Bahamas 1971 BU Silver 2 Dollars 40mm (28.60 grams) 0.925
Silver (0.885 oz. ASW) Reference: KM# 23 COMMONWEALTH OF THE BAHAMA
ISLANDS ◦ ELIZABETH II ◦, Bust of Queen Elizabeth right. TWO DOLLARS
1971, The national bird, 2 flamingos.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of
Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
Flamingos
or flamingoes are a type of wading bird
in the family Phoenicopteridae, the only family
in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four
flamingo species in the Americas and two species
in the Old World.
Etymology
Flamingo comes from Portuguese or Spanish
flamengo, “flame-colored”, in turn coming
from Provençal flamenc from flama
“flame” and Germanic-like suffix -ing,
with a possible influence of words like
Fleming. A similar etymology has the
Latinate Greek term Phoenicopterus (from
Greek: φοινικόπτερος phoinikopteros),
literally “blood red-feathered”.
The
Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is an
archipelagic state of the Lucayan Archipelago consisting of more than 700
islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean; north of Cuba and
Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic); northwest of the Turks and
Caicos Islands; southeast of the US state of Florida and east of the Florida
Keys. Its capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The designation
of “The Bahamas” can refer to either the country or the larger island chain
that it shares with the Turks and Caicos Islands. As stated in the
mandate/manifesto of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Bahamas territory
encompasses 470,000 km2 (180,000 sq mi) of ocean space.
The
Bahamas were the site of Columbus’ first landfall in the New World in 1492.
At that time, the islands were inhabited by the Lucayan, a branch of the
Arawakan-speaking Taino people. Although the Spanish never colonised the
Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The
islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists
from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera.
The Bahamas became a
British Crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After
the American War of Independence, the Crown resettled thousands of American
Loyalists in the Bahamas; they brought their slaves with them and
established plantations on land grants. Africans constituted the majority of
the population from this period. The Bahamas became a haven for freed
African slaves: the Royal Navy resettled Africans here liberated from
illegal slave ships; American slaves and Seminoles escaped here from
Florida; and the government freed American slaves carried on United States
domestic ships that had reached the Bahamas due to weather. Slavery in the
Bahamas was abolished in 1834. Today the descendants of slaves and free
Africans make up nearly 90% of the population; issues related to the slavery
years are part of society.
The Bahamas became an independent
Commonwealth realm in 1973, retaining Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch. In
terms of gross domestic product per capita, the Bahamas is one of the
richest countries in the Americas (following the United States and Canada).
Its economy is based on tourism and finance.
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