Grand Turk- January 2, 2016

At last fairly calm sailing away from and on to Grand Turk. We had reserved a table for an 8:00 dinner so the really funny server, Denny, could be our server. We actually were the last people to leave the dining room because we were having so much fun talk with our dining companions. We hung out in the Oceans Bar for one set of the music and then headed for bed at about 11:00.

 

This morning I was up early to watch us sail into Grand Turk. There were lots of boats anchored and most appeared to be tour, dive or other entertainment vessels waiting to be occupied. Naturally there was a little spitty rain shower.

The Turks and Caicos Islands, or TCI for short, are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago, north of the larger Antilles island grouping. They are known primarily for tourism and as an offshore financial center. The resident population is about 31,500,of whom 23,769 live on Providenciales in the Caicos Islands. The total population on the islands including foreigners is approximately 49,000.

The Turks and Caicos Islands lie southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas island chain and north of the island of Hispaniola. Cockburn Town, the capital since 1766, is situated on Grand Turk Island about 647 miles east-southeast of Miami, United States. The islands have a total land area of170 square miles.

The first recorded European sighting of the islands now known as the Turks and Caicos occurred in 1512. In the subsequent centuries, the islands were claimed by several European powers with the British Empire eventually gaining control. For many years the islands were governed indirectly through Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Jamaica. When the Bahamas gained independence in 1973, the islands received their own governor and have remained a separate autonomous British Overseas Territory since. In August 2009, the United Kingdom suspended the Turks and Caicos Islands' self-government after allegations of ministerial corruption. Home rule was restored in the islands after the November 2012 election. Seems politics is similar all around the world.

The first inhabitants of the islands were Arawakan-speaking Taíno people, who crossed over from Hispaniola sometime from AD 500 to 800. Together with Taino who migrated from Cuba to the southern Bahamas around the same time, these people developed as the Lucayan. Around 1200, classical Taínos from Hispaniola resettled the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Soon after the Spanish led by the conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in the islands in 1512, they began capturing the Taíno of the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Lucayan as slaves to replace the largely depleted native population of Hispaniola. The southern Bahama Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands were completely depopulated by about 1513, and remained so until the 17th century.

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.

Bermudian salt collectors settled the Turks Islands around 1680. For several decades around the turn of the 18th century, the islands became popular pirate hideouts. The most famous of these pirates were Calico Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny. Calico Jack is best known for designing a flag with a skull with crossed swords, known as the Jolly Roger and now the emblem of piracy. His mistress , Anne Bonny, was a female who dressed in men’s clothing and was a famous pirate in her own right.

After the American War of Independence (1775–1783), many Loyalists fled to British Caribbean colonies; in 1783, they were the first settlers on the Caicos Islands. They developed cotton as an important cash crop, but it was superseded by the development of the salt industry.

In 1799, both the Turks and the Caicos island groups were annexed by Britain as part of the Bahamas. The processing of sea salt was developed as a highly important export product from the West Indies, with the labor done by African slaves. Salt continued to be a major export product into the nineteenth century.

In 1807, Britain prohibited the slave trade and, in 1833, abolished slavery in its colonies. British ships sometimes intercepted slave traders in the Caribbean, and some ships were wrecked off the coast of these islands. In 1837, the Esperanza, a Portuguese slaver, was wrecked off East Caicos, one of the larger islands. While the crew and 220 captive Africans survived the shipwreck, 18 Africans died before the survivors were taken to Nassau. Africans from this ship may have been among the 189 liberated Africans whom the British colonists settled in the Turks and Caicos from 1833 to 1840.

In 1841, the Trouvadore, an illegal Spanish slave ship, was wrecked off the coast of East Caicos. All the 20-man crew and 192 captive Africans survived the sinking. Officials freed the Africans and arranged for 168 persons to be apprenticed to island proprietors on Grand Turk Island for one year. They increased the small population of the colony by seven percent. Numerous descendants have come from those free Africans. The remaining 24 were resettled in Nassau. The Spanish crew were also taken there, to be turned over to the custody of the Cuban consul and taken to Cuba for prosecution. An 1878 letter documents the "Trouvadore Africans" and their descendants as constituting an essential part of the "laboring population" on the islands.

In 2004, marine archaeologists affiliated with the Turks and Caicos National Museum discovered a wreck, called the "Black Rock Ship", that subsequent research has suggested may be that of the Trouvadore. In November 2008, a cooperative marine archaeology expedition, funded by the United States NOAA, confirmed that the wreck has artifacts whose style and date of manufacture link them to the Trouvadore.

Located right along the major trae routes to Europe, these islands also became a frequent stop for seafarers. More than 200 years later, Grand Turk would become the landing site of John Glenn’s return to land after becoming the first American to orbit the earth. The last time we were here we saw the replica of his Friendship 7 space capsule. On his descent from space, spotting these coral islands, Glenn said that “it must be paradise.”

We are docked at the cruise pier which connects to lots of shopping opportunities and also to a large resort. From times before when we have been here we know the passengers and crew alike love to go ashore for a time to rest, relax and bask in the sun on one of the plentiful beach chairs. The water is so very clear and so beautifully blue…does look like paradise!