The Bahama Archipelago, also known as the Lucayan Archipelago, consists of more than seven hundred islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean and is located 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.

The Bahamas is the site of Columbus' first landfall in the New World in 1492, at which time the islands are inhabited by the Lucayan, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taino people.

Although the Spanish never colonize The Bahamas, they ship the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola.

The islands are mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settle on the island of Eleuthera.