ABSTRACT
The Bahama Islands lie not in the Caribbean but in the Atlantic's Gulf Stream, east of Florida and north of the Greater Antilles. Half the population of 270,000 lives in the capital, Nassau, and are largely West African in origin, mixed with European and Native American ancestry. Twelve percent of the people are local whites called Conchy Joes, who descend from Scottish and Irish dissenters, sailors, and pirates; another 8 percent are British, Lebanese, Greeks, Cantonese, Americans, and others who have moved in with the development of tourism and gambling.
