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Salt Industry

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Help preserve the history of the islands.

Salt Raking in the TCI

The salt industry began with seasonal salt rakers coming to the Islands from Bermuda in the late 1600s and lasted until commercial exploitation of the salinas ended in the 1960s. The Museum has done significant research on this aspect of our history.

Salt Industry

The Lucayan Indians were gone from the Turks & Caicos Islands within only a few decades of the first European contact. For more than 100 years after, the Islands lay uninhabitated by humans. In the 1660s, Bermudans began coming to the Turks Islands to rake salt. They soon developed the salt trade, the foundation of the Turks Islands economy for the next 300 years.

Bermuda was a poor colony in the 1660s, dependent on sale of its tobacco crop to England. Bermuda’s small size, only 30 square miles, meant limited acreage for cultivation, and the colony could not compete with the large exports from the North American mainland. Bermudians needed an another export, and they found it in salt production on Grand Turk Island.

Bermuda is about 750 miles away from Grand Turk. Because the wind and the currents are favorable, it took only five days of good weather to travel to and from Bermuda. Bermudians, both slaves and freemen, settled the islands, and today their descendants are known as Turks Islanders. Modern citizens are also referred to as Belongers.

The Turks Islands are warm, dry, and windy. Rainfall averages about 26 inches, and temperature fluctuates little, seldom dropping below 80ºF. The trade winds average 15 mph. Grand Turk and Salt Cay, the original salt producing islands, have several natural, shallow, inland depressions which filled with salt water directly from the sea or percolated up from underlying rock. These are called salinas. These conditions are perfect for salt making. Bermudians improved the natural salinas, making them into rock bordered salt pans or ponds.

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Salt Raker in the 1960s

Salt raking was always drudgery compounded by poor living conditions, but in the early days it was worse, since the work force lived on the island only during the salt season between spring and fall. Salt raking in the Turks Islands, as pursued in its first century, was an extension of Bermudian trading voyages.

A typical Bermudian voyage involved shipping a mixed black and white crew and sailing to Turks Island. There the whites were left on their own to rake salt, living in rough huts, while the ship master and black crew cruised for turtles or recent wrecks visible in the clear waters. Wrecks would be picked apart for their metal and timbers — both scarce commodities in Bermuda. The ship might trade in New Providence in the Bahamas before returning to Turks Island to pick up the salt rakers and their white crop. This existence was only disturbed during war time: both the French and Spanish briefly captured Grand Turk.

Bermuda, the Bahamas, the U.S. and Turks Island Salt

Following Europe’s Seven Years War (known as the French and Indian War in North America), ownership of the islands was conceded to be English, and the Turks Islands began to have year-round inhabitants. In 1767, Andrew Symmer was appointed as the first King’s Agent on Grand Turk. Symmer set about doing more than just functioning as a revenue agent. He set up a code of regulations — one that substantially revolved around salt raking, which used a head right system of shares.

But Symmer had greater ambitions and in the more than thirty years of his tenure, he pleased neither the Bermudians, who wanted to maintain free and untaxed use of the salinas in a business they had developed, nor the Bahamians, who viewed salt as a taxable commodity produced in islands that were part of the Bahamas. Symmer tried to function as an independent governor, eagerly boosting the islands as suitable for settlement. In reality, his activities served to ensure that the islands became a part of the Bahamas in 1799.

The American War of Independence heightened the demand for salt: an American vessel carrying salt was automatically subject to seizure. Bermuda, while sending privateers to prey on American ships, was at the same time dependent on the mainland for survival and so continued an illegal trade with the colonies. After the war, the Americans began to develop domestic salt sources so as to reduce dependence on an import. Meanwhile the Crown settled the land claims of some American Loyalists by granting them property in the Caicos Islands. The Crown hoped that they would grow cotton and replace the lost supply of American cotton. Most of the Loyalists failed and left within a generation, but they left their slaves behind in many cases. Some of these remained on the former plantations in the Caicos as subsistence farmers. Others moved to the Turks and became salt rakers.

