eFive Centuries Resource lo

Bermuda
FIVE CENTURIES
Teachers Guide

Text copyright © Rosemary Jones, 2011
Written and designed by Brimstone Media Ltd.
Published by Panatel VDS Ltd.
Printed by Island Press Ltd.
Produced for the Ministry of Education, Bermuda
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TEACHERS GUIDE
Contents 3
Contents
How to Use this Guide
Navigating Bermuda: Five Centuries
Section Synopses: Sections 1 to 5
An overview of the five thematic sections
spanning 1505–2000s, with summaries,
notes, key topics and history-makers
Section 1: Isle of Devils 1505–1684
CHAPTERS 1–4 LESSON PLAN MATERIALS
Age of Discovery; The Sea Venture;
The First Settlers; The Company Island
Section 2: Sea, Salt & Slavery 1684–1834
Call of the Sea; Scourge of Slavery;
Wars and Defence; Freedom and Reform
Section 3: Boomtown to Boers 1834–1918
From Sea to Soil; The Portuguese;
American Civil War; Tourism Takes Off
Section 4: Votes, Visitors & Victory
1918–1945
The Fight for Rights; A Perfect Paradise;
the New Tourism; Second World War
Section 5: Coming of Age 1945–2010
Progress in Peace; Growing Pains;
Troubled Times; Into the Future
First-Person Accounts
Ways to integrate first-person accounts
into social studies lesson plans, including
discussion themes and points of view
PLUS: page-finder and synopses of
the book’s 48 first-person accounts
History-Makers
Mini-biographies of those who made
Bermuda history, with discussion guide
and chapter listings
Image Study
Analysing the book’s historic artwork and
photos, discussion guide and activities
Connecting to the Curriculum
Ways to use the book in Social Studies,
Language Arts, Media Studies, Maths,
Drama, Art, and Science classes
Real-World Resources
Information to help plan enrichment
fieldtrips to Bermuda museums and
historic sites
Multi-Media Resources
Further reading, websites, film
Timelines
Comparing and contrasting Bermuda
events in a worldwide context, with
discussion guide and activities
4
6
12
20
28
36
44
62
66
52
59
70
76
78

Bermuda: Five Centuries brings our island’s history
alive and makes it accessible, especially for young
people.This special Teachers Guide was created
to offer instructional support and help teachers
and their students get the most out of this
unprecedented narrative history that won the
prize for non-fiction in the 2008 Bermuda Literary
Awards. Now you can prepare dynamic lesson plans
and take your classes on a fascinating journey back
in time and experience the most dramatic moments
of Bermuda’s past.
Exploring our history: choose your path
This Teachers Guide will aid you to navigate
Bermuda: Five Centuries, which is divided into five
thematic sections, each with four chapters, that tell
our history in chronological sequence.Teachers can
decide whether they wish to approach the book
section-by-section and chapter-by-chapter, compare
and contrast historic and social themes through the
centuries, or take explore history through any of
several other focus areas, including:
First-Person Accounts—narratives of those
who actually lived through historic events
and described them throughout the book.
See Pages 52–58
Image Study—images, both illustrative and
photographic, can be found throughout the
book, many from Bermuda’s national archives,
museums or family and individual collections.
These images capture the people and places
of Bermuda’s past in a graphic way and can
be examined as stand-alone features.
See Pages 62–65
BERMUDA: FIVE CENTURIES
4 How to Use This Guide
How to Use This Guide

TEACHERS GUIDE
How to Use This Guide 5
History-Makers—the characters of our
history, from students to statesmen, played
their different parts in an unfolding drama.
History can be examined through the
framework of such people, whose profiles
span the chapters and centuries.
See Pages 59 –61
Timelines—the island’s story unfolds against
that of the world at large, allowing teachers
and students to compare and contrast the
two in historical, socio-economic and
political contexts.
See Pages 78–79
Connecting to the Curriculum—multi-
disciplinary ways to use Bermuda: Five
Centuries in Social Studies, Language Arts,
Maths, the Arts, Media and Science classes.
See Pages 66–69
Chapters in the guide explore each of these separate
options, offering myriad ways in which teachers can
guide students through Bermuda history in classes
that are both informative and engaging. Included
throughout are sections on vocabulary, timelines,
questions for group discussion, critical thinking,
individual research and activities, as well as thematic
connections, allowing instructors to adapt material
to different grade levels in Bermuda’s middle and
secondary schools.
You will also find chapters containing Resources
(books, websites, films) to enhance topic learning,
plus a full listing of the island’s historic sites and
museums (complete with contacts, locations and
websites), to enable educators to build on lesson
plans with additional fieldtrips and group visits.

SECTION SYNOPSES
6
SECTIONS 1 to 5: 1505–2000s
An overview of Bermuda: Five Centuries
Bermuda’s historical evolution can be deconstructed and examined via major changing
themes. Bermuda: Five Centuries does this through five sections, with four chapters each,
spanning the island’s 500-year history—from Bermuda’s discovery in the 16th century
through to the present day.
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SECTION ONE
Isle of Devils
1505–1684
Includes
Chapter 1: Age of Discovery
Chapter 2: The Sea Venture
Chapter 3: The First Settlers
Chapter 4: The Company Island
TEACHERS GUIDE
Isle of Devils Section 1 7
Summary
This section details the first period of human
history in Bermuda, from the island’s discovery by
Spaniard Juan de Bermúdez in 1505, to the 1609
accidental shipwreck by English colonists en route
to Virginia, to England’s decision to send the first
official colonists to the island in 1612, and the first
decades of settlement.
Teaching Notes:
l Only relatively recently have historians settled on the
date 1505 as the correct year of Bermúdez’s discovery of
the island; in texts prior to 2000, the date 1503 was
often used, but is now believed to be incorrect.
l Refer to “England” and the “English” (not “Britain”
and the “British”) in this section’s chapters. The United
Kingdom of Great Britain was not formed until 1707;
until then, England, Scotland and Ireland remained
separate political entities.
Key topics
l Maps and early navigation
l Bermuda’s fearsome reputation among
mariners
l World powers of the 1500s and 1600s
l How Spain’s disinterest in Bermuda
allowed for English colonisation
l Bermuda’s first early visitors (castaways)
l The Sea Venture shipwreck
l How Bermuda saved Jamestown (with
supplies on Deliverance & Patience)
l Bermuda and Shakespeare’s The Tempest
l Survival by Sea Venture’s crew and
passengers
l Bermuda’s first settlers in 1612
l St. George and Jamestown
l Defence and fortification
l Pocahontas and native people
l Colonial economic challenges
l Bermuda’s shareholder “tribes”
and parishes
l Hog money
l Witchcraft, crime and punishment
l How government in Bermuda began
l Bermuda’s first slaves
l The Virginia Company and Bermuda
Company
History-Makers
l Juan de Bermúdez
l Diego Ramirez
l Christopher Columbus
l Sir George Somers
l Sir Thomas Gates
l William Strachey
l William Shakespeare
l Elizabeth I
l Richard Moore
l Richard Norwood
l John Rolfe and Pocahontas
l Daniel Tucker
l Captain Nathaniel Butler
Turn to Page 12 for a full analysis of Section One’s chapters

SECTION SYNOPSES
8 Section 2 Sea, Salt & Slavery
Turn to Page 20 for a full analysis of Section Two’s chapters
SECTION TWO
Sea, Salt & Slavery
1684–1834
Includes
Chapter 5: Call of the Sea
Chapter 6: Scourge of Slavery
Chapter 7: Wars and Defence
Chapter 8: Freedom and Reform
Summary
This section marks the end of private Bermuda
Company rule over the island, and the start of new
freedom as a Crown Colony. Strict economy-related
rules set by London investors for Bermuda’s settlers
were now lifted, allowing Bermudians to forge
ahead with new mercantile ventures—particularly
maritime pursuits.The 1700s can be categorised as
the major sea-going period of local history. Slavery
in Bermuda is dealt with in this section, as well as
Bermuda’s part in the American Revolution.
Key topics
l Whaling
l Shipbuilding
l Piloting
l Atlantic maritime trade
l Pirates vs privateers
l Bermuda cedar
l Bermuda sloop
l Salt-raking in Turks
l Mary Prince
l Slavery in Bermuda
l Middle Passage
l American Revolutionary War
l The Gunpowder Theft
l Irish poet Thomas Moore
l Fortifications at Bermuda
l War of 1812
l Emancipation
l Reform for Bermuda blacks
l Friendly Societies
l The Enterprise incident
l The first newspaper
l New capital: Hamilton
History-Makers
l John Bowen and Nathaniel North
l Jacob Minors and Jemmy Darrell
l Mary Prince
l Olaudah Equiano
l Sally Bassett
l Joshua Marsden
l George Washington
l Colonel Henry Tucker
l St. George Tucker
l Governor George Bruere
l Lieutenant Thomas Hurd
l Andrew Durnford
l Thomas Moore
l Governor Henry Hamilton

