There was the island of San Salvador which was inhabited by a subgroup of the Lucayans called the Arawak Indians. It was completely wiped out in 1517 by slavery, disease and other hardships just 25 years after Christopher Columbus arrived. A group of English settlers in search of religious freedom formed a British settlement in the Bahamas in 1647, and called themselves “The Company of Eleutheran Adventures” which eventually became the Island of Eleuthera .