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Raking salt around 1900

Raking salt was brutal labor. The hot breeze, the soaring temperatures, and the effects of standing in brine all day or walking barefoot over chunks of salt crystal made the work drudgery. Cuts failed to heal and boils developed on skin constantly exposed to brine. The bright sun reflecting off salt water, white sand, and salt crystals contributed to the onset of blindness. A limited diet combined with a lack of medical care undermined general health. Until British Emancipation of slaves in English colonies, most of the workers were slaves, with a few poor whites and freed blacks. Emancipation in 1833 eliminated the worst abuses of slavery, but did not produce any great change in working or housing conditions.

Salt Production and Use

Salt was produced by letting sea water into the salinas through sluice gates located at the beach. Water was concentrated by evaporation in one pond, then concentrated again in a second. The slushy brine was then let into smaller drying pans, where the salt crystallized. The cycle took about 90 days from start to finish, but “crops” for each set of pans were spaced by the individual stages into 20 to 30 day periods. Workers raked the crystalized salt into piles and shoveled it into wheelbarrows. The salt was then dumped in large heaps for storage.

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Women bagging salt in the early 1900s

Ships anchored off shore and shallow-draught sailing craft lightered the salt to them. Forty pound (half bushel) sacks of salt were handed up from the lighters to be emptied into the hold. The necessity of lightering, a consequence of the lack of a deep water harbour and wharves, combined with a lack of sufficient contiguous salina acreage, would ultimately doom the salt industry in the Turks Islands. The limited output of each of the salt islands meant that construction of modern loading facilities was not cost effective for any one island.

Who used all this salt? From the time of the first European settlements in North America to the middle of the 1800s, salt was a critical food preservation item. There was no metal canning industry, no freezing, no refrigeration, no chemical preservatives to help keep food fresh and edible. Smoking, pickling, drying, packing in sugar syrup, and salting were the only means to preserve food. On average, food preservation needs translated into 40 pounds of salt per person per year. Salt pickled vegetables and cured hams. New England cod fisherman needed two pounds of salt to preserve a single pound of cod. Tanners and weavers used salt to process leather and fix dyes.

The Beginning of the End for Turks Islands Salt

In the years that European North America comprised the land between the Atlantic coast and the Appalachians, there were few mainland salt sources. Europe and the West Indies supplied most of the salt, and the Turks Islands were the largest single source from the West Indies. Figures varied from year to year and port to port, but about one sixth of the salt used in British North America before the American Revolution came from Grand Turk and Salt Cay. Maintaining salt imports was vital to the success of the American Revolution, and the United States was dependent upon salt imports to some degree until almost the end of the 19th century. The relative importance of the Turks Islands, however, dwindled as the demand for salt continually expanded. The Turks Islands’ production capability was insignificant compared to that offered by new sources and methods of production.

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Salt Pans in the 1900s

Today salt is mined or pumped from underground salt deposits as brine and evaporated. At Great Inagua in the Bahamas, however, U.S.-based Morton Salt International still makes sea salt using the age-old solar evaporation technique. Some 30,000 acres of reservoirs and crystallizing ponds produce more than 1.3 million tons of salt annually, which is raked by tractors and loaded onto ships by conveyers. By contrast, the Turks Islands only produced an average of 67,000 tons annually between 1888 and 1907, when the industry was at high water. Dwarfed by the demand and other producers, and unable to expand pond acreage, mechanize loading, or achieve economies of scale, the salt industry in the Turks Islands finally collapsed in the 1960s after 300 years of production.

Today you can see many abandoned salinas, canals, and ruined windmills on Grand Turk and Salt Cay. Visit the Museum to learn more about this fascinating trade which linked America to these small islands.