TEACHERS GUIDE
Boomtown to Boers Section 3 9
Turn to Page 28 for a full analysis of Section Three’s chapters
SECTION THREE
Boomtown to Boers
1834–1918
Includes
Chapter 9: From Sea to Soil
Chapter 10: The Portuguese
Chapter 11: American Civil War
Chapter 12: Tourism Takes Off
Summary
This section describes Bermuda’s economic return
to agriculture in the 1800s, after the demise of the
shipbuilding industry.The island is characterised at
the start of this era as an isolated, sleepy outpost,
largely cut off from world affairs.That would
change in the later 1800s, when Bermuda played a
key strategic role in the US Civil War. By the turn
of the 20th century, tourism was shaping up as the
island’s new economic pillar.
Key topics
l Convicts and the building of the
Royal Naval Dockyard
l Yellow fever and diseases
l Governor William Reid
l Gibbs Hill Lighthouse
l Agriculture and the export of onions
and lilies
l Portuguese immigration
l Civil rights for Portuguese
l Blockade-running in American Civil War
l Artist Edward James
l Princess Louise and the first tourism
l Mark Twain and early visitors
l Bermuda’s coat of arms
l Advent of tennis
l More fortifications
l West Indian immigration
l Boer War prisoners
l Bermuda and the First World War
History-Makers
l John Mitchel
l Governor William Reid
l Captain Benjamin Watlington
l Monsignor Felipe Macedo
l Georgiana Walker
l Major Norman Walker
l US President Abraham Lincoln
l US Consul General Charles Maxwell Allen
l John Tory Bourne
l Joseph Hayne Rainey
l Edward James
l Princess Louise
l Mark Twain
l Mary Outerbridge

SECTION SYNOPSES
10 Section 4 Votes, Visitors & Victory
Turn to Page 36 for a full analysis of Section Four’s chapters
SECTION FOUR
Votes,Visitors & Victory
1918–1945
Includes
Chapter 13: The Fight for Rights
Chapter 14: A Perfect Paradise
Chapter 15: The New Tourism
Chapter 16: Second World War
Summary
This section follows Bermuda as it both is influenced
by world changes and participates in global events.
Civil-rights struggles by disenfranchised women
slowly change the island’s social landscape in the
first half of the 20th century. Labour unions take
root. Air travel and cruise ships bring mass tourism.
Bermudians take part in the Second World War,
and the island plays a critical role.
Key topics
l Tourism takes off
l Gladys Morrell and suffragettes
l Birth of newspapers
l West Indians’ contribution to local culture
l Charles Monk and Jamaican workers
l First union: Bermuda Union of Teachers
l William Beebe’s deep-ocean discoveries
l Bermuda’s environmental history
l Cedar blight
l Return of the Bermuda petrel (cahow)
l New modes of travel (by air and sea)
l Bermuda Railway
l Celebrity visitors
l Second World War
l Bermuda’s baselands
l Censorettes
l Rations and local defence
l U-505
History-Makers
l Gladys Morrell
l Charles Monk
l Marcus Garvey
l John Parker
l William Beebe and Otis Barton
l Louis L. Mowbray
l Louis S. Mowbray
l David Wingate
l Governor Sir J. H. Lefroy
l Captain Lewis Yancey
l Major Anthony “Toby” Smith
l Sir Winston Churchill
l Woodrow Wilson
l James Hartley Watlington
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TEACHERS GUIDE
Coming of Age Section 5 11
Turn to Page 44 for a full analysis of Section Five’s chapters
SECTION FIVE
Coming of Age
1945–2000s
Includes
Chapter 17: Progress in Peace
Chapter 18: Growing Pains
Chapter 19: Troubled Times
Chapter 20: Into the Future
Summary
This section reveals a period of unprecedented
change in Bermuda and the world.The advent
of cars, home appliances, technology—and a new
airport—brought post-war Bermuda to modernity.
Tourism developed, and was later surpassed by
international business. Bermuda endured growing
pains of civil-rights strife as blacks fought to end
discrimination. Racial turmoil wracked the island.
Bermuda became a global citizen, sharing the
troubles of terrorism, the wonder of the Digital Age,
and the challenges of sustainable progress.
Key topics
l The first cars
l Kindley Field Airport
l New technologies: TV, appliances
l Bermuda’s NASA station
l Post-war tourism (“Jet Age”)
l Departure of Royal Navy
l Bermuda and the Cold War
l Dr. E. F. Gordon and the BWA (BIU)
l Theatre Boycott
l New Constitution and party politics
l Labour strife
l Committee for Universal Adult Suffrage
l Racial battles
l The Sharples murder
l The 1977 riots
l Independence debate
l First PLP government
l 9/11
l Digital Age
l “Bermuda Inc.”
History-Makers
l The Talbot Brothers
l Wil Onions
l Martin Luther King Jr.
l Dr. E. F. Gordon
l Progressive Group
l Sir Henry Tucker
l W. L. Tucker
l Sir Edward Richards
l Kingsley Tweed
l Sir Richard Sharples and George Duckett
l Erskine (Buck) Burrows and Larry Tacklyn
l Black Beret Cadre
l Gina Swainson
l Ottiwell Simmons
l Rhondelle Tankard and Boyd Gatton
l Shaun Goater
l Pamela Gordon
l Jennifer Smith

CHAPTER ONE
Age of Discovery
Summary
This chapter launches the human history of
Bermuda—that is, the first century (1500s) before
actual settlement by the English.This period of
world history is known as the “Age of Discovery,”
as mostly Portuguese and Spanish seafarers made
journeys of exploration to find previously unknown
territories. Bermuda was spotted by accident in
1505 by Spanish mariner Juan de Bermúdez as he
sailed back to Europe from the Caribbean. After
this milestone, Bermuda began to appear on maps,
and trans-Atlantic mariners started using the island
as a northern landmark for return voyages. Many
shipwrecked on Bermuda’s reefs. Survivors explored
the island, writing about it in diaries and letters.
Some built ships from cedar timber to escape.
ISLE OF DEVILS 1505–1684 SECTION 1
12 Chapter 1 Age of Discovery
Fast Facts
l Unlike some islands of the Caribbean, Bermuda
had no indigenous people.
l The first recorded sighting of Bermuda was by
Juan de Bermúdez in 1505.
l Bermuda didn’t appear on any map until six years
later—in 1511.
l Many 16th-century sailors landed on Bermuda,
usually by accident after shipwrecks.
l Mariners usually tried to avoid Bermuda because
of its dangerous reefs and their own superstitions.
l The island served a useful purpose as a naviga-
tional marker: ships returning to Europe sailed
north as far as Bermuda, then veered east on
homeward journeys.
l We have evidence of castaways spending time on
Bermuda, including maps, detailed accounts—
plus the Portuguese Rock carving at Spittal Pond
in Smith’s Parish.
n October 1603, a Spanish sea captain named Diego Ramirez found
himself exploring a deserted half-moon-shaped island in the Atlantic
where his galleon had run aground during a storm. Four other ships
in the same fleet had been destroyed, but he and his men lost only
provisions and were able to hobble into the nearest bay.They
anchored and went ashore to scout for fresh supplies. Ramirez would
describe his surroundings over the next 22 days in Edenic detail—a reef-
guarded oasis blanketed in cedar forests and palmetto
palms, where plump pigs roamed wild with herons,
sparrow-hawks and web-footed cahows so tame,his crew
caught hundreds of the strange birds to eat on their
return voyage to Europe.The island’s natural harbours
swam rich with turtles, parrotfish and red snappers and
its shallow inlets were littered with oysters, though
when he cracked these open, Ramirez found no pearls.
“The island is very peaceful, it is not high,” he wrote
of the idyllic but barely-known archipelago called
‘Bermuda.’ “One can travel all over it on foot or on
horseback, good black soil, thinly wooded, very good
level country.Very deep on the south side, no shoals
from end to end.A vessel can come within a musket
shot of land, for the sea breaks on the coast itself.”
The captain, who eventually resumed his voyage to
Spain from the Americas, sailed around the whole
island and drew a rough sketch, a chubby facsimile of the map of Bermuda
we recognise today.The drawing, together with his detailed account, provide
an engaging snapshot of early Bermuda before its eventual settlement by
the English nine years later. His description of a pearl-laden paradise also
renewed Spanish interest in the island, which for more than a century had
been decried as an “Isle of Devils” or “Isla de Demonios” and shunned by
mariners plying trans-Atlantic routes between the New World and Europe.
I
Age of Discovery
LAND-HO! ISLAND NAMED FOR A MARITIME PIONEER
Peter Martyr’s map of 1511 offers
the first cartographic record of
Bermuda, shown upside-down
at top right
BERMUDAMARITIMEMUSEUM
CHAPTER ONE
10
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SECTION 1 TEACHERS GUIDE
Age of Discovery Chapter 1 13
abyss
archipelago
cartographic
emblem
encompassed
facsimile
fictitious
indigenous
inscribed
malevolent
premature
prevalent
profound
rampant
rapaciously
repercussions
resourcefully
testimonials
unbridled
undeniable
VocabularyCritical thinking
What if the Spanish had claimed Bermuda
first? Stimulate discussion on hypothetical
history: have students imagine how
Bermuda’s past might have unfolded
differently, and how their lives would be
changed today, if our heritage and culture
were Hispanic.
Class activity
Brainstorm what it would have been like to
be the first human to walk on Bermuda.
Encourage students to describe in detail,
orally or in writing, what they see, feel and
hear, as well as list the probable plants and
animals they might encounter in the 1500s
before manmade and natural impacts on
the environment.
Research skills
Direct students to go online or consult other
nonfiction sources to find out more about
the biggest discoveries of the golden age of
exploration (late 1400s and 1500s).Who were
the European maritime heroes of the time?
Who were the monarchs? What did explorers
bring back from their travels? Which regions
remained unexplored by Western Europeans?
How did discoveries benefit/disadvantage
different nations? What other countries are
known to have explored prior to or during
this period? Remind your students to list
information sources.
Unit project
On a photocopied map of the world, have
students shade or otherwise indicate which
areas of the globe were known by European
world powers before—and then after—this
period of major exploration, and compare
differences.Trace the oceanic routes key
explorers took on major expeditions.
Enrichment
Take fieldtrips to:
l Portuguese Rock at Spittal Pond and visit
the site where Portuguese castaways
crawled to safety and inscribed the mark
of their king.Tour the park trails and get
students to list native vs. introduced flora
and fauna.
l Nonsuch Island, where a population of
Bermuda petrels, or cahows—whose
night-time calls were thought by mariners
to be the sound of attacking devils—has
been slowly restored.

