Nearly 200 illegal housing additions in less than five years
SPANISH WELLS, ELEUTHERA — Chairman of the Spanish Wells Commonage Committee George Ivanhoe Sweeting yesterday told Eyewitness News that the one-year building ban was initiated because their generational farmland was being taken up by the structures in an expanding Blackwoods shantytown.
“The building has just not stopped, we told them numerous times to stop, but they have not heeded our warning, nothing, they just kept on building right through,” Sweeting said.
“It’s like they had no regard for our authority over the land, nothing, they just kept on doing what they were doing.”
Sweeting said that he is uncertain of how many people are currently residing in the Blackwoods area because the residents there refuse to tell them and threaten them whenever confronted.
However, he explains that they have noticed that a huge influx of persons came as a result of Hurricane Dorain in 2019 and the number seems to have kept growing ever since, with them recently finding that over 168 additions to the existing structures in the span of fewer than five years.
“Just recently, one of the new structures that were being built out there. They were approached and told they had to stop because they were actually on a commoner’s land, that he was in the process of farming; and the commonage committee and the gentleman, the commoner who was in possession of the land received threats of violence and to be shot if he came around the house […] the fellow told us he has just as much right to that land as us.
“[…] Actually now they’re starting to cut down the farmer’s fruit trees and burn them to build houses on the farms.”
The Commonage Committee was a thing of the past just several years ago; however, Sweeting said it had to be reestablished in 2018 due to the increasing number of alleged squatters.
Since then, the Commonage Committee Chairman said they have been in contact with the Ministry of Works making the government-run entity aware of the situation, however, their complaints were left unaddressed.
Sweeting continued: “We have kept them up to date with everything we have from 2008 until the present, it’s just nothing was done because we were told though there’s a court injunction. This is a court. You can’t do anything and just nothing ever got done.”
“[…] I don’t think anybody really wants to deal with the matter. Everybody keeps passing the buck down to somebody. We go to one set of people, oh that’s this person’s problem, we go to them, no, it’s the next person you got to go to and you got to get in and run round and round and round in circles.”
Sweeting said in this most recent letter, the Committees’ latest attempt to get the government to assist in the matter dated October 25, 2022, was sent to the island administrator, the Ministry of Works, the District Council, and Bahamas Power and Light.
He noted that many of the people living in Blackwoods, which was mainly purposed as farmland, seem to have work permits, but the vast majority of them do not work for people in Spanish Wells commonage, nor were they given any permission to set up in the space..
“There are a good many people out there, I’m not going to lie to you, but they are working for people from Spanish Wells that have rights on the commonage land that have work permits. Those we do not have a problem with.
“You know, we need to figure out something, with how to house them, but in our estimates from what we see out there, at least 80 percent of the people that are out there do not work for anybody that has any legitimate claim on the commonage land.”
The land also holds historic relevance, according to Sweeting.
It was given as a grant from the British crown to the people of Spanish Wells back when America took Nassau from the British in a war and it was taken back by the British because of efforts by the Eleutherans.
Despite the north Eleutheran island having a reputation of being insular and stand-offish towards people of color, Sweeting maintained this effort is purely to secure the generational land for the people of Spanish Wells who rightfully own it.
“There are mixed families on the island who, their kids have as much claim in that land as I do because the parents, one or both of the parents are descended from here and their children, even though they might be, the good lord above may have blessed them with a little better tan than me; they have just as much claim on that land as I do.”
A few weeks ago several government officials visited the island and toured the Backwoods area with Sweeting and some of his members, he said, and it seemed to be productive according to him with the Minister of Works saying that he would do what he can to assist them.
“The Ministry of Works reached out to my deputy today and spoke to him. I have to get in touch with them tomorrow to talk with them myself, but we did do a walk-through with Minister Sears and he saw for himself what was going on out there and he did tell us he was going to try and help us.”
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