Bahamians began visiting the
Florida Keys in the 18th century to
salvage wrecked ships, fish, catch turtles and log tropical hardwood trees.
A Bahamian settlement in the Keys was reported in 1790, but the presence of Bahamians in the keys was temporary. Early in the 19th century some 30 to 40 Bahamian ships were working in the keys every year. After 1825, Bahamian wreckers began moving to Key West in large numbers.
[3][4] Today, the largest Bahamian American populations are in Atlanta, Oklahoma City, Miami, and New York.[
citation needed]
Bahamians built and still reside in the oldest inhabited neighborhoods in Miami like
Coconut Grove and
Lemon City. Bahamians represented 1/3 of the vote to incorporate the area into the new city
Miami
Bahamians were among the first Caribbeans to arrive to the mainland US in the late nineteenth century. Many went to Florida to work in agriculture or to Key West to labor in fishing, sponging, and turtling. Two main factors that contributed to increased Bahamian migration were the poor economic climate and opportunities, as well as the short distance from the Bahamas to Miami. Southern Florida developed Bahamian enclaves in certain cities including Lemon City, Coconut Grove, and Cutler
. In 1896, foreign-born blacks compromised 40 percent of the black population,
making Miami the largest foreign-born black city in the US aside from New York. Reimers claims that the restrictive immigration policy of the 1920s did not greatly affect the Bahamian émigrés, they continued to migrate in vast number to the US, however many also participated in return migration back to the Bahamas during this time period. Those who chose to remain created institutions in the U.S. During this time in Florida, black Bahamians too faced state-enforced racism. Blacks could not vote, were persecuted by epithets in Miami press, and were not allowed to stay in the hotels that employed them. And in 1921, the Ku Klux Klan staged a large rally attacking these black immigrants in Miami
