National

Today in History: July 25

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – A slave shipwreck, a House speaker accused of election fraud and BAIC offices opened. See what events took place on this day in history.

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1 year ago

July 25, 2023

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NASSAU, BAHAMAS – On this day in Bahamian history – In 1860, the slave ship “Peter Mowell” was wrecked off Lynyard Cay, Abaco.

The vessel was coming from the Congo River. Making its way to Havana, Cuba when it was shipwrecked carrying 400 enslaved Africans to be sold.

Of the enslaved, 390 were able to make it safely to shore and were later rescued by Bahamian wreckers including Ridley Pinder and Henry Sweeting.

As the United Kingdom had abolished the slave trade and the institution of slavery in the British Empire. The Africans were taken to New Providence and their captors jailed.

The Africans were dispersed as indentured laborers in Nassau and many of them went to live in the liberated African settlement Fox Hill in eastern New Providence.

Then 25 years later in 1885 – the Vatican transferred the authority of the Catholic church in The Bahamas from the Diocese of Charleston to the Diocese of New York.

The Bahamas would be part of the New York Diocese until it became its own ecclesiastical unit on February 7th, 1932.

Then fast forward to 1956 when an article appeared in the Palm Beach post detailing the resignation of then House Speaker Frank Christie, who was accused of election fraud and corruption.

Christie was the member of Parliament for Abaco and at one time Cat Island.

Demonstrators picketed outside the House of Assembly when they discovered a secret assembly meeting was being held to quell the allegations against Christie. He was forced to resign shortly after.

Days after his resignation, the case went to the Magistrates’ Court, where then Magistrate Maxwell Thompson decided there was insufficient evidence to move the case to a higher court and all allegations were dismissed.

And finally in 2014 – The Bahamas Agricultural & Industrial Corporation Corporate offices were officially opened on Soldier Road at The Industrial Park by then Prime Minister Perry Christie in a ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate the event.

At the time Christie said the opening represented a great step in the accomplishment of self-sufficiency.

The 10,000-square-foot facility was to house executive offices and a training center, the only one of its kind at the time.