CHAPTER TWO
The Sea Venture
Summary
This chapter describes one of the most dramatic
events in Bermuda’s history—the wreck of the
Sea Venture.The episode is significant for many
reasons: because it led directly to official English
settlement of Bermuda; because it spawned written
accounts that provide us with vivid detail of
400-year-old events; because it inspired William
Shakespeare, the world’s greatest playwright, to
write The Tempest; because it led to Sea Venture’s
survivors helping to rescue America’s birthplace,
Jamestown, from starvation with fresh supplies from
Bermuda.The chapter details the background,
personalities, events and consequences of the Sea
Venture story, including the survivors’ months on
Bermuda, and their escape almost a year later to
Virginia aboard two ships, Deliverance and Patience,
they built with salvaged supplies and island cedar.
14 Chapter 2 The Sea Venture
Fast Facts
l Sea Venture was the flagship of a nine-vessel
“relief fleet” taking colonists and supplies to
Jamestown from England.
l Key figures on board were: Admiral Sir George
Somers; Sir Thomas Gates, later governor of
Virginia; Captain Sir Christopher Newport,
who earlier had headed the voyage to establish
Jamestown; and writer William Strachey, who
became secretary of the Virginia colony.
l All crew and passengers on board Sea Venture
survived the wreck.
l After grounding on Bermuda’s reefs, survivors
salvaged what they could from the wreck,
including food, tools, rigging and timber.
l The story can be divided into three main parts:
the struggle to survive the storm in July 1609;
survivors’ squabbles and teamwork during their
10 months on Bermuda; and their journey to
Jamestown in 1610, where they reunited with
friends and family.
18
illiam Strachey and his fellow passengers believed they
were forging an illustrious future for themselves and
their nation as they set sail from Plymouth, England on
June 2, 1609.Their proud fleet of seven ships, plus two
smaller attending ships, or pinnaces, was on a mission of
mercy, to be sent almost 4,000 miles across the Atlantic to deliver supplies
and expertise to James Fort,Virginia, England’s struggling two-year-old
colony on the James River, off Chesapeake Bay.The settlement, which
became known as Jamestown, was facing starvation and the fleet carried
England’s hope for its survival.
For Strachey, the journey was also a personal quest: having recently
The Sea Venture
W
DISASTER BROADCASTS BERMUDA’S RICHES
BRIMSTONEMEDIA
CHAPTER TWO
Pottery and a candlestick from
the Sea Venture wreck of 1609
Right: an early map of the wild
Atlantic, Bermuda and the North
American coast
Sir George Somers

The Sea Venture Chapter 2 15
affluence
allocated
apparition
bedraggled
bucolic
burgeoning
ensconced
futile
ignominious
illustrious
imperial
incredulously
insurrection
jingoistic
jury-rigged
malcontent
phalanx
phenomenon
portend
propound
smorgasbord
versatile
Vocabulary
Research skills
Instruct students to carry out their own
research on the first English settlement in
America at Jamestown, Virginia. When was
it founded, for which reasons, and by whom?
Ask them to describe the hardships and
tragedies that affected the colony before
the Sea Venture passengers arrived aboard
Deliverance and Patience in 1610. What was
Jamestown’s “Starving Time”?
Unit project
Ask students to draw their own maps of
Bermuda from memory, including details
such as parish boundaries, towns, islands,
channels and harbours. Now compare their
work with Somers’s hand-drawn map.
Discuss his details and drawings, what they
tell about the castaways’ time in Bermuda,
and similarities and differences with modern
maps of the island.
Enrichment
Take a class fieldtrip to the Town of St.
George and visit:
l The replica of Deliverance at Ordnance
Island, complete with an animatronic
figure of William Strachey onboard.
l The Hall of History at the National
Museum of Bermuda at Dockyard.
Examine Bermudian artist Graham
Foster’s extraordinary mural depicting the
history of Bermuda, including the Sea
Venture saga. View artifacts recovered
from the Sea Venture wreck site.
Critical thinking
Ask students which human qualities helped
Sea Venture passengers and crew to survive
their ordeal and continue their journey to
Jamestown? Encourage discussion of both
practical skills and personality traits many
would have possessed which proved an asset
to the group. Specifically, get the class to rate
the leadership of Gates and Somers; what
did they do right—or wrong? Which qualities
did they display that would be valuable to
politicians or corporate chiefs today?
Class activity
Invite students to read aloud Strachey’s
description of the Sea Venture hurricane,
followed by sections of Shakespeare’s play,
The Tempest. Discuss similarities in the
details, themes and drama of both writings
and talk about how Shakespeare may have
been inspired by the real-life wreck. Discuss
which events have inspired movies, plays or
books (films: Titanic, Schindler’s List; TV:
Band of Brothers; books: Moby Dick). Ask
students to base their own poem, song or
short story on an actual event.

CHAPTER THREE
The First Settlers
Summary
This chapter details the first years of official
settlement in Bermuda—the arrival of English
colonists aboard the Plough in 1612 and the
development of the first town, St. George.
Fortification was a major theme of the colony’s
first years, due to the precarious nature of English
(vs. Spanish) occupation of Bermuda. Challenges
were tough: rats, crop failure, disease and the
lack of expected riches like pearls and ambergris
left investors bitter and the first Governor, Richard
Moore, was replaced four years later, in 1616, by
Daniel Tucker.
16 Chapter 3 The First Settlers
Fast Facts
l Sixty settlers sailed from England to start a
colony at Bermuda in 1612.
l The “Three Kings”—a trio of Sea Venture
survivors who chose to stay in Bermuda rather
than go to Virginia—greeted the new colonists.
l Bermuda first came under the Virginia Company
mandate, but in 1615 became the responsibility of
the “Bermuda Company” (both groups were run
by private London investors).
l Initially, Bermuda was considered only a place of
useful provisions for Jamestown, Virginia; when
the colony gradually became profitable, investors
saw it as valuable in its own right.
l The first forts were built during these years.
Many remain as important archaeological sites;
l St. George began as a cluster of wooden homes
and a church, but gradually a stone town evolved.
The town and its forts became a UNESCO
World Heritage Site in 2000.
30
n intriguing flurry of correspondence between Felipe III (King
Philip III), his Board of Trade in Seville, and the Council of
War in Madrid revealed just how poorly informed Spain was
about Bermuda early in the 17th Century.Word about the
island had begun to spread throughout Europe. Given
Pope Alexander VI’s 1493 Line of Demarcation decree that all unknown
territory from 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands belonged to
Spain, news that the English had claimed the mysterious Isle of Devils set
off alarm bells in the Iberian peninsula.Afraid that a lucrative source of
pearls and ambergris—not to mention a potential strategic naval base—
were about to be lost forever to their rival, Spanish officials finally turned
their focus to the island they had virtually ignored for a century. It would
The First Settlers
SPAIN’S LOSS IS ENGLAND’S GAIN AS COLONISTS TAKE ROOT
A
A good example As soon
as wee had landed all our company,
we went all to prayer, and gave
thankes unto the Lord for our safe
arrivall, and whilst we were at
prayer, wee saw our three men come
rowinge downe to us, the sight of
whom did much revive us. They
showed us a good example for they
had planted corne, great store of
wheate, beanes, peas, pompions,
mellons, and tobacco; besides they
had wrought upon timber in squaring
and sawing of cedar trees, for they
intended to build a small pinnace
to carry them into Virginia, being
almost out of hope and comfort of
our coming.
—A colonist aboard the Plough, 1612
CHAPTER THREE

The First Settlers Chapter 3 17
assumption
augment
correspondence
disgruntled
farcical
impinge
increments
instrumental
interloping
lackadaisical
leverage
lucrative
porous
quashed
ricocheting
rudimentary
serendipity
single-minded
whetted
vindicated
Start a group discussion about what basic
elements are needed to start a new colony
or settlement. Include both tangible things
(water, crops, huts, a school) to those less-
tangible (a chain of command, a justice
system). Get students to list suggestions
in order of the most critical elements.
Talk about the biggest challenges facing
a fledgling society.
Class activity
Create a newspaper chronicling daily life
and highlights of Bermuda’s early settlers.
Have students write stories about imagined
events or characters from the first town. Or
encourage students to choose a character of
their own and write diary entries detailing a
week in the first Bermuda settlement. Or
film a mock-TV broadcast in which students
are interviewed (in character) about their
colonial lives by a contemporary ‘presenter.’
Research skills
Have students find more information
about why St. George was selected as a
UNESCO World Heritage Site, and what
that honour means in practical terms to
the town. Which are the related fortifications
that belong to the designation? What are
Bermuda’s responsibilities to the site? How
many other such UNESCO-designated
sites are there in the world? Ask the class
to list and locate some of them on different
continents, and describe their history and
attributes.
Unit project
Divide the class in half and ask one group to
gather resources about early Jamestown, and
the other on early St. George. Have them
research and describe modes of construction,
punishment, and currency, among other key
elements, as well as the toughest challenges
and biggest achievements in both colonies.
Enrichment
Take students on a fieldtrip to:
l The World Heritage Centre at Penno’s
Wharf, where audio-visual and interactive
exhibits tell the story of Sea Venture and
the East End, with a fascinating model of
the town of St. George, and interpretive
synopses of early life and traditions.
l Fort St. Catherine has interactive exhibits
on Bermuda’s fortifications and military
history. Students can explore the fort, see
military artifacts and get a sense of what
it was like to be a soldier working in a
Bermuda coastal fort.

