History
Early inhabitants of the islands were Amerindians, including the Arawak people, who were, over the centuries, gradually replaced by the Caribs. The first documented European to sight the islands was Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León, who did so in 1512. During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the islands passed from Spanish, to French, to British control, but none of the three powers ever established any settlements.
For several decades around the turn of the 18th century the islands of TCI became popular pirate hideouts – the infamous Jack Bonny and Mary Riley were rumoured to use Parrot Cay as their lair. Bermudian salt rakers had come to live and gather salt on the Turks islands from the early 1700’s, and after the American Revolution (1775–1783) many crown loyalists fled to Caribbean colonies, including the first settlers on the Caicos Islands. By the late 1700’s settlements had become established on the four main islands – North, Middle and South Caicos, along with Provoidenciales, and British control well accepted.
TCI was one of the constitutive parts of the Federation of the West Indies until Jamaica was granted independence from Britain in August 1962. At that point, the Turks & Caicos Islands became a crown colony, and from 1965, the governor of the Bahamas was also governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands. When the Bahamas gained independence in 1973, the Turks and Caicos received their own governor and a locally elected government was established in 1976, when James Alexander George Smith McCartney became the first chief minister of Turks & Caicos islands.
