Spain had claimed the entirety of the New World, including Bermuda, for itself, and, notwithstanding the Pope's dividing South America between it and Portugal, it ruthlessly sought to prevent other European nations, especially England, establishing a foothold, even in, North America which the Spanish had largely avoided themselves. England's first two attempts at settling the Chesapeake had come under threat from Spanish forces ordered out from Florida to destroy them. What fate ultimately befell those two colonies is unclear, but the third established, Jamestown, spent its first years teetering on the same knife-edge between the threats of the Spanish, the Native nations, starvation, and disease.
Bermuda, also, was subject to Spanish threat. Colonised by the Virginia Company, accidentally, in 1609, the first settlers arrived under Governor Richard Moore in 1612. Moore's first concern was the defence of the colony against an attack that was thought imminent. He oversaw the start of the fortifications built around Castle Harbour and the Town of St. George's.
A militia was raised to man the artillery in these fortifications. The majority of the settlers were indentured - tenant farmers, who would hand most of their produce to the company in exchange for the cost of their transportation to Bermuda. The company reduced by a quarter the payments to be made by those settlers who volunteered for the militia.
Although Spain never acted on its threat to destroy the English settlement, a Spanish vessel did arrive off of Castle Harbour, not long after settlement. The vessel turned and fled after the firing of warning shots by the militia. According to popular accounts, the warning shots had left only enough powder for one more shot.
Under Moore's replacement, Governor Nathaniel Butler, 1619–1622, the detachment at each of the forts was re-organized to include several militia men under a trained artillery captain. Also, each of the parishes was responsible to raise a company of volunteers, and to build a store-house for weapons and grain. Each militia man was provided with a sword and a musket, with all of the muskets required to be of a common bore.
The end of Butler's Governorship coincided with the Virginia Company's loss of its Royal Charter for the administration of Virginia (North America). The company was dissolved in 1624, and The Crown assumed its responsibilities for the continental settlement. Bermuda, or the Somers Isles, to use the Colony's other official name, however had been administered by a separate company, formed by the same share-holders, since 1615. Titled The Somers Isles Company, it continued to operate Bermuda as a commercial venture until it, too, was dissolved by King Charles II in 1684.
This had profound effects on Bermuda, allowing the colony to abandon agriculture entirely, and turn to shipbuilding and seafaring. This included the development of Bermudian effective-suzerainty in the Turks and Caicos, where the salt industry became a key component of the economy, and where Bermudians would launch their first, independent military expedition. The dissolution of the company also meant the end of the system of indentured servitude, which had ensured a cheap labour pool, preventing slavery becoming the basis of the economy, as it had in other agricultural colonies. At the end of the first century of settlement, Bermuda's free and enslaved Blacks and Native Americans were still a small minority (which grew rapidly in the 18th century by combining with the Irish and Scots slaves, and a significant part of what might be termed the White Anglo population, dividing the populace into two demographic groupings, referred to as 'White' and 'Black' Bermudians).
The organization and efficiency of the militia progressed as the colony did, but, nonetheless, on arriving to begin his term as governor in 1687, Sir Robert Robinson, a naval officer, found his predecessor had failed to fulfill orders received in 1683, to ensure the proper maintenance of the fortifications and guns, and to keep them operations-ready day and night. In response to the parlous state of the colony's defences, Sir Robert shepherded through the Colonial Assembly the colony's first Militia Act.
Bibliography
"Defence, Not Defiance: A History Of The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps", Jennifer M. Ingham (now Jennifer M. Hind), ISBN978-0-9696517-1-0. Printed by The Island Press Ltd., Pembroke, Bermuda.
"Bermuda Forts 1612–1957", Dr. Edward C. Harris, The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, The Bermuda Maritime Museum, P.O. Box MA 133, Mangrove Bay, Bermuda MA BX.
Bermuda was first documented by a European in 1503 by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez. In 1609, the English Virginia Company, which had established Jamestown in Virginia two years earlier, permanently settled Bermuda in the aftermath of a hurricane, when the crew and passengers of Sea Venture steered the ship onto the surrounding reef to prevent it from sinking, then landed ashore. Bermuda's first capital, St. George's, was established in 1612.
While the defence of Bermuda remains the responsibility of the government of the United Kingdom, rather than of the local Bermudian Government, the island still maintains a militia for the purpose of defence.
The London Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of London, was a division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of North America between latitudes 34° and 41° N.
John Rolfe was an English explorer, farmer and merchant. He is best known for being the husband of Pocahontas and the first settler in the colony of Virginia to successfully cultivate a tobacco crop for export.
