The Caribbean salt islands

As I was banging around Google Maps today I came across the major northern Caribbean / Antilles islands. The Turks-and-Caicos caught my eye, and Inagua. Despite Inagua's large area (if you count that lake) it didn't look like many people lived on it. I mean - it's behind that strait between Haïti and Cuba, not exactly prime real-estate today, but what about the Age Of Exploration? The Smithsonian might have the answer: salt.

Europeans and sailors deal with months on end without fresh food. Not-so-fresh food can be made edible, for that bit longer, by drying it out, and/or preserving it in ice or in salt. Historically Europeans have mined salt, hence towns with names like "Salzburg" and "Halstatt". It can also be taken from the ocean but first you have to dry out the brine.

Enter Turks-and-Caicos; which is exactly what the explorers did. These islands are not very wet and they seem not to host much in the way of forests, compared (say) with the Dominican Republic. Saltwater washes ashore, especially after tropical-storms and tsunamis, and dries out. Europeans figured pretty early that with just a few strategically-placed levees/levies and gates they could trap brine in high tides and (literally) rake in the profit after a sunny day and lowtide.

And this stuff was precious. The very Latin "salary" derives from this root. In English, White Gold they called it; and, yes, the English by the mid-AD-1600s owned Bermuda, Bahamas, and Barbados (and in 1655 would wrest Jamaica from Spain). By laws of economic-advantage, Turks-and-Caicos were off the usual seaways, but were close-enough those seaways to sell the salt.

Salt-raking was one of the easier Caribbean jobs, easier than cane-cutting anyway, so tended something sailors would do in between voyages. Of course slavery existed too at this time but there was always a problem with pirates, French Tortuga in particular being not far enough away, which pirates had the bad habit of stealing the slaves as well as the salt. This also encouraged a lack of the local investment which better-defended Cuba and Barbados got. Seasonal harvests; seasonal people, mostly men.

This strange claimed-but-barely-settled status led to some fascinating rivalries between the various British islands as to who got to collect the rents off of the salt trade. Bahamas were closest; they claimed the territory. But Nassau liked home in Nassau and never cared to invest in Turks-Caicos. Bermuda had the closest ties I guess because Bermuda was itself in the middle of nowhere and had fewer better options. Eventually Turks-Caicos said screw-this-noise and tied itself with Jamaica, across the strait. The Bahamas chain finally took upon itself to invest in its own salt island - namely Inagua. There went Turks-Caicos' market.