Editing Turks and Caicos Islands (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of the Turks and Caicos Islands}}

===Precolonial era===
The first inhabitants of the islands were the [[Arawakan language|Arawakan-speaking]] [[Taíno people]], who most likely crossed over from [[Hispaniola]] some time from AD 500 to 800.<ref name="CratonSaunders">{{cite book |last1=Craton |first1=Michael |last2=Saunders |first2=Gail |author-link2=Gail North-Saunders |year=1999 |orig-date=1992 |title=Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lXOhAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA18 |volume=1 |edition=Paperback |location=Athens |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=9780820342733 |access-date=2022-03-05 |via=Google Books |archive-date=15 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230115081656/https://books.google.com/books?id=lXOhAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA18 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|p=18}} Together with Taíno who migrated from Cuba to the southern Bahamas around the same time, these people developed as the [[Lucayan people|Lucayan]].<ref name="britannica.com"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Granberry |first1=Julian |last2=Vescelius |first2=Gary S. |date=1992 |title=Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles |url={{GBurl|dAD_O9tQJqkC|pg=PA80}} |location=Tuscaloosa |publisher=University of Alabama Press |isbn=9780817351236 |via=Google Books}}</ref>{{rp|pp=80–86}} Around 1200, the Turks and Caicos Islands were resettled by Classical Taínos from Hispaniola.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Granberry |first1=Julian |last2=Vescelius |first2=Gary S. |title=Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles |year=2004 |publisher=The University of Alabama Press |isbn=0-8173-5123-X |pages=80–86}}</ref>

===European arrival===
It is unknown precisely who the first European to sight the islands was. Some sources state that [[Christopher Columbus]] saw the islands on his voyage to the Americas in 1492.<ref name="britannica.com"/> However, other sources state that it is more likely that [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]] conquistador [[Juan Ponce de León]] was the first European in Turks and Caicos, in 1512.<ref name=MinorityRightsGroup/> In either case, by 1512 the Spanish had begun capturing the Taíno and Lucayans as labourers in the ''[[encomienda]]'' system to replace the largely depleted native population of Hispaniola.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Stone |first=Erin Woodruff |date=May 2014 |title=Indian Harvest: The Rise of the Indigenous Slave Trade and Diaspora from Española to the Circum-Caribbean, 1492-1542 |type=PhD |publisher=Vanderbilt University |hdl=1803/10737 |oclc=873593348 |url=http://hdl.handle.net/1803/10737 |access-date=2022-03-04 |archive-date=15 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230115081544/https://ir.vanderbilt.edu/handle/1803/10737 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|pp=92–99}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Sauer |first=Carl Ortwin |author-link=Carl O. Sauer |year=1966 |title=The Early Spanish Main |url=https://archive.org/details/earlyspanishmain00saue_0 |url-access=registration |location=Berkeley & Los Angeles |publisher=University of California Press |lccn=66015004 |oclc=485687 |access-date=2022-03-05 |via=the Internet Archive}}</ref>{{rp|pp=159–160, 191}} As a result of this, and the introduction of diseases to which the native people had no immunity, the southern Bahama Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands were completely depopulated by about 1513, and remained so until the 17th century.<ref>{{cite book |last=Albury |first=Paul |year=1975 |title=The Story of the Bahamas |url=https://archive.org/details/storyofbahamas0000albu |url-access=registration |publisher=Macmillan Caribbean |isbn=9780333171318 |access-date=2022-03-05 |via=the Internet Archive}}</ref>{{rp|pp=34–37}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Craton |first=Michael |year=1986 |title=A History of the Bahamas |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofbahamas0000crat |url-access=registration |edition=3rd |location=Waterloo, ON |publisher=San Salvador Press |isbn=9780969256809 |access-date=2022-03-05 |via=the Internet Archive}}</ref>{{rp|pp=37–39}}<ref>William F. Keegan (1992). ''The People Who Discovered Columbus: The Prehistory of the Bahamas''. University Press of Florida. {{ISBN|0-8130-1137-X}} pp. 25, 48–62, 86, 170–173, 212–213, 220–223</ref>{{page range too broad|date=March 2022}}