St. George's, located on the island and within the parish of the same names, settled in 1612, is the first permanent English settlement on the islands of Bermuda. It is often described as the third permanent British settlement in the Americas, after Jamestown, Virginia (1607), and Cupids, Newfoundland (1610), and the oldest continuously-inhabited British town in the New World, since the other two settlements were seasonal for a number of years.
Castle Harbour is a large natural harbour in Bermuda. It is located between the northeastern end of the main island and St. David's Island. Originally called Southampton Port, it was renamed as a result of its heavy fortification in the early decades of the Seventeenth century.
Captain William Sayle was a prominent British landholder who was Governor of Bermuda in 1643 and again in 1658. As an Independent in religion and politics, and an adherent of Oliver Cromwell, he was dissatisfied with life in Bermuda, and so founded the company of the Eleutheran Adventurers who became the first settlers of the Bahamas between 1646 and 1648. He later became the first governor of colonial South Carolina from 1670 to 1671.
The governor of Bermuda is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda.
Bermuda has organised several different forms of militia between the 1612 and 1815. The roles of the militias included defence of the colony in complement with the activities of the British Army and Royal Navy.
Bermuda Militia, under Militia Acts 1687–1813. Although the Bermuda Parliament had been formed in 1620, prior to 1687, the Bermudian Militia was raised and organised without reference to a Militia Act. The Crown took over the administration of the Colony from The Somers Isles Company in 1684.
With the start of the American War of 1812, an Act of 1813 re-organized the Military of Bermuda's nine-company regiment of foot into two battalions. The total strength of the local militia was, by then, nominally 450 men, but, as always, this was, at any moment, effectively reduced by half due to the seafaring occupations of the better part of the colony's men. Evidently, the militia no longer included any of the colony's black population, whether free or enslaved, as Lt. Colonel Francis Gore, on assuming the governorship, felt it advisable to boost the militia's strength by raising a colored corps, though this was not, in fact, done.
The Somers Isles Company was formed in 1615 to operate the English colony of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda, as a commercial venture. It held a royal charter for Bermuda until 1684, when it was dissolved, and the Crown assumed responsibility for the administration of Bermuda as a royal colony.
Several of the islands strung across the South entrance of Castle Harbour, Bermuda were fortified in the early days of the territory, hence the harbour's name. When official settlement of the archipelago by England began in 1612 the first permanent town, St. George's was placed on the North side of St. George's Harbour. St. George's Harbour could be accessed directly by channels from the East. Those channels, however, were shallow, suitable, originally, only for small ships. As a consequence, and despite any major settlement on its shores, Castle Harbour was an important anchorage in the early years of the colony, with its main entrance, Castle Roads being an important route in from the open Atlantic for shipping. It was also a weak point, as it was remote from the defences of St. George's Harbour, and difficult to reach. It was quickly fortified and garrisoned by a standing militia.
The State House (1620) in St. George's was the first purpose-built home of the House of Assembly, which then constituted the only chamber of the Parliament of Bermuda. Other than fortifications, it was Bermuda's first stone building. It is the oldest surviving Bermudian building, again excepting some fortifications, and has been used since 1815 as a Masonic lodge.
Between 1639 and 1651 English overseas possessions were involved in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars and wars that were fought in and between England, Scotland and in Ireland.
The Bermuda Garrison was the military establishment maintained on the British Overseas Territory and Imperial fortress of Bermuda by the regular British Army and its local militia and voluntary reserves from 1701 to 1957. The garrison evolved from an independent company, to a company of Royal Garrison Battalion during the American War of Independence, and a steadily growing and diversifying force of artillery and infantry with various supporting corps from the French Revolution onwards. During the American War of Independence, the garrison in Bermuda fell under the military Commander-in-Chief of America. Subsequently, it was part of the Nova Scotia Command until 1868, and was an independent Bermuda Command from then until its closure in 1957.
Fort St. Catherine, or Fort St. Catherine's, is a coastal artillery fort at the North-East tip of St. George's Island, in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda. Successively redeveloped, the fort was used first by Bermudian Militia and then by regular Royal Artillery units from 1612 into the 20th century. Today it houses a museum.
The Historic Town of St George and Related Fortifications is the name used by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee to identify collectively as a World Heritage Site St. George's Town, founded in 1612, and a range of fortifications, batteries, and magazines built between 1612 and 1939, the last of which was removed from use in 1953.
The Militia of the British Dominions, Self-Governing Colonies, and Crown Colonies were the principal military forces of the Dominions, Self-governing colonies and Crown Colonies of the British Empire.
Captain Daniel Tucker was an English colonial sea captain, member of the Virginia Company, member of the Somers Isles Company, treasurer of the Jamestown Colony and the notorious second Governor of Bermuda.
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