Part I & copy; Gail Saunders

Introduction

As early as 1740, Nassau had gained a reputation as a winter and health resort for

"invalids" and others from the United States and Canada seeking a change and warmer climate. However, up to the nineteenth century, tourism still existed on a very small scale and had limited impact on the economy. During the 1850s, the government began to actively promote tourism. It made contracts with the shipping companies and financed the building of the first hotel, the Royal Victoria.

Steamship connections

In 1851, the Bahamian Government signed a contract with a New York steamship company, but the enterprise did not succeed. However, towards the end of the decade, an act was passed to encourage steamship connections with North America and the purchase of the site for a hotel in the very centre of Nassau. In 1859, a contract was made with the Canadian-born transatlantic steamship pioneer Samuel Cunard to include Nassau on a regular monthly voyage between Nassau and Havana, carrying passengers and mails.

Royal Victoria Hotel

The Samuel Cunard's service began with the arrival of the SS Corsica in November 1859, encouraging the legislature to float a loan and begin the construction of the Royal Victoria Hotel in the summer of 1860. Built of stone, four stories high with 90 bedrooms, it was the largest building in Nassau at the time. It boasted a central portico and three piazzas - an early guidebook written by J.H. Stark enthusiastically reported "As its site at the head of Parliament Street is 90 feet above tide water, the views from these piazzas - like the air that fans them - are exceptionally fine. Here, for the benefit of those invalids who cannot journey about, is a promenade of the thousand feet."

Completed before the end of the 1860-61 winter season, the Royal Victoria Hotel

was intended to attract invalids and other refugees from the chilly north seeking a change and a warmer climate. It soon became the headquarters of the colourful blockade runners during the American Civil War. With the end of the Civil War, the colony experienced economic decline and this along with the threat of cholera and yellow fever, limited the clientele.

The hotel had the reputation of being the best hotel in the West Indies. Its grounds boasted a billiard-room, bar, and barber's shop which attracted locals 'conchs' and foreigners, mostly males, who smoked, played billiards and gossiped.

The Royal Victoria's portico became a well-known tourist attraction. Numerous Bahamian vendors frequented the portico selling fruit, shells, shell-work, baskets and other wares such as are candy, sponge and sugar cane. Some vendors sold lace, "called Spanish work."

Small boys amused tourists by scrambling for pennies on the pavement or diving into the sea for them. The vendors, the carriage drivers and captains of boats sometimes

sang religious and 'shouting' songs for the visitors. 'Sankey' alias Thaddeus Warsaw Toote, renowned for his comic duet and dance with his cousin 'Moody' might perform a dance. Sankey Toote, later turned to business and by the turn of the century he owned his own store on the corner of Deveaux and Bay Streets.

Gradual expansion of tourism

The number of tourist visitors increased steadily as steamship services improved during the last four decades of the 19th century reaching a peak of about 750 each winter season.

In 1879 the main contract between New York, Nassau and Cuba was given to James E. Ward, who ran it successfully. During the winter season from December to May, the Ward Line employed two steamers on a fortnightly service, making the run between New York and Nassau in three and a half days. Passengers who took a round-trip ticket to Cuba would stay in Nassau or Havana for up to six months and also enjoy the two week itinerary between three Cuban ports, using the ship as a comfortable hotel.

By the 1890s, the Ward Line, consisting of a dozen vessels was making a weekly run to Nassau throughout the year. The Havana run from New York was now direct, and the Nassau boats instead connected with Santiago, Guantanamo, and Cienfuegos.

The pioneer of the Florida route to The Bahamas was Henry M. Flagler, the owner of a chain of hotels along the Atlantic coast of Florida. Flagler negotiated the fourth, and so far the most ambitious Hotel and Steamship Act with The Bahamas Government in 1898. Having acquired the aging Royal Victoria Hotel, Flagler purchased the Old Fort Nassau site and signed a ten-year contract to provide frequent overnight steamship connections with Miami. The Hotel Colonial, built by Flagler in the Spanish American style imported from South Florida, opened in 1900. The event was a significant landmark in Bahamian economic history.