===European settlement===
{{Main|Colony of Jamaica}}
[[File:Turks and Caicos Islands raking salt stamp 1938.jpg|thumb|Raking salt on a 1938 postage stamp of the islands]]
[[File:Historic Lighthouse Park on Grand Turk.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Grand Turk Lighthouse|1852 lighthouse on Grand Turk]]]]

From the mid-1600s [[Bermuda|Bermudian]] [[salt]] collectors began seasonally visiting the islands, later settling more permanently with their African slaves.<ref name="britannica.com"/><ref name="tcmuseum.org">{{cite web |url=https://www.tcmuseum.org/culture-history/turks-caicos-timeline/ |title=Turks & Caicos History Timeline |author=<!--No author given.--> |date=<!--No date given.--> |publisher=Turks and Caicos Museum |access-date=20 July 2019 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211211211056/https://www.tcmuseum.org/culture-history/turks-caicos-timeline/ |archive-date=2021-12-11}}</ref> For several decades around the turn of the 18th century, the islands became popular pirate hideouts.<ref name="tcmuseum.org"/> During the [[Anglo-French War (1778–1783)]] the French [[Battle of Grand Turk|captured the archipelago]] in 1783; however, it was later confirmed as a British colony with the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)]]. After the [[American Revolution|American War of Independence]] (1775–1783), many [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalists]] fled to British Caribbean colonies, also bringing with them African slaves.<ref name="britannica.com"/><ref name="tcmuseum.org"/> They developed cotton as an important cash crop, but it was superseded by the development of the salt industry, with the labour carried out by slaves bought and transported from Africa or the other Caribbean islands and their descendants, who soon came to outnumber the European settlers.<ref name="britannica.com"/>

In 1799, both the Turks and the Caicos island groups were annexed by Britain as part of the Bahamas.<ref name="britannica.com"/> The processing of sea salt was developed as a highly important export product from the [[West Indies]] and continued to be a major export product into the nineteenth century.

===19th century===
In 1807, Britain prohibited the slave trade and, in 1833, [[Abolition of slavery|abolished slavery]] in its colonies.<ref name="britannica.com"/> British ships sometimes intercepted slave traders in the Caribbean, and some ships were wrecked off the coast of these islands. In 1837, the ''Esperança,'' a Portuguese slaver, was wrecked off East Caicos, one of the larger islands. While the crew and 220 captive Africans survived the shipwreck, 18 Africans died before the survivors were taken to Nassau. Africans from this ship may have been among the 189 liberated Africans whom the British colonists settled in the Turks and Caicos from 1833 to 1840.<ref name="sadler">{{cite book |chapter-url={{GBurl|RZna-xKapDIC|pg=PA209}} |first=Nigel |last=Sadler |chapter=The Sinking of the Slave Ship ''Trouvadore'': Linking the Past to the Present |title=Underwater and Maritime Archaeology in Latin America and the Caribbean |series=One World Archaeology |volume=56 |editor-first=Margaret E. |editor-last=Leshikar-Denton |editor2-first=Pilar Luna |editor2-last=Erreguerena|editor-link=Margaret Leshikar-Denton |publisher=Left Coast Press |location=Walnut Creek, CA |isbn=9781598742626 |date=2008 |pages=209–220}}</ref>{{rp|p=211}}

