Furthermore, differential European genetic contributions in each island (with the exception of Exuma) reflect settlement patterns of the British Loyalists subsequent to the American Revolution.

[4] The earliest African inhabitants of the Bahamas came during the 1640s from Bermuda and England with the Eleutheran Adventurers, many were also brought from other parts of the West Indies.

Some Africans earned their freedoms and immigrated to the Bahamas by fighting for the British during the American Revolutionary War as members of the Ethiopian Regiment.

[6] Throughout the 19th century, close to 7000 Africans were resettled in the Bahamas after being freed from slave ships by the Royal Navy, which intercepted the trade, in the Bahamian islands.

[citation needed] During the War of 1812, the British Cutter Privateer Caledonia was chiefly manned by Black Bahamians about 70 in number.

597 mentions that the Caledonia was "a British Privateer mounting but 8 guns and manned chiefly with Blacks, about 70 in number, cruising between Savannah and Charleston and has already done a great deal of mischief."

[7] In the 1820s, hundreds of African American slaves and Seminoles escaped from Cape Florida to the Bahamas, settling mostly on northwest Andros Island, where they developed the village of Red Bays.

[10] In 1818,[11] the Home Office in London had ruled that "any slave brought to The Bahamas from outside the British West Indies would be manumitted."

[13] British colonial officials also freed 78 American slaves from the Enterprise, which went into Bermuda in 1835; and 38 from the Hermosa, which wrecked off Abaco island in 1840, after abolition was effective in August 1834.

A book written by Alfred Burdon Ellis published in 1894 called The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa: Their Religion, Manners, Customs.

He mentions that the Superstition of Shigidi still lingers among the negroes of The Bahamas of Yoruba descent, who talks of being hagged (cursed) and believe that nightmare is caused by a demon that crouches upon the breast of the sleeper.

[20] Sidney Poitier became the first black man and Afro-Bahamian person to win an Academy Award for lead actor in The US.

[24][circular reference] Mychal Thompson became the first foreign born player to be selected number 1 overall in the NBA draft in 1978.