Elizabeth Smith. Origin: Unknown

Elizabeth Smith was listed in the Colonial Office Records’ (CO23) “Return of Loyalists who arrived in the Bahama Islands from North America.” She came from East Florida as a party of four whites and two blacks, and they settled in Nassau. Where she and her family were living prior to their lives in East Florida is unknown, and they could have been Old (Bahamian) Inhabitants who fled the Bahamas for Florida in 1783, when the Spanish took control of their country. We have dozens of Smith mentions in early records of the Bahamas. Or her family could have originally been Loyalists who fled Georgia and/or the Carolinas under threat of attainder and/or confiscation.

However, since East Florida was settled by non-native members of the British Empire prior to 1765, and neither East nor West Florida were part of the 13 American Colonies, we do not consider everyone who came to the Bahamas from East Florida to have been de facto Loyalists from the American Colonies.

Elizabeth Smith was granted 100 acres of land in the Burrows Harbour area of Long Island, bounded on the north by the land of Robert Rumer.

References: Sibert, CO23