History of the Turks and Caicos Islands

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The first inhabitants of the Turks and Caicos Islands were Amerindians, first the Arawak people, who were, over the centuries, gradually replaced by the warlike Carib.

The first European to sight the islands was Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León, who did so in 1512, though some historians claim that Guanahani, the native name of the island Christopher Columbus called San Salvador on his 1492 voyage, is Grand Turk Island or East Caicos Island.

Spanish slavers frequently raided the islands, enslaving the Caribs of the islands. Only a year after first being discovered, the entire archipelago was completely depopulated.

During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the islands passed from Spanish, to French, to British control, but none of the three powers ever established any settlements.

From about 1690 to 1720, pirates hid in the cays of the Turks and Caicos Islands, attacking Spanish treasure galleons en route to Spain from Cuba, Hispaniola, and the Spanish possessions in Central America and Peru.

The islands were not fully colonised until 1681, when salt collectors from Bermuda built the first permanent settlement on Grand Turk Island (thought to be so named due to the presence of cacti with, what appeared to them to be red fez-like structures on their tops, but this not likely to be true, since the fez was unknown to Turkey before 1826). The salt collectors were drawn by the shallow waters around the islands that made salt mining a much easier process than in Bermuda. Their colonization established the British dominance of the archipelago that has lasted into the present day. Huge numbers of trees were felled to discourage rainfall that would dilute the salt mining operation. Most of the salt mined in the Turks and Caicos Islands was sent to Newfoundland to be used for preserving cod.

The agricultural industry sprung up in the islands in the late 1780s after 40 Loyalists arrived after the end of the American Revolution, primarily from Georgia and South Carolina. Granted large tracts of land by the British government to make up for what they lost in the American colonies, the Loyalists imported well over a thousand slaves and planted vast fields of cotton.

Though in the short term highly successful, the cotton industry quickly went into decline, with hurricanes and pests destroying many crops. Though a few of the former cotton magnates changed to salt mining, just about every one of the original Loyalists had left the islands by 1820, leaving their slaves to live a subsistence lifestyle through fishing and hunter-gathering.

Bermuda spent much of the 18th Century in a protracted legal battle with the Bahamas (which had itself been colonised by Bermudians) over the Turks Islands. Under British law, no colony could hold colonies of its own. The Turks Islands were not recognised by Britain as a colony, or as part of Bermuda. They were held to be, like rivers in Britain, for the common use. The Bahamas made frequent attempts to extend its tax regime to the activities of the seasonal Bermudian population of the Turks - efforts which were ignored by the Bermudians. When a French force raided Bermudian vessels there, neither the Royal Naval forces in the Bahamas nor Jamaica would come to their aid. The Bermudians, who had once fought in 1710 to repel Spanish invaders who had seized the islands four years earlier, ultimately lost them through a decision made in London. In 1799 the islands were given representation in the Bahamas Assembly (although the Bermudian rakers still refused to acknowledge Bahamian authority). It was the British government that finally assigned control to Bahamas, causing most Bermudians, who were only seasonal occupants in any case, to abandon their activities there. One Bermudian salt raker, Mary Prince, however, was to leave a scathing record of Bermuda's activities there in The History of Mary Prince, a book which helped to propel the abolitionist cause to the 1834 emancipation of slaves throughout the Empire. The islands remained part of the Bahamas until 1848, when the inhabitants successfully petitioned to be made a separate colony under the supervision of the governor of Jamaica. This arrangement proved to be a financial burden, and in 1873 the Turks and Caicos Islands were annexed to Jamaica with a Commissioner and a Legislative Board.

The islands remained a dependency of Jamaica until 1959, when they received their own administer, although the governor of Jamaica remained the governor of the islands. When Jamaica was granted independence from Britain in August 1962, the Turks and Caicos Islands became a crown colony. From 1965 the governor of The Bahamas was also governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands and oversaw affairs for the islands. When the Bahamas gained independence in 1973, the islands received their own governor.

The salt industry, along with small sponge and hemp exports, sustained the Turks and Caicos Islands (only barely, however; there was little population growth and the economy stagnated) until in the 1960s American investors arrived on the islands and funded the construction of an airstrip on Provo Island and built the archipelago's first hotel, "The Third Turtle". A small trickle of tourists began to arrive, supplementing the salt economy. Club Med set up a resort at Grace Bay soon after. In the 1980s, Club Med funded an upgrading of the airstrip to allow for larger aircraft, and since then, tourism has been gradually on the increase. It is common for foreign couples to be married in the Turks and Caicos Islands today.

In 1980, the ruling pro-independence party, the People's Democratic Movement, agreed with the British government that independence would be granted in 1982 if the PDM was reelected in the elections of that year. The PDM lost the elections to the Progressive National Party, which supported continued British rule. The PNP's leader, Norman Saunders, became chief minister, and won the 1984 elections. However, in 1985 Saunders and two associates were convicted in the USA on drug charges.

The PNP emerged victorious from the following by-elections, but on July 24, 1986, the governor dissolved the government and replaced it with an advisory council after a report on allegations of arson and fraud found that the chief minister post-Saunders, Nathaniel Francis, along with four other PNP officials were unfit to rule.

Under the careful guidance of the governor and the advisory council, a new constitution for the Turks and Caicos Islands was created and elections held in 1988, with the PDM winning by a landslide, and Washington Misick becoming the new chief minister.

Wenika Ewing was the islands' representative to the Miss Universe contest in 2005.