CHAPTER FOUR
The Company Island
Summary
Bermuda’s development as a 17th-century
English colony continues in this chapter.
The makeup and mandate of the Bermuda
Company—and this group of investors’ strict
control of the island—is key during this period.
Daily life, currency, crime and punishment, parish
divisions and the first legislative assembly are also
detailed. Notably, the emergence of slavery in
Bermuda is also dealt with here, including the
first legal restrictions used to discriminate against
black slaves and servants.
18 Chapter 4 The Company Island
Fast Facts
l Daniel Tucker, Bermuda’s second Governor, was
responsible for galvanising settlers to plant crops,
kill vermin, and protect vanishing species such as
cedar trees and sea turtles.
l Land surveyor Richard Norwood divided
Bermuda up into “tribes” or parishes.
l Innocent women were frequently hanged,
tortured or imprisoned as “witches” in the
17th century.
l Bermuda’s oldest stone building is the State
House, just off Town Square in St. George.
l By the 1620s, servants were being replaced by
black slaves, brought to Bermuda from Africa
via from the West Indies.
l Native Americans were also brought to the island
and sold as slaves; descendants can still be found,
particularly in St. David’s.
40
he Bermuda that faced Governor Daniel Tucker on his arrival
in 1616 was an island rapidly degenerating into an idle, rat-
infested place.Continual neglect by the six interim commission-
ers appointed by Governor Moore before his departure had left
a fractious community lacking authority, industry or healthy
crops.Work on the forts had fallen off since the first settlers’ industrious
efforts,and the island’s future was now threatened by a community complacent
amid debauchery and petty crime.
Drastic changes were called for if the colony was ever to sustain itself,
let alone turn a profit for the Adventurers. Captain Tucker, an energetic
authoritarian who had spent five years running a plantation in Virginia, was
known for his self-styled brand of dictatorial discipline—a quality the
Bermuda Company felt was sorely needed to shake the island out of its
T
The Company Island
LAND, LAWS AND THE BIRTH OF SLAVERY
How they lived
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The Bermuda Company seal
Shopping list 40 dozens of shoes; 40 hundred hard soap; 12 barrels of powder; one tun
of wine; 30 dozen of stockings; 5 dozen of hats —From a 1630s magazine ship bill of lading
CHAPTER FOUR

The Company Island Chapter 4 19
audacity
commission
complacent
degenerating
dictatorial
ensuing
enticing
fractious
gubernatorial
influential
insolent
interim
meagre
paradigm
perpetual
petty
precursor
retribution
volatile
zeal
Why did Bermuda enforce tough laws to
control black people in the 17th century?
Stimulate discussion by students on how
these early restrictions on civil liberties came
to totally deprive slaves of basic freedoms
and dignity (lack of free speech, education,
freedom to travel) over the next 200 years.
How did society and slave-owners justify
slavery, and how did misplaced beliefs
and legal control make it easier for slavery
to take place?
Class activity
Assign each student one of the nine
parishes. Direct them to create a poster
or advertisement celebrating the highlights
of their parish, including places of interest,
national parks, beaches, folklore, schools, or
particular flora or natural landmarks. Create
a class collage on a large map of Bermuda,
with groups depicting their parish space
with found objects, photographs, and
newspaper or brochure clippings, etc.
Research skills
How can British influence still be seen in
modern Bermuda? Encourage students to
detail the language, culture, legal and
political systems of British territories. Have
students look up and name former British
colonies—and locate the other 13 British
Overseas Territories (like Bermuda) that
still exist.
Unit project
Bermuda instituted some of the first
environmental protection laws. Split the
class into groups and make each responsible
for choosing and researching a protected
Bermuda plant or animal. Have each group
deliver its findings in oral presentations, and
discuss why conservation is important.
Enrichment
Take fieldtrips to St. George’s and:
l Have students photograph or sketch the
early town model at the World Heritage
Centre, then walk around the town, and
identify areas from the model. Compare
with a modern street map. Discuss how
the town developed.
l Have students gather and research the
history behind six unusual street names
in St. George (e.g. Redcoat Lane, Needle
and Thread Alley, Barber’s Alley, Shin-
bone Alley,Turkey Hill, Duke of Kent
Street, Blacksmith’s Hill). Note: Exhibits
upstairs in the WHC offer background
on these and other place names.

CHAPTER FIVE
Call of the Sea
Summary
The first chapter of this section relates the start of a
new era in Bermuda, following the 1684 collapse of
the Somers Island Company (Bermuda Company).
Instead of strict trade regulations and monopolies,
Bermudians were now free to earn a living of their
choice. Bans on shipbuilding and colonial trade
were lifted, and both industries fuelled a maritime-
based economy throughout the 1700s. Whaling,
piloting, salt-raking and privateering were also
common enterprises.The chapter includes
breakouts on Bermudian pirates, the cedar tree
(key to shipbuilding) and the Bermuda sloop.
SEA, SALT & SLAVERY 1684–1834 SECTION 2
20 Chapter 5 Call of the Sea
Fast Facts
l England continued to send governors to
Bermuda after 1684, but otherwise left
administration of the island to Bermudians.
l The island began to thrive economically, thanks
to successful maritime industries such as ship-
building, Atlantic trade and privateering.
l Wars between European powers of the time
opened the door for merchants to prey on enemy
ships as privateers.
l Maritime industries such as trading, shipbuilding
and piloting brought together white Bermudians.
and black free men and slaves in a common mission
l The Bermuda sloop’s durability and design for
speed made it one of the most sought-after
sailing ships in the world.
l This 150-year period (1684–1830s) of enterprise,
innovation and stubborn independence shaped
the Bermudian character for future centuries.
52
n 1722, a dashing Scottish soldier in his late 30s arrived in Bermuda
to take up the post of Governor. Colonel John Bruce Hope was a
pragmatic and enthusiastic personality, who launched into his new
duties with vigour and humour, but he is perhaps best remembered
for his descriptive accounts to Whitehall about the habits and
hardships of island life of the period.
“Thirty to forty years ago,” he noted, “these islands abounded with
oranges, lemons, dates, mulberries, pawpaws, plantains and pineapples in
particular, in such quantities that they loaded
their sloops with them. But the trees and
plants which remain, after blasts and mildews,
seldom bear any fruit and the tobacco has
gone, having for successive years been eaten,
while still green,by a worm in spite of all efforts.
“The inhabitants live chiefly on fish which
they are very dextrous in catching,” he wrote,
adding of Bermuda’s population:“They
generally reckon three women for one man
on the islands, since vast numbers of men are
carried away by shipwreck.In fair weather,the
whole inhabitants are almost all out at fishing.”
Bermuda had entered a new era in the
wake of the Somers Island Company’s 1684
collapse, one focussed not on the land, but on
everything maritime. England, pre-occupied
with military concerns and the management
of its larger, more profitable sugar-producing colonies in the West Indies
and America, continued to send out governors but otherwise left Bermuda
to its own devices—a situation the locals preferred to the decades of long-
distance, monopolistic meddling by Company Adventurers.With the long-
time ban on colonial trade and shipbuilding lifted, Bermuda’s inhabitants
I
Call of the Sea
A MIGHTY MARITIME TRADITION IS BORN
Superior The superiority of
our ships and sailors has long been
universally known.
—Governor William Browne, 1782
The Bermuda sloop: fast,
rot-resistant and in great
demand by mariners
BRIMSTONEMEDIA
CHAPTER FIVE
02 SECTION final_Layout 1 3/24/11 1:15 PM Page 20