In 1841, the ''[[Trouvadore]]'', an illegal Spanish slave ship, was wrecked off the coast of East Caicos. All of the 20-man crew and 192 captive Africans survived the sinking. Officials freed the Africans and arranged for 168 persons to be [[apprenticed]] to island proprietors on Grand Turk for one year. They increased the small population of the colony by seven per cent.<ref name="sadler"/>{{rp|p=212}} The remaining 24 were resettled in [[Nassau, Bahamas]]. The Spanish crew were also taken there, to be turned over to the custody of the Cuban consul and taken to Cuba for prosecution.<ref name="sutton"/> An 1878 letter documents the "Trouvadore Africans" and their descendants as constituting an essential part of the "labouring population" on the islands.<ref name="sadler"/>{{rp|p=210}} In 2004, marine archaeologists affiliated with the Turks and Caicos National Museum discovered a wreck, called the "Black Rock Ship", that subsequent research has suggested might be that of the ''Trouvadore''. In November 2008, a cooperative marine archaeology expedition, funded by the United States [[National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration]], confirmed that the wreck has artifacts whose style and date of manufacture link them to the ''Trouvadore''.<ref name="sadler"/><ref name="sutton">{{cite news |last=Sutton |first=Jane |date=25 November 2008 |title=Shipwreck may hold key to Turks and Caicos' lineage |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-shipwreck-slaves-idUSTRE4AP0OH20081126 |url-status=live |editor-last=Trott |editor-first=Bill |publisher=[[Reuters]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016043117/http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/11/26/us-shipwreck-slaves-idUSTRE4AP0OH20081126 |archive-date=2015-10-16}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Schmid |first=Randolph E. |date=26 November 2008 |title=Researchers find wreck of slave ship |url=https://www.telegram.com/story/news/local/north/2008/11/27/researchers-find-wreck-slave-ship/52182486007/ |url-status=live |work=[[Telegram & Gazette]] |agency=[[Associated Press]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220304213412/http://www.telegram.com/story/news/local/north/2008/11/27/researchers-find-wreck-slave-ship/52182486007/ |archive-date=2022-03-04}}</ref>

In 1848, Britain designated the Turks and Caicos as a separate colony under a [[Council President of the Turks of Caicos|council president]].<ref name="britannica.com"/> In 1873–4, the islands were made part of the Jamaica colony;<ref name="britannica.com"/> in 1894, the chief colonial official was restyled [[Commissioner of the Turks and Caicos Islands|commissioner]]. In 1917, Canadian Prime Minister [[Robert Borden]] suggested that [[Proposed Canadian annexation of the Turks and Caicos Islands|the Turks and Caicos join Canada]], but this suggestion was rejected by British Prime Minister [[David Lloyd George]] and the islands remained a dependency of Jamaica.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kersell |first=John E. |year=1988 |title=Government administration in a very small microstate: Developing the Turks and Caicos Islands |journal=Public Administration and Development |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=169–181 |doi=10.1002/pad.4230080206}}</ref>

===20th and 21st centuries===
{{Main|West Indies Federation|British Overseas Territories|Lucayan Archipelago}}

On 4 July 1959 the islands were again designated as a separate colony, the last commissioner being restyled [[Administrator of the Turks and Caicos|administrator]]. The governor of Jamaica also continued as the governor of the islands. When Jamaica was granted independence from Britain in August 1962, the Turks and Caicos Islands became a [[Crown colony]].<ref name="britannica.com"/> Beginning in 1965, the governor of the Bahamas was also governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands and oversaw affairs for the islands.<ref name="cia.gov" />

[[File:Sharlene-cartwright-robinson.png|thumb|right|175px|Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson, the first female Premier of Turks and Caicos, served from 2016 to 2021.]]
When the Bahamas gained independence in 1973, the Turks and Caicos received their own governor (the last administrator was restyled).<ref name="britannica.com"/> In 1974, Canadian [[New Democratic Party (Canada)|New Democratic Party]] MP [[Max Saltsman]] proposed in his private member's bill C-249, "An Act Respecting a Proposed Association Between Canada and the Caribbean Turks and Caicos Islands" that Canada form an association with the Turks and Caicos Islands; however, it was never submitted to a vote.<ref name=hall>{{cite news |last=Allen |first=Glen |date=16 February 1974 |title=Carpet-baggers ready to pull the rug on paradise; An island in search of a place in the sun |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19740216&id=TnowAAAAIBAJ&pg=2784,17405&hl=en |work=[[Montreal Gazette|The Gazette]] |pages=1 & 3 |access-date=2022-03-05 |via=Google News Archive |archive-date=8 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308211610/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19740216&id=TnowAAAAIBAJ&pg=2784,17405&hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref> Since August 1976, the islands have had their own government headed by a chief minister (now [[Premier of the Turks and Caicos Islands|premier]]), the first of whom was [[James Alexander George Smith McCartney|J. A. G. S. McCartney]]. Moves towards independence in the early 1980s were stalled by the [[1980 Turks and Caicos Islands general election|election]] of an anti-independence party in 1980 and since then the islands have remained British territory.<ref name="britannica.com"/> Local government was suspended from 1986 to 1988, following allegation of government involvement with drug trafficking which resulted in the arrest of Chief Minister [[Norman Saunders (politician)|Norman Saunders]].<ref name="britannica.com"/><ref name=Griffith>{{Cite news |last=Griffith |first=Ivelaw L. |date=Spring 1997 |title=Illicit Arms Trafficking, Corruption, and Governance in the Caribbean |url=https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/psilr/vol15/iss3/3/ |work=Dickinson Journal of International Law |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=487–508 |access-date=6 March 2022 |archive-date=6 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220306041033/https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/psilr/vol15/iss3/3/ |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|pp=495–6}}

