~ Gateway to the New World ~
The Bahamian island of Guanahani, traditionally identified as San Salvador, was Christopher Columbus' first landfall in the New World. The original inhabitants of the island were the Lucayans, described by Columbus as a peace-loving people, beautiful and generous of heart. Though Columbus claimed the island for Spain, the lack of gold here led the Spaniards to focus on settlements elsewhere in the Caribbean. In 1629, Charles I of England laid claim to the Carolinas and threw the Bahamas in for good measure, a grand gesture that would weave together two of the major influences on the Bahamas' development - England and the American South.

~ Spiritual Adventurers and Marauding Pirates ~
In 1648, William Sayles and his Eleutheran Adventurers (from the Greek word "Eleutheria," or "freedom") landed briefly in Nassau's harbor during their search for a place to establish a Puritan colony. They then sailed south to today's Eleuthera Island, where a reef called the Devil's Backbone wrecked the Adventurers ship and chose their new home for them.  The surviving Adventurers were the first English settlers in the Bahamas.

Back in Nassau (first established as Charles Town in 1666 and christened Nassau in 1695), wrecked ships became a livelihood for the city's less religious minded settlers.  If bad weather and poor maps didn't bring enough salvage ashore, the "citizens" of this outlaw settlement would put lights on the reefs to lure ships to their doom. None of this rogue activity was approved of by the faraway English government - but the English did put a seal on approval on the beginnings of piracy.