Call of the Sea Chapter 5 21
autonomy
barbarity
bonafide
carte blanche
commodity
differentiate
dwindle
foray
hijinks
idiosyncratic
legitimate
mobilisation
monopolistic
nefarious
pragmatic
press-ganged
tenaciously
topography
viable
vigour
Vocabulary
Research skills
Invite students to select a key Atlantic port
of the 1700s to research its history, economy
and maritime connections with Bermuda
during that period. Which goods drove the
business of maritime trade? (Philadelphia,
Boston, the Carolinas, Newfoundland, Halifax
and West Indies ports can be explored.)
Enrichment
l Sign up your class for a learning expedition
aboard Spirit of Bermuda through the
Bermuda Sloop Foundation (see
www.bermudasloop.org). Its live-aboard
coastal expeditions teach about Bermuda’s
maritime heritage through a curriculum-
based instructional programme.
l Visit the National Museum of Bermuda,
incorporating the Bermuda Maritime
Museum (www.bmm.bm), where the
island’s seafaring past can be explored
through ship models and artifacts.
Critical thinking
Historians consider the 1700s/early 1800s a
period critical in shaping our national identity.
Traits such as overcoming adversity, working
together, and seizing opportunities to make
wealth are some of the qualities that have
defined Bermudians over the centuries.
Engage the class in a discussion about what
makes Bermudian people unique, and how
some of the human qualities engendered
during this era have translated into innovation
and success as a country in later times
(the boom times of the US Civil War, early
tourism, negotiating the US baselands deal,
international business, etc).
Class activity
Celebrate Bermuda cedar! Grow Bermuda
cedar saplings from cedarberries in the class-
room, then plant them on school grounds
or let students take them home to plant.
Discuss ways in which cedar proved vital
in Bermuda history—from the making of
Deliverance and Patience to the construction
of homes and furniture. Encourage students
to bring in items of local cedar for display.
Talk about the cedar blight (see Chapter 14),
and how it changed Bermuda’s landscape.
Unit project
Assign students to study piloting, pirating,
privateering, whaling, salt-raking, shipbuilding
or Atlantic trading. Divide the class into
groups and have students select different
maritime industries to research. Instruct
them to create a fictional character—a
captain, a slave, a crewman—and describe in
creative writing a day of his life during a
particular voyage or incident. Have each
student present their diary entry to the class.

CHAPTER SIX
Scourge of Slavery
Summary
This chapter examines slavery in Bermuda—how it
started, where slaves came from, how slaves lived,
industries they supported, how they rebelled, means
of suppressing their freedom, and the myriad ways
slavery forever changed Bermudian society. Included
are sidebars on Sally Bassett, the Middle Passage,
the daily life of slaves, education and punishment.
This chapter continues the discussion of slavery
begun in Chapter 4 and continued in Chapter 8’s
focus on 1834 Emancipation (Freedom and
Reform). Later chapters deal with the subsequent
fight for equal rights, universal suffrage and socio-
economic conditions (Chapter 18 Growing Pains,
and Chapter 19 Troubled Times).
22 Chapter 6 Scourge of Slavery
Fast Facts
l By 1700, white English servants were mostly
replaced by slaves as a source of cheap labour.
l Strict laws enforced the life enslavement of black
slaves in Bermuda.
l The island’s slaves were largely natives of the
West Indies, Central America and Africa, but
generally were purchased in Caribbean markets.
l Slaves worked as house servants, gardeners, shoe-
makers, fishermen, pilots, mechanics, sailors,
whalers, farmers, field-hands and executioners.
l Bermuda did not have a plantation culture
because the island’s size did not allow for large
sugarcane, cotton or tobacco cultivation.
l Bermudian blacks, like slaves elsewhere, fought
back by running away, poisoning owners, theft,
sabotage, go-slows, uprisings and conspiracies.
l Slave artifacts such as shackles and cowrie shells
have been found on Bermuda’s reefs—remnants
of wrecked slave ships of the Middle Passage.
64
n an otherwise uneventful day in 1800, a 12-year-old
Devonshire girl saw her world disintegrate. Mary Prince, a
slave, was sold. Her second owner—a woman who had kept
Prince’s family as domestic help and companionship for her
own daughter Betsey—died, and many of her belongings,
including her slaves, were auctioned off. For Prince, it marked the end of
childhood comforts and an abrupt farewell to the only home she had ever
known. Separated from her grief-stricken mother, three sisters and two
brothers at a public market, she was purchased for £57 by a cruel captain
and his wife to work at their Spanish Point property—an excruciating
experience that would torment her for the rest of her life.
“My mistress set about instructing me in my tasks. She taught me to do
all sorts of household work; to wash and bake, pick cotton and wool, and
wash floors, and cook,” Prince would later recount.“And she taught me
more things than these; she caused me to know the exact difference
between the smart of the rope, the cart-whip and the cow-skin when applied
to my naked body by her own cruel hand.There was scarcely any punishment
more dreadful than the blows I received on my face and head from her hard
heavy fist…To strip me naked, to hang me up by the wrists and lay my
flesh open with the cow-skin, was an ordinary punishment for even a slight
offence.”
Little did her new owners know that history would record their brutality,
and that Prince’s catalogue of harsh treatment—in Bermuda,Antigua,London
and, perhaps most notably, in the Turks Islands salt pans—would ultimately
aid her struggle to become a free woman.At 43, Prince gave a detailed
account of her experiences to Britain’s Anti-Slavery Society, which published
her life story in 1831.Along with many similar slave tales, Prince’s graphic
narrative was used as ammunition in the Society’s lobby which two years
later would win abolition of slavery in Britain, followed by Bermuda and
other English colonies.
In the 19th Century, Prince’s story, like others, created a whole new
O
Scourge of Slavery
A PEOPLE’S FREEDOM DENIED FOR 200 YEARS
Floggings and punishments on
a West Indian plantation
SCHOMBURGCENTERFORRESEARCHINBLACKCULTURELIBRARYOFCONGRESS
CHAPTER SIX

Scourge of Slavery Chapter 6 23
abhorred
benign
camaraderie
commonplace
destitute
disintegrate
draconian
escapades
excruciating
figuratively
fraught
illicit
indictment
infringements
insidious
manumission
odious
patronising
permeated
wrenching
Vocabulary
Research skills
Have students dig back in human history to
find out how long slavery has existed and in
which societies and cultures? Does human
bondage and trafficking still occur? If so,
how do economic motivations—of both the
victims and abusers—play a part and how
are responsible countries working to stamp
out the problem? Get students to write a
synopsis of their research, including a
discussion of the moral issues involved.
Unit project
Encourage students to imagine they are a
slave enroute from Africa to the Americas
aboard a ship travelling the Middle Passage.
In descriptive essays, have them write about
the voyage from a slave’s point of view,
including living conditions, punishments on
board, sadness about leaving families behind,
and fears about the future in unknown
destinations.
Enrichment
l Tour the exhibit galleries—Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade and Slavery in Bermuda—
inside Commissioner’s House, National
Museum of Bermuda, which are stops
along the African Diaspora Trail. Here
the story of the 200-year slave trade is
told through interpretive panels and
artifacts from the museum’s collection.
l Visit the statue depicting executed
Bermudian slave Sally Bassett in the
grounds of the Cabinet Building on Front
Street. Have students sketch the sculpture
or make their own art tribute to slaves.
Critical thinking
Discuss the economic roots of the Slave
Trade with your class. Encourage debate
over ways human greed has been a catalyst
for gross misdeeds and inhumanity over the
ages. Point out the advantages New World
capitalists—including the island’s property
owners—enjoyed by using slaves as cheap
labour over indentured servants. How was
slavery in Bermuda similar to slavery in the
Americas, and how did it differ because of
the island’s size and type of industries?
Class activity
Create a display of a large map of the
Atlantic, with Africa, America and Europe
featured. Split students into three groups to
research and present their findings on the
“Trade Triangle”: 1) slave trading on Africa’s
Gold Coast and the Middle Passage; 2)
slavery on plantations of the Caribbean and
Americas; 3) products slave labour sent back
to Europe (American cotton and tobacco,
West Indian sugar, Peruvian silver, etc).

CHAPTER SEVEN
Wars and Defence
Summary
This chapter’s focus is the American Revolutionary
War (1775–83), including the key role Bermudians
played in the American victory against Britain, and
Britain’s decision after losing its American ports to
make Bermuda a major military outpost for its
Atlantic operations.Themes deal with the divided
loyalties (America vs. Britain) among Bermudians,
the Gunpowder Theft, the island’s dependence on
American trade for vital foodstuffs, and Britain’s
decision to build the Royal Naval Dockyard in the
early 1800s.The Boston Tea Party, the War of 1812
between America and Britain, and the Napoleonic
wars between Britain and France are also discussed.
24 Chapter 7 Wars and Defence
Fast Facts
l America was Bermuda’s lifeline for food and
supplies, due to thriving trade between them.
l America’s war with Britain put this relationship
in danger because Bermuda was a British colony.
l Bermuda’s trump card was its proximity to
America—and it had stores of gunpowder.
l Bermudian loyalties were split: officially, the
island was British, but privately, locals sympathised
with America, due to family and trade ties.
l The island’s Tucker family played key roles:
Colonel Henry Tucker went to America’s
Continental Congress to argue for supplies; his
son, St. George Tucker, lived in Virginia and
was an ardent supporter of America’s cause.
l George Washington led America to victory and
was elected the first US President in 1789.
l Britain signed the Treaty of Paris with the new
United States of America, ending war in 1783
but losing all its American east coast ports.
n a letter to his mother from Bermuda in 1773, Philadelphia Quaker
Thomas Coates described an island on the brink of famine.The situation
had grown so dire,the government detained the ship on which Coates
had sailed and confiscated its cargo of flour and rice, although that
was a“mere mouthful”among so many people in need of food,he noted.
No other provisions would arrive for more than a month. On January 23, a
sloop made port with 200 barrels of
flour and 1,500 bushels of corn,rations
of less than a quart per family.
“The poor people really bear the
marks of hunger in their countenance
as many of them cannot muster up
more than will buy a peck or two, and
in two or three days perhaps could
buy more—but it’s all sold,” Coates
remarked.“This is a great disadvantage
they labour under. I suppose there’s
one third of the families here have
neither flour, corn or rice to make
bread with, obliged to live on fish
alone—when they can get it.”
When America’s 13 colonies
went to war with Britain, Bermudians
felt the fallout in very physical terms.
The American Revolutionary War
(1775–83) was essentially a constitutional conflict which forged a new
democratic philosophy and created the ‘United States.’ But the war also
proved a milestone in Bermuda’s history, not least because it brought home
to Bermudians in very serious terms the precarious nature of survival on an
island so far removed from mainland food supplies.
The geographical problem was exacerbated by the century’s evolving
I
Wars and Defence
BERMUDA BECOMES A BASTION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
Fort St. Catherine, an important
fortification, was built over one
of Bermuda’s earliest defences
BERMUDAARCHIVES
CHAPTER SEVEN
74

