Tanya Michelle Simms

This multidisciplinary project aims to examine the maternal human history of The Bahamas and the genetic imprints that the Transatlantic slave trade has left throughout the Bahamian archipelago. We aim to compare the maternal lineages present in The Bahamas with those found in West and Central Africa, with a specific focus on the Ahanta people of western Ghana, a likely homeland to many of the enslaved Africans brought to the islands. This location in Africa is known from historical records and shipping manifests to have been the origin of the hundreds of transported peoples whose lineages are likely still present and widespread throughout the archipelago. We will interview, work with, and collect DNA samples from 100 contemporary Bahamians on New Providence, the most populated island of the archipelago and home to many migrants from the other Bahamian islands. We will also work with 100 individuals from the Ahanta community in Western Ghana. The comparative mitochondrial DNA results will confirm or complexify historical accounts and oral traditions of Bahamian origins in West Africa. Further, the results will help solidify the Ghanaian origins of longstanding Bahamian cultural practices, as well as forge new homeland-diaspora relations between the respective communities.