The
communities of Cherokee Sound and Sandy Point, both located on
remote peninsulas in the Northern Bahamian island of Abaco, are
related to the Carolinas in a unique way. In the 1790s, a small
group of white loyalists disenchanted with the outcome of the
Revolutionary War left the Carolinas. Following a short stay in
Florida, they migrated to the Bahamas where they settled in the
Cherokee Sound peninsula of Abaco.
The community
of 160 Anglo Americans remains isolated to this day, obtaining
electricity and a paved road for the first time in the mid 1990s.
The dialect of this remote group is of great interest because
of their historical relationship to the speech of the Carolinas
and their segregation from other, majority black communities of
the Bahamas. More than forty-one interviews have been conducted
by the staff of the NCLLP with the residents of this island community,
whose speech patterns resemble the structures found among the
isolated coastal Carolina, while accommodating to some extent
the speech of their Bahamian neighbors.
Located
30 miles southwest of Cherokee Sound, the Sandy Point community
represents a group of traditional Afro-Bahamians who migrated
from various sites in the African diaspora, including the American
South. More than forty-two interviews have been conducted with
residents of Sandy Point to provide comparisons within an isolated
community of African-Bahamians.
