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Bahamas

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Source: Campion, "The Book of World Horoscopes," p. 84.

Additional information: "West Indies are an island chain that divides the Caribbean Sea from the rest of the Atlantic Ocean. The islands stretch about 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) from near southern Florida to Venezuela's northern coast.

"Three main island groups make up the West Indies. They are (1) the Bahamas in the north, (2) the Greater Antilles near the center, and (3) the Lesser Antilles in the southeast. The Bahamas consist of about 3,000 small islands and reefs ...

"The first inhabitants of the West Indies were American Indians. In 1492, Christopher Columbus became the first European to reach the islands, when he landed on an island believed to be present-day San Salvador in the Bahamas ... After Columbus visited the region, various European countries gained control of West Indian islands. Today, most of the islands make up, or form part of, independent nations. The rest are associated with Britain, France, the Netherlands, or the United States.

"A majority of the people of the West Indies are descendants of black Africans who were brought to the islands as slaves to work on sugar cane plantations. Most of the rest are of mixed black and European ancestry, or have British, Dutch, French, Portuguese, or Spanish ancestry. Some people are descended from farmworkers, mainly East Indians and Chinese, who arrived in the 1800's, after slavery was abolished. The area's original Indian population has died out, except for a small group of Carib Indians on Dominica." World Book Encyclopedia, CD-Rom edition, 1997.