Although nowadays the United States and the West Indies are usually considered different in many ways, there is a strong historical link between the two regions. For Europeans in search of a new life, both areas offered opportunities, and there were notable political similarities between, for example, Maryland and Barbados: most importantly, both started as colonies of the British Empire. For Africans, the Americas were a very different kind of destination, with the slave trade bringing large numbers of captives to the Caribbean and North America alike. Immigration between the two areas has never ceased, and some famous Americans (e.g., Alexander Hamilton) were born in the West Indies. The passage back and forth was not always voluntary: the commerce between the islands and the North American mainland included slaves.

The connections between the Bahama Islands and South Carolina are instructive in this regard. The earliest English-speaking settlement in the Bahamas was in 1648, but in 1670 King Charles II issued a patent to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina for the new colony to be named after him. Charles' royal authorization included the Bahamas, and from that point on, there have been many connections between the two areas, with some of the clearest connections being evident in language. Bahamian Creole shares many similarities with Gullah, the language spoken in the Low Country of South Carolina, and these similarities are sometimes not shared with the creoles of the Caribbean (the Bahamas are technically part of the West Indies even though they are not in the Caribbean). John Holm (1983) has noted several vocabulary items common to both areas, including

bass 'to sing bass' (an archaism from the British Isles)
anthem 'a religious song' (another archaism)
bret 'to speak one's mind (from Lowland Scots)
biggity 'self-important' (also from Scots)
booboo 'noxious flying insect' (from Fon bubu 'a fly')
malavu 'whisky' (from Kongo malavu "palm wine')