Is Bahamas prime minister Philip Edward Davis from Ghana?

Where he was born

Philip Edward "Brave" Davis was born in New Providence, the Bahamas, on June 7, 1951. His father, Brave Edward Davis, came from Old Bight on Cat Island, and his mother, Dorothy Davis (née Smith), from Alexander, Exuma. He spent part of his childhood with his grandparents on Cat Island. He has been Prime Minister of the Bahamas since 2021.

His ties to Ghana

• His son is a chief in Ghana. On June 27, 2022, Ahanta chiefs installed his son, Christopher Davis, as Jan Kwa II, a Safohen (chief), at Busua, the traditional capital of the Ahanta people in Ghana's Western Region. The title honors Jan Kwa I, an Ahanta warrior who resisted the slave trade. The First Lady, Ann Marie Davis, attended.
• His own words in Accra. On June 19, 2023, he addressed the Afreximbank 30th anniversary annual meetings at the Accra International Conference Centre. He said Junkanoo's "music, costumes and dances have been traced back to the area called Princess Town, right here in Ghana," and added: "So now you appreciate my excitement, as I really greet you as my brothers and my sisters."
• Junkanoo and Ahanta. Christopher Davis's research ties Junkanoo, the Bahamas' biggest festival, to the Kundum festival of the Ahanta, and its name to the Ahanta warrior Jan Kwaw, known in English as John Canoe. It names Princess Town, on the Ahanta coast, as a departure point for the first slave ships to the Bahamas.
• The DNA. A 2025 genetic study of 160 Bahamians, led by Dr. Tanya Simms of the University of The Bahamas, found markers strongly associated with the Akan people of Ghana.

Worth knowing

• The Ahanta are part of the wider Akan family of peoples in Ghana.
• Many Bahamians, like many people across the Caribbean, descend from Africans taken from the Gold Coast, today's Ghana, during the transatlantic slave trade.