Wars and Defence Chapter 7 25
audacious
bastion
dire
exacerbated
imperialist
impregnable
irksome
loathe
opportunism
penal
perpetrators
personae non gratae
precarious
pre-empted
prescient
retaliatory
road-blocked
soporific
stifling
villany
Bermuda’s strategic geographical position
helped America in its War of Independence,
but also provided a solution to Britain’s
military needs in the war’s aftermath.
Get students to suggest other instances in
Bermuda’s past where we played a key role in
the history of larger nations mostly because
of our island’s convenient location (e.g. US
Civil War, Second World War, Cold War).
Class activity
Bermuda’s ties to America began back in
Jamestown and continue to this day. Launch
a class project in which students select and
research different aspects of our island
lifestyle and culture that are fuelled by or
benefit from our close links to the United
States (cuisine, travel, access to world-class
health-care, universities, US tourists,
currency, etc).
Research skills
What were the causes of the American
Revolutionary War? Instruct students to
research the background of the conflict and
list the political and economic reasons
America wanted to break away from Britain
and create a separate nationhood of states.
What was the “Boston Tea Party”? What
was the Declaration of Independence and
which basic rights did it assert? Have
students name the 13 original US states
and the first three US presidents.
Unit project
Split the class in half and have students
research either the structure of the US
government or Bermuda’s government.
Create detailed diagrams for class display
to illustrate both systems of government
(include executive, legislative and judicial
branches of each). Compare and contrast
the two diagrams as a class discussion.
Enrichment
l Explore the Royal Naval Dockyard, its
historic buildings and outdoor spaces with
students. Have them draw a plan of the
area and find out what its buildings were
originally intended for and how these
facilities supported the Navy fleet for
close to 150 years.
l Tour the Royal Naval graveyards of
Ireland Island, and get students to choose
six tombstones each to record information
about soldiers and sailors who died in
Bermuda.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Freedom and Reform
Summary
Emancipation and its aftermath are the focus of this
chapter.The legislative process of this event is
explained, in context with similar developments in
Britain and, later, America. Emancipation Day
itself is described from various points of view.The
subsequent challenges facing newly-freed blacks is
also outlined, including the role of Friendly Societies.
The state of education, for both white and black
Bermudians, is also described.The chapter ends the
book’s section on Bermuda’s maritime heyday,
explaining that increased competition from
Caribbean ports and the advent of steampower
coupled to end Bermuda’s carrying trade and ship-
building industry—and led to a new era with an
economic focus on agriculture in the late 1800s.
26 Chapter 8 Freedom and Reform
Fast Facts
l The Slave Trade was abolished in 1807, but
slavery itself continued until 1833 in Britain.
l America did not abolish slavery until 1863,
under President Abraham Lincoln.
l Emancipation Day in Bermuda was August 1,
1834—now celebrated as the first day of the
annual two-day Cup Match holiday.
l Bermuda’s population of 10,000 in 1834 included
3,600 slaves and 1,200 free blacks.
l The 1835 arrival of US brig Enterprise, was a
demonstration of the different attitudes towards
slavery in Bermuda vs. America.
l Despite the abolition of slavery, Bermuda’s blacks
had a long way to go to win equal rights.
l Hamilton became Bermuda’s second capital in
1793, named for Governor Henry Hamilton.
l The first edition of Bermuda’s first newspaper,
the Bermuda Gazette & Weekly Advertiser, was
published on January 17, 1784.
86
anners, parades and church services throughout the island
marked August 1, 1834 as a “new day” for Bermuda’s black
population.It was Emancipation Day,bringing the long-awaited
abolition of slavery. Bermuda’s population of almost 10,000
people included 3,600 slaves, as well as 1,200 free blacks, and
both groups joined to celebrate the start of a new era. Joyful festivities,
mostly religious gatherings of family and friends, began at midnight on July
31—the official end of more than 200 years of human bondage and indignity.
After much bitter debate, the British Parliament had finally moved to
abolish the slave trade in 1807, followed by slavery itself in Britain on
August 29, 1833.The next year, a bill was passed to eradicate slavery in all
British colonies. In Bermuda, two abolition acts were passed: the first, the
Act to Abolish Slavery, made all slaves free; the other repealed 200 years of
discriminatory laws against blacks.America’s
Emancipation Proclamation was still 30
years away—Abraham Lincoln would not
issue that decree until January 1, 1863,
during the Civil War.An amendment to
the Constitution two years later would
finally end slavery in America. Elsewhere,
Britain’s Caribbean colonies followed the
mother country’s lead over the next few
years, though Bermuda and Antigua were
the only two territories which did away
with slavery immediately. Others required
black citizens to endure a six-year
probationary period of ‘apprenticeship’
before winning full freedom, though this
system ultimately collapsed.
Mercenary motives led Bermudian
slaveholders to support the immediate end
B
Freedom and Reform
EMANCIPATION AND ITS AFTERMATH
BERMUDAARCHIVES
CHAPTER EIGHT

Freedom and Reform Chapter 8 27
amassed
apprenticeship
artisans
assets
behemoth
conveyance
grossly
humanitarian
indignity
integrated
mercenary
mortifying
muster
pedagogy
pluck
probationary
quagmire
remuneration
stipulations
vindictive
Examine the moral issues of slavery with
your class, considering the perspectives of
both slaves and slave-owners. What did
Emancipation achieve, and what more
needed to happen to give blacks equal
rights? Open a discussion about the decades
that followed Emancipation, and the many
examples of discrimination and segregation
of Bermuda’s blacks into modern times.
How are we still affected by slavery as a
nation? How can such wounds be healed?
Class activity
Split the class into three groups and
re-enact a debate to bring alive the
Enterprise incident. Have students research
and argue the case of 1) the Enterprise’s
American captain; 2) his human cargo of
slave passengers, and 3) Bermudian
authorities and supporters of the slaves
who worked to free them through legislative
means in a Bermuda court.
Research skills
Ask students to read a biography or research
the background of figures—black, white,
slave or free—who worked for abolition in
Europe or the Americas (Olaudah Equiano,
William Wilberforce, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Mary Prince).
On which grounds did they oppose and
argue against the institution of slavery?
Get students to present a report to the class
with their findings.
Unit project
Suggest that students play urban-planners
and design their own version of Hamilton as
a capital city. Instruct them to include all the
major necessities for modern living (courts,
police station, retail, offices, transport hubs,
parks, etc.) in a street grid/layout of their
own preference, each with a map key. Make
a class display of all the different designs.
Enrichment
l Visit the Enterprise sculpture at Barr’s Bay,
Hamilton to see where the brigantine
made port with its controversial slave cargo.
l Go on a fieldtrip to the Bermuda Heritage
Museum in the Town of St. George. Not
only will students find the artifacts, folk-
lore and history told there interesting,
but the building is also relevant, as it
belonged to the Grand United Order
of Good Samaritans, one of the largest
Friendly Societies that helped blacks
after Emancipation.

