Sometimes one is so caught up with the beauty of this place that one can easily forget it is a country. Yes, the Bahamas is indeed an independent country, although some tourists might consider it just a vacation playhouse for Americans, or an extension of Britain. Both of those can be understood, at least to a point. This is, after all, a country where tourists seem to outnumber locals at times (they don’t but it feels that way), and it was a British colony until independence in 1973.

The fact is that in just 50 years of being fully independent, the Bahamas has come a long way. From a post-World War Two population of only 80,000, the country has grown to roughly five times that. And its GDP per capita has basically doubled since the 1990s, sitting at around $40,000 today, with an economy based almost entirely on tourism and banking. It is an example of a country going “all-in” on a single strategy, and of having it actually work. (Whether that strategy is the best one is not something I’ll speculate at here.)

Nassau is the country’s capital, and only city worthy of the name city, hosting roughly 60% of the Bahamian population. And with a huge volume of tourists here, it can be easy to forget that this is a national capital city, and that the Bahamas also has to run governmentally and politically.

We’ve spoken at length about Bahamian history, from colonization (click here to read about the colonial history) to slavery (click here to read about that) and even to a period of rule by pirates (click here to read about Nassau and the Golden Age of Piracy). Today, we pick up the tale in the 20th century.

In the first half of the century, the Bahamian economy was at a virtual standstill. Plantation economies were more successful elsewhere, and other islands seen as more worthy of investment from the US, and even from Britain. As mentioned above, the population was fairly small, only about 80,000 by 1950. And with the end of World War Two and a mentality switch in Britain from Empire to Commonwealth, the islands were due some measure of self-governance.

Of course, there was already a bicameral legislature here in colonial times. In 1729, only a few years’ removed from a return to colony status from piracy, a Governor’s Council was established, which split into an Executive Council and Legislative Council in 1841.

In 1964, a new constitution was passed in the Bahamas, which allowed for self-governance. In 1967, the first black Premier was elected in the form of Lynden Pindling, and with a title change in 1968, he became Prime Minister and announced that the country would seek full independence, which was achieved on July 10, 1973. Pindling would remain as Prime Minister, and pursuant to the Commonwealth status, a Governor-General was appointed by the British Crown.

In the fifty years of independence, control of government has gone back and forth between Pindling’s Progressive Liberal Party and the more conservative Free National Movement, with the PLP retaking the premiership in 2021. Only five people have been Prime Minister during the short history of the country, all of them black men. (I am not sure of the racial or gender makeup of the 16-member Senate or 39-member House of Assembly.)

In Nassau, the trappings of a national capital can be seen in a few places. The first – and best – is in the cluster of pink buildings along Bay Street downtown that house much of the government. The earliest of these buildings dates to 1815, and is fronted by a statue of Queen Victoria. Here, both Houses of Parliament meet, as well as the Bahamian Supreme Court.

A few blocks up the hill from downtown is Government House. Done in a similar coral pink color, this is the official residence of the Governor-General, who is the ceremonial representative of the British Crown.

In addition, Nassau is home to the standard slew of things pretty much every national capital has: a national art museum, historical museum, and other governmental department buildings. There are also embassies and the like, with the most ostentatious being the American, obviously.

Sometimes, we as tourists get so caught up in what a place was in a historical sense, or what it is in a purely touristic sense, that we forget about modern political truth. Yes, the Bahamas has a cool history, full of pirates. Yes, it has beaches and rum. But also, this is a young country, one with a fast-growing population and a burgeoning GDP, with a functioning democratic government, and with reminders of those things here in Nassau, its capital.

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