Inagua

Inagua is the southernmost district of the Bahamas, comprising the islands of Great Inagua and Little Inagua. The headquarters for the district council are in Matthew Town. The original settler name Heneagua changed into derived from a Spanish expression meaning 'water is to be observed there'. Two names of apparent Lucayan starting place, Inagua that means "Small Eastern Island" and Baneque which means "Big Water Island", had been utilized by the Spanish to refer to Great Inagua.

Between the years of 1500 and 1825, many documented treasure weighted down ships were destroyed on Inaguan reefs. The most precious wrecks misplaced off the Inaguas have been treasure-laden Spanish galleons: the Santa Rosa in 1599; and the Infanta in 1788. Other ships of big price that had been wrecked there consist of the French Le Count De Paix in 1713, the British HMS Lowestoffe in 1801 and the British HMS Statira in 1815.

As early as the 1600s, salt became being produced and shipped to Spanish colonies, and its extraction become a going business by means of 1803. Henri Christophe, king of northern Haiti from 1811 to 1820, built a summer time retreat on the Northeast Point of Great Inagua. Local legend has it that he additionally buried a cache of gold there. By 1918, after the cease of World War I, decrease salt costs and opposition had pushed the small producers on Great Inagua out of enterprise, and the salt works have been deserted besides for incidental nearby use.