ABSTRACT
It is likely that there has always been some kind of interaction between the Bahamas and Haiti, for Great Inagua Island, the southernmost island of the Bahamas chain, is only fifty-five miles away from the He de la Tortue, off north-west Haiti. Until tourism became important to the Bahamas in the 1950s interaction would have been mainly in the form of trade: small scale trade, an extension of the coastal schooner trade of Haiti and the Out Island trade of the Bahamas. Some Haitians would have stayed in the Bahamas, but this would not have been common since opportunities for jobs were so limited before tourism was developed that Bahamians themselves were leaving the islands in search of employment. However, by 1948, a few Haitians had begun to move to the Bahamas.
