Qualla: Clifton Heritage National Park

Clifton Heritage National Park: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit bowlochile, CC BY 3.0. Beneath the clear water off Clifton's rocky shore, a massive sculpture of a young girl kneels on the ocean floor, her arms raised to hold the weight of the sea above her. Ocean Atlas, created by artist Jason deCaires Taylor and installed in 2014, is the largest underwater sculpture in the world. It stands in a coral reef garden alongside other works commemorating the Lucayan people who inhabited this coast nine centuries ago. On the bluff above, the ruins of an eighteenth-century plantation house crumble beside a reconstructed Lucayan village, and somewhere between them lie steps carved by pirates. At Clifton Heritage National Park, the Bahamas stacks its entire history into 208 acres.

Image: bowlochile | CC BY 3.0

Clifton Heritage National Park: Nine Centuries on One Shore

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bryce Edwards from San Jose, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0. The Lucayans, the indigenous Taino-speaking people of the Bahamas, settled the Clifton site around 1100 AD. Archaeological evidence uncovered during excavations in the 1990s by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Louisiana State University revealed that wh...

Image: Bryce Edwards from San Jose, CA, USA | CC BY 2.0

Clifton Heritage National Park: From Buccaneers to Bondage

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bahamas, CC BY 3.0. After the Lucayan era, pirates and freebooters used the remote western tip of New Providence as a staging ground, carving stone steps into the bluff that visitors still climb today. By the late eighteenth century, the site had transformed into something darker: a Loyalist plantat...

Image: Bahamas | CC BY 3.0

Clifton Heritage National Park: Saved from the Bulldozer

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bahamas, CC BY 3.0. In 2000, developers proposed bulldozing Clifton to build a gated community with a golf course. The backlash was immediate and fierce. Local Bahamians and heritage advocates organized opposition that ultimately killed the project. Four years later, the government established Clift...

Image: Bahamas | CC BY 3.0

Clifton Heritage National Park: Art Above and Below

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bahamas, CC BY 3.0. Clifton's most striking feature exists underwater. The Sir Nicholas Nuttall Coral Reef Sculpture Garden, installed in 2014, submerges art in the service of ecology, creating artificial reef structures that attract marine life while honoring Bahamian heritage. Taylor's Ocean Atlas...

Image: Bahamas | CC BY 3.0

Clifton Heritage National Park: Where the Movies Came

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bahamas, CC BY 3.0. Clifton's coastline has drawn Hollywood as well as historians. The rocky shore known as Turtle Pen, named for the sea turtles that frequent its waters, includes Jaws Beach, a filming location for Jaws: The Revenge, and Flipper Beach, connected to the 1996 film. A submerged prop p...

Image: Bahamas | CC BY 3.0