Presentation of Credentials: Nov 17, 1986
Termination of Mission: Left post, May 10, 1989
Name: Chic Hecht
State of Residency: Nevada
Non-career appointee
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Jul 19, 1989
Presentation of Credentials: Aug 23, 1989
Termination of Mission: Left post, Mar 1, 1993
Hecht served as an intelligence agent with the U.S. armed forces during the Korean War, from 1951 to 1953, and was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in 1988.
Note: The following officers served as Chargé d'Affaires ad interim: Lino Gutierrez (Mar-Jul 1993) and John S. Ford (Jul 1993-Mar 1994).
Name: Sidney Williams
State of Residency: California
Non-career appointee
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Feb 9, 1994
Presentation of Credentials: Mar 27, 1994
Termination of Mission: Left post Jan 11, 1998
Name: Arthur Lewis Schechter
State of Residency: Texas
Non-career appointee
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Aug 4, 1998
Presentation of Credentials: Oct 29, 1998
Termination of Mission: Left post Mar 1, 2001
Name: J. Richard Blankenship
State of Residency: Florida
Non-career appointee
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Nov 25, 2001
Presentation of Credentials: Dec 3, 2001
Termination of Mission: Left post, July 18, 2003
Note: Robert M. Witajewski served as Chargé d'Affairs ad interm, July 2003-September 2004
Name: John D. Rood
State of Residency: Florida
Non-career appointee
Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Appointment: Aug. 2, 2004
Presentation of Credentials: Sept. 1, 2004
Termination of Mission: Oct. 26, 2007
Bahamas's Ambassador to the U.S.
Smith, Cornelius
Cornelius Alvin Smith was born at North Long Island, Bahamas, on April 7, 1937. He received his secondary education at the Bahamas Teachers Training College at Nassau, Bahamas, and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Miami. Smith served as a public school principal from 1956 to 1964 and as a senior revenue officer in the Customs Department from 1964 to 1967. From 1967 to 1982, he was employed as a human resource specialist with Syntex Corp., an international chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing company that was taken over in 1994 by multinational Hoffman-LaRoche. As president and chief executive officer of Smith & Associates from 1982 to 1992, he provided professional consultancy services to international corporations in the specialized areas of manpower development, employee training, compensation, benefits and labor relations. Smith was inactive in the firm from 1992, but resumed active involvement in May 2002.
Bahamas's Embassy Web Site in the U.S.
Bahamas’ Embassy in the U.S.
2220 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20008
Telephone: (202) 319-2660
Fax: (202) 319-2668
Fax: (202) 319-2668
Email: bahemb@aol.com
- Table of Contents
- News
- Overview
- Basic Information
- History
- Newspapers
- History of U.S. Relations with Bahamas
- Current U.S. Relations with Bahamas
- Where Does the Money Flow
- Controversies
- Human Rights
- Debate
- Past Ambassadors
- Ambassador to the U.S.
- Embassy Web Site in the U.S.
- Comments
- Leave a Comment
U.S. Ambassador to Bahamas
Avant, Nicole
Having mingled with politicians and celebrities her entire life, Nicole A. Avant made herself into one of the most powerful fundraisers in Los Angeles. And after helping President Barack Obama rake in millions of dollars from Southern California’s wealthy, Avant won an extended vacation known as the U.S. ambassadorship to the Bahamas. She was sworn in on September 9, 2009, and resigned in November 2011, in order to return to raising money for President Obama's presidential campaign.
Born on March 6, 1968, Avant is the daughter of Clarence and Jacqueline Avant. Her father is a recording industry mogul who once ran Motown Records and served on the board of PolyGram, and who has been a big player himself in Democratic politics for almost 40 years.
Avant’s Beverly Hills childhood included seeing the likes of Jerry Brown, Jimmy Carter, and Tom Bradley press the flesh at gatherings hosted by her parents in the 1970s. Gray Davis, who went on to serve as governor of California, once had a small office in Interior Music and Avant Garde Music, the company founded by Avant’s father. Her parents eventually became close personal friends of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Avant eventually took over managing her father’s music publishing company, while also dabbling in acting. She has appeared in the television shows JAG, The Bernie Mac Show, and Moesha, and also had a small part in the films First Daughter and Wag the Dog. On January 1, 2008, Avant was the maid of honor at the non-legal marriage of Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds.
Along with other African American entertainment industry executives, Avant helped establish a political group, the Culture Cabinet, and she was a key fundraiser for Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr.’s unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2006. She’s also raised money for Al Gore and served on the board of The Bogart Pediatric Cancer Research Program.
Despite her parents’ close relationship with the Clintons, Avant chose to support Obama in 2007, becoming one of the campaign’s Southern California finance chairs. She went on to be one of Obama’s top bundlers, raising at least $500,000, according to OpenSecrets.org
Avant is married to Ted Sarandos, the chief of content acquisition for Netflix and the head of the company’s Beverly Hills office.
Nicole Avant on the Obama Inauguration (YouTube)
A Daughter Follows Her Own Heart (by Tina Daunt, Los Angeles Times)
Previous U.S. Ambassador to Bahamas
Siegel, Ned
Ned L. Siegel graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Connecticut in 1973 and received a Juris Doctorate from the Dickinson School of Law in 1976. He was a law clerk for Chief Justice Mitchell H. Cohen in the Federal District Court in Camden, New Jersey, and then went on to join the law firm of Kimmelman, Wolff & Samson in New Jersey. In 1977, Siegel left law practice for real estate by joining The Howard Siegel Companies. Siegel is currently a partner in Paramount Residential, L.L.C. Siegel was Palm Beach County, Florida, Finance Chairman for Jeb Bush’s 1998 gubernatorial campaign and was rewarded with appointment to Enterprise Florida’s Board of Directors and to the Space Research and Commerce Park Planning & Development Committee at the John F. Kennedy Space Center. President George W. Bush honored Siegel in 2003 with a Presidential Appointment to the Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). In 2006, President Bush appointed Siegel to serve as a Representative of the United States to the United Nations. Siegel is active in many Jewish causes, having served on the Board of The American Jewish Committee, South Central Florida Chapter, and as Co-President of the board of the Jewish National Fund’s South Palm Beach County Region. A long-time resident of Boca Raton, Florida, Siegel has been active in Republican party politics. According to the opensecrets website, he has donated $439,325 to Republican candidates and party organizations since 1990. A “Bush Pioneer,” he raised more than $100,000 for Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, moving up to “Bush Ranger” in 2004 by raising more than $200,000. This earned Siegel the position of Ambassador to the Bahamas on September 12, 2007.
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