CHAPTER NINE
From Sea to Soil
Summary
This chapter launches a new era in Bermuda history,
spanning the mid-1800s to the turn of the century.
It was a period of change, as Bermudians returned
to the soil to develop an agricultural economy, to
feed the island and create exports. Governor
William Reid’s tenure shook up the island with
fresh ideas and a push to bring in immigrant
farmers from the Azores and other parts of Europe.
Another major development was construction of the
Royal Naval Dockyard, first by slaves and then by
convict labourers sent from Britain.
BOOMTOWN TO BOERS 1834–1918 SECTION 3
28 Chapter 9 From Sea to Soil
Fast Facts
l Bermuda became a quiet backwater in the mid-
1800s—food shortages and diseases like yellow
fever were common and the economy slumped.
l Britain, by contrast, was enjoying rapid progress
in medicine, sanitation and agriculture during
the Industrial Revolution.
l Most foreign visitors in the mid-19th century
were military officers posted to Bermuda.
l A total of 9,000 convicts were shipped to
Bermuda to work on the Dockyard between
1824–63.
l Governor William Reid encouraged new ideas
and technologies (Gibbs Hill Lighthouse,
deeper marine channels and farming expertise).
l The US was Bermuda’s main source of food at
the time—a dangerous dependency.
l Reid and his successor Charles Elliot convinced
Bermuda’s parliament to fund immigrants from
Europe who were skilled in farming methods.
100
s he craned his neck to get a better glimpse of Bermuda from
his crowded ship quarters, Irishman John Mitchel was feeling
decidedly homesick. It was June 20, 1848, and the 33-year-old
native of County Derry,with the rest of the vessel’s passengers,
had spent the past several weeks journeying across the
Atlantic. Even though he was immensely relieved to have finally reached
land, Mitchel’s first impressions of the island, recorded in a detailed diary,
were not exactly glowing.
“Their houses are uniformly white, both walls
and roof, but uncomfortable-looking for the want
of chimneys; the cooking-house being usually a
small detached building,” he remarked, painting a
drab image of what appeared to him “an unkindly
and foreign” land.
“The rocks, wherever laid bare (except those
long washed by the sea), are white or cream-
coloured.The whole surface of all the islands is
made up of hundreds of low hillocks, many of
them covered with a pitiful scraggy brush of
cedars; and cedars are their only tree,” he wrote.
“The land not under wood is of a brownish green
colour, and of a most naked and arid, hungry and
thirsty visage. No wonder: for not one single
stream, not one spring, rill or well, gushes, trickles or bubbles in all the 300
isles, with their 3,000 hills.The hills are too low, and the land too narrow, and
all the rock is a porous calcerous concretion, which drinks up all the rain
that falls on it, and would drink ten times as much, and be thirsty afterwards.
Heavens! What a burned and blasted country.”
But Mitchel and the other new arrivals were no ordinary visitors. Exiled
to Bermuda from Britain, they were among the 9,000 convicts—from petty
thieves to brutal murderers and political prisoners like Mitchel—sentenced
From Sea to Soil
CONVICT LABOUR AND THE SHIFT TO AGRICULTURE
A
Two convict hulks surrounded by
British warships at Dockyard
THEBERMUDIAN
CHAPTER NINE

From Sea to Soil Chapter 9 29
anomaly
backwater
condescendingly
consecutive
craned
deterrent
drab
dreary
embodied
empathy
erudite
instrumental
invigorated
lethargic
motley
monotony
ominous
perennial
shambles
tenure
Vocabulary
Research skills
Invite students to find out more about
the Industrial Revolution and how it
transformed life in Britain, Europe, North
America and the world, including its impact
on slavery in the British Caribbean. Have
them choose a key invention and detail how
it changed manufacturing, transportation,
technology, or socio-economic conditions of
the time. Which of these would have had
the most impact on Bermuda life in that era?
Enrichment
l Tour Tom Wadson’s farm in Southampton
Parish with students and learn how
modernday Bermudians are involved in
agriculture, including organic methods.
l Pay a class visit to the Prisoners in Paradise
exhibit at the National Museum of
Bermuda at Dockyard, where artifacts
made by convict labourers and Boer War
prisoners are on display inside a converted
munitions magazine.
Critical thinking
Innovative approaches and fresh ideas
fuelled progress in the second half of the
1800s, including Bermuda, where Governor
Reid encouraged Bermudians to think
differently about the importance of farming.
Spark a class discussion on similarly original
and creative thinking of the past two or
three decades that has changed life as people
in Bermuda and elsewhere knew it. Point
out the vast pace of innovation—notably
in healthcare and technology—in just the
2000s. Ask them to imagine which
developing trends might take root to alter
the way we live in the next five years.
Class activity
Encourage students to think up new
inventions of their own. Have them first
sketch their idea and describe it in a detailed
essay, including reasons why it is needed in
the world.Then ask them to collect materials
to try to construct their invention and put
together a classroom display of all ideas.
Unit project
Discuss the history of penal colonies, such
as the one which existed for 40 years at
Bermuda’s Dockyard. Why were prisoners
exiled and how are they treated differently
today? Have the class construct a large map
of the world and pinpoint where different
penal colonies were located and which
countries used them. Split students into
small groups to research different penal
colonies and deliver written and oral
reports to the rest of the class.

CHAPTER TEN
The Portuguese
Summary
The focus of this chapter is the story of Bermuda’s
Portuguese immigrants—where they came from,
why they moved to Bermuda, and how their distinct
culture has impacted Bermuda through its people,
cuisine, religion, language and traditions.The text
describes the beneficial economic impact immigrants
had on Bermuda, thanks to their agricultural
expertise. It also deals with the challenges
Portuguese immigrants to Bermuda faced over the
decades and the prejudices they had to overcome.
30 Chapter 10 The Portuguese
Fast Facts
l Portuguese make up roughly a fifth, or 20 percent,
of Bermuda’s population, but their influence on
Bermuda heritage has been far-reaching.
l The first 58 Portuguese immigrants arrived from
Madeira on November 4, 1849 aboard Captain
Benjamin Watlington’s brigantine Golden Rule.
l Failing economies in Madeira, the Azores and
Cape Verde prompted emigrants to start new
lives in America, Canada or Bermuda.
l Just two years after Portuguese immigrants
arrived, agricultural productivity was increasing.
l Attempts to bring in immigrant farmers from
Sweden, Germany and Britain were unsuccessful.
l Liberal immigration policies that allowed
Portuguese to become naturalised Bermudians
changed later in the 20th century when restrictive,
often discriminatory measures were imposed by
Bermuda’s Parliament.
110
n the 1880s, a 30-year-old farmer named Frank
Medeiros Simon traded life on one remote
Atlantic island for another. Both islands were
important whaling hubs, military outposts and
ports of call for mariners.Yet in every other
way, they were worlds apart. In São Miguel, the
Azores, Simon bid farewell to his wife Antoinette
and their five children and sailed west to Bermuda a
thousand miles away.In a foreign culture where he neither
spoke the language nor understood British customs,he got
busy building a new life, one rooted in the harvests of
Bermuda onions, potatoes and arrowroot.
In 1890,a few years after his arrival,Simon sent for
his family to join him and over the next two decades,
they prospered and grew. Frank and Antoinette
would have seven more sons and daughters, whose
lives and those of their children and grandchildren
were infused with common threads of community
activism, intellectual thought and indefatigable industry.
Today, the names of their descendants—Marshall, Mello, Pires, Souza,
DeCouto, Barboza,Johnson,Correia,Martin—touch family roots throughout
Bermuda’s Portuguese community.
The names and circumstances may change, but Simon’s story is that of
many ancestors of Portuguese-Bermudians. His journey followed the 1849
path of Bermuda’s first Portuguese immigrants and would be repeated
thousands of times in the following century and a half as the story of
Portuguese emigration unfolded. Like communities in the United States,
Canada and elsewhere, Bermuda offered a better future for migrants fleeing
poverty and persecution, but the island also desperately needed their
agricultural and work skills and reaped the rewards.
“The benefit I look forward to from your introducing a few European
I
The Portuguese
IMMIGRANTS FORGE A THRIVING NEW COMMUNITY
Naomi and Manuel DeCouto in
1924 with their children, a
Portuguese-Bermudian family
which emigrated to Fall River,
Massachusetts. At right, Naomi’s
parents, Bermuda immigrants
Frank Medeiros Simon and his
wife Antoinette
COURTESYOFROBERTPIRES
COURTESYOFROBERTPIRES
CHAPTER TEN

