ngers immigrated to Andros for the rich sponge fishing on the Great Bahamas Bank off Andros’ west coast. For a period of years Andros sponging was the Bahamas’ largest industry. The sponges were wiped out by Red Tide algae in the 1930s, and the sponging industry died and the spongers left the island for Key West, and Tarpon Springs, Florida, and thousands of unemployed Bahamians moved to the village of Coconut Grove near Miami.
In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the Owens Lumber company, a US-owned company, deforested much of the indigenous pine yards that grew on North Andros. As a result of poor planning for re-growth, what is found on the island today are over-crowded forests of mainly young trees.
In the 1960s and 1970s the Bahamas led by Sir Lynden Pindling, the Member of Parliament for Kemps Bay on South Andros, negotiated independence from the British. Self-rule was granted in 1964 and one-man one-vote Majority Rule in 1967. The Bahamas achieved Independence July 10, 1973. One of the final acts of the British ruler ship of the Bahamas was to grant AUTEC a long-term lease for land on Andros, not unlike the lease of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Pindling became the first Prime Minister of the Bahamas, and served until 1992, when his party lost control of Parliament, but he retained his seat representing South Andros
