As a former colony of Great Britain, The Bahamas' attainment of independence on July 10, 1973, was relatively late when compared to some of its sister islands in the Caribbean that were also British colonies.

Jamaica, for example, after a failed attempt to establish a European Union-style West Indian Federation with Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, became an independent country on August 6, 1962; Trinidad and Tobago followed on August 31, 1962; and Barbados severed its colonial "navel string" from Great Britain on November 30, 1966...