In 2002 the islands were re-designated a British Overseas Territory, with islanders gaining full British citizenship.<ref name="britannica.com"/> A new [[Constitution of the Turks and Caicos Islands#2006|constitution]] was promulgated in 2006; however in 2009 Premier [[Michael Misick]] of the [[Progressive National Party (Turks and Caicos Islands)|Progressive National Party]] (PNP) resigned in the face of corruption charges, and the United Kingdom took over direct control of the government.<ref>{{cite web |title=A major step in clean up of public life in Turks and Caicos |publisher=Foreign Office of the United Kingdom |date=14 August 2009 |url=http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=20700728 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121010195234/http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=20700728 |archive-date=10 October 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="britannica.com"/>

During this period of direct British rule, in 2010 the leaders of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands discussed the possibility of forming a [[federation]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Tyson |first=Vivian |year=2010 |title=Bahamas wants federation talks with TCI |url=http://www.suntci.com/index.php?p=story&id=385 |url-status=dead |work=Turks and Caicos Sun |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111004163850/http://www.suntci.com/index.php?p=story&id=385 |archive-date=2011-10-04}}</ref>

A new [[Constitution of the Turks and Caicos Islands#2011|constitution]] was promulgated in October 2012 and the government was returned to full local administration after the [[2012 Turks and Caicos Islands general election|November 2012 elections]].<ref name="britannica.com"/><ref name="Clegg">{{Cite journal|last=Clegg |first=Peter |year=2013 |title=The United Kingdom and its Caribbean overseas territories: Present relations and future prospects |journal=Caribbean Journal of International Relations & Diplomacy |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=53–64 |url=http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/20439/1/Clegg%5B1%5D.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170131221456/http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/20439/1/Clegg%5B1%5D.pdf |archive-date=31 January 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|p=56}} [[Rufus Ewing]] of the PNP was elected as the new, restored, premier.<ref>http://suntci.com/pnp-wins-seats-pdm-p435-108.htm{{Dead link|date=April 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>[http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=PressS&id=774772682 Foreign Secretary statement announces elections in the Turks and Caicos Islands] Foreign & Commonwealth Office</ref>

In the [[2016 Turks and Caicos Islands general election|2016 elections]], the PNP lost for the first time since they replaced [[Derek Hugh Taylor]]'s government in 2003. The [[People's Democratic Movement (Turks and Caicos Islands)|People's Democratic Movement]] (PDM) came to power with [[Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson]] as Premier.<ref name="BBC-Top-jobs">{{Cite news |title=Turks and Caicos: Where women hold the top jobs |date=29 January 2017 |newspaper=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38679913 |access-date=21 July 2018 |archive-date=8 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170908021840/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38679913 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="britannica.com"/> She was replaced by [[Washington Misick]] after the PNP returned to power after winning the [[2021 Turks and Caicos Islands general election|2021 general elections]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Rose |first=Olivia |date=24 February 2021 |title=Charles Washington Misick becomes two-time leader |url=https://tcweeklynews.com/charles-washington-misick-becomes-twotime-leader-p11389-127.htm |url-status=live |work=Turks and Caicos Weekly News |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211115124743/https://tcweeklynews.com/charles-washington-misick-becomes-twotime-leader-p11389-127.htm |archive-date=2021-11-15}}</ref>