Further Reading

“Turks Islands Salt, Enslavement and the Newfoundland-West Indian Trade” by Margot Maddison-Macfayden, Newfoundland Quarterly, 105(1):40-44, 2012. (Turks Island Salt_NQ_v105_n01_2012.pdf)

 

Culture & History

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  • Nature & Environment
  • Slavery
  • Lucayans
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  • SIsal Industry
  • Royal Events
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  • Turks & Caicos History Timeline
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The Museum is a publicly funded not for profit organization.

It is not a part of the Turks & Caicos Islands Government and receives no regular support from the Government. Only your Support makes it all possible. Become a supporter today — we can’t do it without your help.

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Click here to view a timeline of important events and dates in the history of the islands

The Colors of the Turks and Caicos Islands

RED was chosen to represent the nation’s capital, Grand Turk. The color is taken from the red/pink fruit found on the national plant, the Turks Head Cactus. They were once found in abundance on Grand Turk before they were removed to accommodate the salt ponds.

WHITE was chosen to represent Salt Cay. The color came from salt. The salt industry was largely responsible for populating the islands of Salt Cay, Grand Turk and South Caicos.

ORANGE was chosen to represent South and East Caicos. The color comes from the Spiny Lobster and fish and reflects the fishing industry in the “Big South.”

TAN was chosen to represent Middle Caicos. The color is taken from the raw material (thatch) that once covered the roofs of the houses. It is also used to make straw hats, baskets and brooms. Middle Caicos is known for the superior quality of native craftwork.

GREEN was chosen to represent North Caicos and Parrot Cay. The color is taken from the fruit trees and other types of trees that flourish in the most fertile of all the islands. North Caicos is also home of Wade’s Green Plantation, the most successful of Caicos Islands cotton plantations.

TURQUOISE was chosen to represent the islands of Providenciales, Pine Cay and West Caicos. The color is taken from the beautiful turquoise waters that surround these islands on which our famous Caicos fishing sloops sail. These turquoise waters also contribute to our newest industry, tourism.

PINK was chosen to represent the beautiful conch shell, flamingoes and the numerous uninhabited cays that make up our chain of islands.

YELLOW represents God’s glory as the sun shining down on all our beautiful islands and cays. The sun also contributes to our newest industry, tourism.

View a timeline of important events and dates in the history of the islands

View Timeline

A Few Artifacts You’ll See at the Museum

Our collections represent the rich historical, cultural and natural heritage of the Turks and Caicos Islands and its people.

Lucayan Duho

Photo courtesy of Joanna Ostapkowicz. The Duho is one of the rarest artifacts in the museum’s collections. It was used a ceremonial seat for the cacique or chief of the Lucayans, the first inhabitants of these islands.

Fresnel Lens

The Grand Turk Lighthouse was erected in 1852 and was originally designed to burn whale oil and had an Argand reflector lamp. In 1943 the lighthouse was converted to a Fresnel Lens one of these lenses is now on display at the Museum.

Swivel Gun

The Molasses reef wreck, an early Spanish Caravel was equipped with three types of breech-loading swivel guns, one type is shown above. The swivel guns are thought to be anti-personnel weapons placed wherever convenient along the ship’s rail.

Salt Industry Post Card

The museum has diverse collection of early postcards of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Most post cards depict scenes on Grand Turk, the capital and from the salt industry.

Take a Look
TCI Governor

Governor of the Turks & Caicos Islands

H.E. Nigel Dakin CMG

The Turks & Caicos Islands National Museum on Grand Turk surely stands in one of the most majestic settings of any museum, anywhere! Perched on the edge of the Columbus Landfall national park. The 200-year-old building, “Guinep Lodge”, which houses a multitude of artifacts covering everything from the pre–Columbian Indians to the modern age, is a museum in its own right. The west facing building has stood firm and witnessed 200+ years of incredible TCI sunsets and has withstood every major hurricane since before records began.

