Lucayoneque

Lucayoneque is the Lucayan name recorded for the Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas. Great Abaco and Little Abaco lie among shallow banks and a fringe of smaller cays. Lucayan communities inhabited the islands before Spanish slave raids and disease devastated the archipelago in the sixteenth century.

In 1783 loyalists fleeing the American Revolution arrived in Abaco, accompanied by enslaved Africans. Their settlements gave the islands a new population after a long period with few inhabitants. The newcomers attempted to establish farms and communities on the low limestone islands, whose channels and sheltered waters encouraged communication by boat between the scattered settlements. Some early ventures were short-lived, while other small coastal communities endured along the coast and on the neighboring cays.