Point. In the 1790s, a group of Loyalists from the Carolinas arrived on the islands via Florida, founding the isolated settlement of Cherokee Sound. Early 1970s In June 1971, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Lynden Pindling, announced his government's independence from Britain. On Abaco, the Greater Abaco Council formed to lobby for continued British rule. In July 1971, the Greater Abaco Council submitted a petition to the Queen asking that Abaco become a 'completely self-contained and fully self-supporting' territory under British jurisdiction. In August 1971, the British government refused to consider the petition. The September 1972 general election in the Bahamas showed a clear majority for independence across the country. However, on Abaco, the results were less clear-cut. The pro-independence Progressive Liberal Party won one of Abaco's two seats by a small majority. In contrast, Free National Movement, which opposed early independence, won the other chair by a large majority. Starting in December 1971, all-party talks took place in London to draft a new constitution for the Bahamas. The Greater Abaco Council sent their representatives to London for a 'collateral conference' to run alongside the official talks. The British refused to consider making Abaco independent separately from the rest of the Bahamas. The GAC accepted this, and the group ceased activity at the end of 1972. Shortly afterward, Errington Watkins, the Free National Movement representative for the Abaco-Marsh Harbour seat, formed a successor group, the Council for a Free Abaco. A second petition was organized and signed by half the registered voters on the island. Errington Watkins took this petition to London in May 1973, hoping to influence the Bahamas Independence Order then debated in the British Parliament. A sympathetic MP, Ronald Bell, introduced an amendment that would have excluded Abaco from an independent Bahamas and have the islands remain a British colony. Defeated in the House of Commons and the Bahamas Independence Order, this amendment was approved on 22 May 1973. Three weeks later, a similar motion on Abaco was defeated in the House of Lords. A last-ditch attempt by Errington Watkins to pass a resolution in the Bahamas House of Assembly calling for a United Nations-supervised referendum on Abaco was easily defeated in June 1973, and the Bahamas became independent on 10 July 1973. Abaco Independence Movement and onward In August 1973, shortly after the Bahamas became independent, the Abaco Independence Movement was formed as a political