The National Museum plays a vital role in recovering, preserving, recording and displaying the history of these island for all to see, enjoy and learn from. The museum’s archive is a veritable treasure trove of information, with enough information to fill two museums. With thousands of pre-Columbian artifacts from multiple archeological digs from around the TCI over the last 50 years, un-displayed artifacts from ancient warships, parish records or births, deaths and marriages dating back over 200 years; a veritable gold mine of information, just waiting to be discovered.

The museum is not only an exhibition facility for local history and artifacts, but also undertakes important work in the community with multiple events throughout the year and supports all the TCI schools, has a regular summer camp and kids club for our budding historians and archeologists of tomorrow.  The Grand Turk location includes a “science building” which is a fully fledged restoration facility to stabilize artifacts before they are displayed or stored in the archive. All of this work has been quietly undertaken since the museum was founded 30 years ago. There is also a campus on Provo and there are exciting plans underway to construct a new, multimillion dollar purpose-built facility for the wider enjoyment of our fascinating history. The Governor’s Office is proud to have supported the TCNMF over the years with vital capital projects.

Whether you are a local, or a visitor to our beautiful shores; I encourage you to visit and support the Turks & Caicos National Museum and absorb our colorful and surprisingly diverse local history.


H E Nigel Dakin CMG

Governor of the Turks & Caicos Islands

Minister for Tourism, Heritage & Culture for inclusion on the museum website

Hon. Josephine Connnolly

"It is a pleasure as Minister with responsibility of Heritage to welcome you to the Turks and Caicos Islands National Museum website. This Gem of an operation is perhaps the most notable establishment in regards to sites of historical interest. Since its establishment in 1991 it has always been an intricate part of our tourism product.

As a supporter, I believe the National Museum’s success depends on all resident and visitors; and as Minister I am committed to strengthening our tourism product through the infusion of authenticity and the increase in awareness of the National Museum in the development of heritage assets for sustainable tourism development.

Visit and explore the Grand Turk and Providenciales locations and experience our heritage and culture through interactive displays and exhibits. Special thanks is extended to the National Museum, a tangible product, a repository for artefacts and documents, providing a true island experience.".

Hon. Josephine Connnolly
Minister for Tourism, Heritage & Culture for inclusion on the museum website

President of Turks and Caicos Islands Community College

Dr. Hubert A. Fulford

"My interest in history and research goes back to my years as a student at the then Grand Turk Secondary School, where my teacher and later mentor, the late Helena Jones Robinson instilled a curiosity in me to appreciate context.  At that time, not fully appreciating the impact that curiosity would have on me, I sought only to please my teacher.

Pursuing tertiary education at various institutions, in various countries and at various levels, my initial foundation of inquiry was further stimulated.  Libraries and museums would form a very important part of my education, specifically during my studies in Jamaica, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Returning home after my studies abroad, my first visit to the Museum so captivated me that I began to tell all persons, visitors and islanders alike, that a visit to the museum was a MUST! The quaintness, yet thorough organization and presentation of artifacts of various kinds avowed me.

I found tremendous joy in taking my TCI Studies students to the Museum, standing back and listening to their expressions of excitement and curiosity as the curators and assistants would walk them through the various displays and presentations.

The Jamaican expression “likkle but tallawah” (small but strong) aptly fits our Museum.  The significance of this institution to our history and culture cannot be over stressed.

Welcome to The Museum.  A combination of history, culture and enchantment awaits you."

Dr. Hubert A. Fulford

President of Turks and Caicos Islands Community College

Historic Photo Gallery of the Turks and Caicos Islands

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Locations

Guinep House, Front Street

Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos Islands, British West Indies (BWI)
Tel (01 649) 247-2160
From the US (786) 220-1159
Hours Vary - See our schedule under Locations

The Village at Grace Bay

Development Office and Caicos Heritage House
Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands, British West Indies (BWI)
Tel (01 649) 247-2161
Grace Bay Hours: See Hours For This Location

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