s/v Lapidus: Little Exuma

Arranged by a cruiser for cruisers, an afternoon tour of Little Exuma was fun and educational. The waters are so crystal clear that the tropical fish several meters below the water are viewable and the small 12 square-mile island offers lots of history. The island is now connected to Great Exuma by bridge.

On the road to Little Exuma, we passed the hamlet of Rolle Town. It was once, like Rolleville to the north, owned by Lord Rolle. Today, it is populated with the descendants of his former slaves. This sleepy town has some 100-year-old houses.

Our first stop was the Great Salt Pond. In 1788, Little Exuma produced more than 100,000 bushels of salt and was considered an important, if not the most important, salt producing island. Most of the salt raked was exported to the Colonies on the North American coast. The salt ponds in Exuma comprised 223 acres and continued to produce large quantities of salt into the 1860s. This stone marker was erected to guide ships into the shallow, coral filled waters.

Hermitage, a plantation constructed by Loyalist settlers, is the last surviving example of the many plantations that once stood in the Exumas. Arriving in 1784, the Kendall family established their plantation at Williamstown. Coral and other fossils are present in the limestone used to construct the buildings. With their slaves, the Kendall family began growing cotton. Cotton proved uneconomical, so they, as well as most of the Loyalist settlers, left the Bahamas. In 1838, slavery was officially abolished; many former slaves remained on the land and eventually became land owners themselves. The Bahamas Islands were a colony of the United Kingdom, but much of the government of the country was conducted in the country by local Bahamians in the House of Assembly. The islands became a nation on July 10, 1973, which is the date celebrated as Bahamian Independence Day with an island party not to be missed.

Katherine, our tour arranger and guide, asked a local tour guide and a descendent of slaves to share his knowledge of the family and the area with us. We also visited an old family tomb just down the hill from the plantation. No traces remain to identify the family, but the tomb was most likely owned by a plantation owner.