History

Junkanoo Celebration

It is believed that the name Inagua comes from the Spanish Lleno (full) and Agua (water) Henagua was the name when the first permanent settlers arrived. The Islands original dwellers were the peaceful Taino Indians who migrated from South America to the Islands of the Lesser and Greater Antilles and finally to the Bahamas. By the middle of the 16th century, not one Lucayan, as Christopher Columbus named them, remained. They were kidnapped for use as slaves in gold mines in Hispaniola. Some committed suicide rather that being forced to perform hard work and many died from imported European diseases.

In 1633 Cardinal Richelieu granted the Inaguas to Guillaume De Caen, a French protestant who never sent settlers to the Islands. Charles II of Great Britain specifically mentioned the Islands in the 1670 Grant to the Lord Proprietors. The first permanent settlers were mostly Bermudians from the Turks and Caicos Islands who settled the Islands in 1803 in search of salt. Salt harvested in the shallow lakes were sold to passing ships. In 1848 the Bahamian economy was in desperate need of an alternative salt supply when the Turks and Caicos Islands ceded. The Henagua Salt Pond Company, the first corporation in the Bahamas was formed to develop the salt industry. In 1865 Inagua Tramway and Salt Company constructed a tramway on crown land, cultivated salt, and exported this precious commodity to the United States. The American Government protective tariff and declining prices were factors that made it economically unfeasible for the company to continue operating; therefore, the company was dissolved.

Wild cotton tree

In 1899 Great Inagua became one of the main sisal growing areas in the Bahamas. Two sisal companies “Bahama Fiber and Standard Sisal Hemp,” cultivated thousands of acres of land. Inagua sisal was used mainly as a binder twine for grain harvest in the United States. The industry failed after the production of fiber in Mexico increased. Plantation owners were no longer able to compete because the American buyers considered the Mexican product a superior fiber. Foreign investors also tried Cotton and cattle rearing during this era. During the latter part of the 19th Century, Great Inagua was certainly the shipping capital of the Bahamas. Mathew Town the capital of Great Inagua was named after George B. Mathew, who was governor of the Bahamas from 1844-1848. Mathew Town was the first planned town in the country and the colony’s first port of entry.

This port town was port of call for Hamburg American and Royal Netherlands Lines. Hundreds of Bahamians who migrated to the island were engaged as stevedores and sailors aboard the ships and as contract workers on the Panama Canal, Mahogany Industries of Central America, and the Mexican railway.

Morton Salt Alps

The first act of piracy in the Bahamas in 1713 occurred off the Coast of Great Inagua. Before the construction of the Great Inagua Light House in 1870, many ships found their final resting place on the barrier reef on the southern coast of Great Inagua. An unfortunate situation for a distress captain and his crew was a fortunate opportunity for the Inaguans who would salvage and remove all goods they could possibly obtain from a wrecked vessel. Wrecks were so frequent that a person’s share in the next weeks wreck was considered sufficient security for obtaining a loan or credit in the local stores. In 1936 the Erickson brothers, of Swampscott, Massachusetts revived the Salt Industry into a successful operation. The Morton Salt Company bought the Erickson’s West Indian Chemical in 1954. In 2000 Morton Salt merged with Rohm & Haas. Today Morton Salt cultivates two thousand two hundred and seventy nine acres of salt ponds, producing over one million tons of salt and employing most of the labour force. The Managing Director for Morton Salt/Rohm & Haas is Mr. Glenn Bannister.

FRATERNITIES

The Oldest Fraternity in Mathew Town is Saint Philip’s Odd Fellows Lodge #3454, established 1891; its sister lodge is Household of Ruth #3131. Brother Henry McIntosh is the Noble Grand. Another fraternity in the Inaguas is L.L. Dean Lodge #401 of Modern Free and Accepted Masons with its sister lodge Annabelle Dean #409 established in 1989. Residing Worshipful Master is Brother C. Stephen Fawkes.

CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS

Civic organizations are

• Great Inagua Development Association, President: Mr. Samuel Nixon
• Kiwanis Club, President: Mr. Clement McKinney
• Bahamas Red Cross, President: Mrs. Iva Nixon
• Inagua Friendly Burial Society, President: Mr. Shadrach Cox
• Inagua Union Burial Society, President: Mr. Robert Forbes
• Boys Brigade, Captain: Colin Ingraham