The Portuguese Chapter 10 31
denominations
diaspora
impoverished
indefatigable
indentured
industrious
infused
integral
intrinsic
mainstay
manual
naturalised
patriarchal
poignant
progressive
tracts
underwrote
vocations
withering
zenith
Vocabulary
Research skills
Send students on a fact-finding mission,
using books, contemporary interviews, and
web resources to carry out a project on the
Azores. Get them to look at the Azorean
islands’ history, as well as their political and
socio-economic conditions, and to note their
similarities and differences to Bermuda. Plot
a classroom map of the islands, their major
towns and their distances to Europe,
Bermuda and the Portuguese diaspora
centres of North America, such as Toronto
and New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Unit project
Instruct students to interview and
photograph a Portuguese-Bermudian or
a Portuguese resident and write it up. Have
them find out the individual’s personal and
family history, their career details, and what
their Portuguese heritage means to them.
The subject can be a new or temporary
resident or a descendent of a multi-
generational Portuguese family.
Enrichment
l Take students to visit the National
Museum of Bermuda exhibit, The Azores
& Bermuda at the Commissioner’s House
in Dockyard.
l Have your class attend a Portuguese festa
such as the Holy Ghost Festival (Festa do
Divino Espiritu Santo) or the Festival of
the Christ of Miracles (Festa do Senhor
Santo Christo dos Milagres) and record
their impressions in artwork, photography
or a journal. Get them to research the
tradition’s origin and cultural meaning.
Critical thinking
Discuss with students the forms of bias and
prejudice that often greet new immigrants
to any nation. Why do they think
newcomers—to a country, to a classroom—
are treated in this way? Ask students for
examples they may have encountered or
witnessed personally? Explain how the
Portuguese Consul in Bermuda today acts
as an advocate for Portuguese nationals
and their families.
Class activity
What has Portuguese culture given to
Bermuda? Ask students to choose one
element of Portuguese heritage and research
how it has changed or added to Bermuda’s
multicultural society. Students should gather
photos/images and write a report on their
chosen subject—which can vary from a
food product to language, industry skills,
a tradition or religious ceremony.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
American Civil War
Summary
This chapter looks at one of the most thrilling
episodes in Bermuda’s history—the island’s major
role in the US Civil War (1861–65). It is important
because of the war’s impact on Bermuda’s economy
—turning the capital, St. George, into a boomtown
for several years—and also because many
Bermudians secretly aided the American rebels’
cause in the conflict. Britain was officially neutral,
but many of its citizens also supported the South
with shipments of weapons and war supplies
because Southern states were the major supplier
of cotton for British mills.
32 Chapter 11 American Civil War
Fast Facts
l The US Civil War was also called the “American
War of Secession.”
l At issue was the North’s push for abolition vs.
the South’s dependence on slavery to support its
agrarian economy (or, in broader terms, federal
power over state rights).
l History considers this the first modern war, with
2,400 battles more than 600,000 casualties.
l Bermuda’s geographic position—between
America’s South and Britain—was ideal as a
depot for blockade-runners. Fast vessels smuggled
war goods and luxury items past Yankee gunboats
to rebel states, in return for cotton bales that in
Bermuda were put on larger ships for Europe.
l Cotton became the currency of the war—it was
known as “White Gold.”
l The war transformed Bermuda, as spies, captains,
crews, merchants and political agents poured into
St. George.
120
n March 1863, a 29-year-old Southern belle set out on a brief journey
that could have been considered either an act of commendable
audacity or an incredibly foolish stunt. Six months pregnant and
with her three young children in tow, Georgiana Gholson Walker
boarded the blockade-runner Cornubia in Wilmington, North
Carolina and set off in a bid to successfully dodge a fleet of enemy vessels
and reach Bermuda.It was the middle of theAmerican CivilWar,andWalker’s
husband, Major Norman Stewart Walker, had spent the past four months on
the island in his new post as political agent for the besieged Confederacy.
Desperate to see him again, she ignored the advice of friends and convinced
the ship’s captain to take her on the daring escapade.“No one gave me one
word of encouragement or hope,” she later wrote,“except that brave and
blessed friend—my Father, who said,‘My child, you are in the path of duty,
I doubt not all will be well.’”
No woman had ever run the Union blockade, but the plucky Petersburg,
Virginia native, daughter of lawyer and politician George Saunders Gholson,
was determined to try.The dangers were substantial.The captain“laid plainly
before me the perils of the trip, saying that the last vessel which had gone
out had just been captured, that the Northern Fleet was large and stationed
for many miles out.I said nevertheless I should go,”she recalled in her journal.
As the ship prepared to sail, the Confederate general in command in
Wilmington came on board to urge her to reconsider, as did her good
friend, the wife of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. She “besought me
to consider my children, if not myself, and to return to Richmond.” But
Walker was resolute, though privately she admitted “occasional misgivings
as I looked upon my innocents and thought of the dangers to which I was
going to expose them. But I had weighed the matter well and I believed it to
be my duty.”
Walker and her children—eight-year-old Carey, nicknamed “Lillie,”
Norman Stewart, Jr., seven, and Georgie Gholson, two—boarded the ship
on March 18 and with the captain and crew, waited for the safety of nightfall.
I
American Civil War
BLOCKADE-RUNNERS BRING FLEETING FORTUNE
Georgiana Gholson Walker, who
braved the Union blockade to be
with her husband in Bermuda
BERMUDANATIONALTRUST
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A cotton bale fire captured by artist Edward James

American Civil War Chapter 11 33
circumvent
clandestine
consternation
cosmopolitan
crucible
dispirited
dissipation
duration
exorbitant
flagrant
foreshadow
innate
lifeblood
liquidate
misgivings
noncombatant
profiteering
proximity
resolute
strategists
Initiate a class discussion about the rights of
individuals vs. a group or central authority,
and states vs. a federal government. How is
individual autonomy achieved in a greater
whole? Can it be peaceful? What types of
laws or restrictions on individual rights are
necessary in a democratic society? How
have rebellions against authority or societal
norms (staged by industrial organisations
or environmental lobby groups, for example)
achieved a greater good? When would it be
acceptable to challenge convention?
Class activity
Divide the class in half, with one side tasked
to learn about the South and the other about
the North in the US Civil War. Have each
group work together to research and itemize
in detail the rationale for entering the
conflict, and explain why they feel justified
in waging a costly war. Stage a debate in
class, with students working in two teams
to use the researched information to make
their points.
Research skills
Have students conduct online and/or library
research on US President Abraham Lincoln.
They should gather biographical details, as
well as information about Lincoln’s
philosophical beliefs, including his stance
against the institution of slavery. Instruct
them to write an essay about Lincoln,
highlighting his lifetime achievements
and lasting legacy.
Unit project
Use Georgiana Walker’s diary as a starting
point to discuss the power of journals as
communication tools. Discuss as a class what
her descriptions of Bermuda life in the
1860s say about the way people lived then
and about her own character, traits and
qualities. Invite students to record their own
journal entries with descriptive writings
about a family gathering, a school event,
cherished or hurtful memories, etc.
Encourage candid writing that records
both emotional and scenic detail.
Enrichment
l Go on a fieldtrip to the Bermuda National
Trust Museum at the Globe Hotel in
St. George. Students will enjoy learning
about the US Civil War through artifacts,
film and interpretive panels in the
museum’s exhibit, Rogues & Runners.
The building itself was the Confederate
headquarters and home of Major Norman
Walker, who sent guns and supplies
through Bermuda to the blockaded South.

CHAPTER TWELVE
Tourism Takes Off
Summary
This is a multi-themed chapter that deals with
several large topics stretching from the late 1800s
to 1918: the birth of tourism as an industry in
Bermuda starting in the late Victorian era; the
British strengthening of island forts and military
facilities; Boer War prisoners in the first years of
the 1900s; and the impact of the First World War
(1914–18) and Bermudians who joined the Allied
effort in Europe. Sidebars detail turn-of-the-
century Bermuda life, the advent of tennis, and
the island’s attraction to celebrity writers.
34 Chapter 12 Tourism Takes Off
Fast Facts
l Media publicity over the 1883 visit of Princess
Louise (Queen Victoria’s daughter) spurred more
visitors to “winter” on the island.
l Until the 1880s, Bermuda visitors consisted
primarily of traders, military personnel and
health-seekers; the concept of holidays emerged
in the late 19th century.
l Scientists, artists and writers were among the
first true tourists.
l Hotels, swimming pools and golfcourses were
built, and the Bermuda government signed a
weekly-arrival contract with steamship companies.
l Tourism emerged as agricultural exports waned
due to less-costly US produce.
l A total of 4,000 South African Boer War prisoners
were kept in camps in Bermuda from 1901–02.
l Eighty Bermudians from the Bermuda
Volunteer Rifle Corps and Bermuda Militia
Artillery were among the First World War dead.
132
ermuda is not the place for consumptives,” declared American
visitor Julia Dorr.“But for the overworked and weary, for
those who need rest and recreation and quiet amusement, for
those who love the beauty of sea and sky better than noisy
crowds and fashionable display, and can dispense with some
accustomed conveniences for the sake of what they may gain in other ways,
it is truly a paradise.”
Dorr spent two months in the spring of 1883 on the island she would
later describe as “Eden” in her book Bermuda:An Idyl of the Summer
Islands, published the following year. In the memoir, Dorr described how
she and her companion,“H.,” fled the late snows of New England for
Bermuda aboard the New York steamer Orinoco after ignoring the advice
of friends to tour Europe instead.
“What a contrast to icy mountains and valleys of drifted snow!” she
exclaimed on her first morning in Bermuda.“Before me were large pride-
of-India trees, laden with their long, pendulous racemes of pale lavender,
each separate blossom having a drop of maroon at its heart…Beneath me
were glowing beds of geraniums, callas, roses, Easter lilies, and the many-
hued coleus…As far as the eye could reach was one stretch of unbroken
bloom and verdure.”
Dorr spent her bucolic holiday exploring the island on foot or by boat,
admiring quaint gardens and pondering traditions such as limestone-quarrying.
She attended events such as the Pembroke boys’ school sports day, and
rhapsodised over the colours and climate of a place where people enjoyed a
state of “perpetual summer.” She rode the ferry (a rowboat) across Hamilton
Harbour, climbed Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, took a horse and carriage to St.
George’s and visited Pembroke Church (St. John’s), home of the gravesite
of Governor R. M. Laffan, who had died the previous year.
“I found myself continually wondering how life looked, what the wide
world was like, to eyes that had seen nothing but blue seas, blue skies…and
the narrow spaces of this island group,” Dorr marvelled.“It would be
B
Tourism Takes Off
NATURE’S FAIRYLAND COURTS THE RICH AND FAMOUS
The enticing cover of the first
official guidebook, 1914
BERMUDAARCHIVES
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bermudian First World War soldiers

Tourism Takes Off Chapter 12 35
allegiance
attributes
consumptives
descendants
fortuitous
humourist
infrastructure
insular
internment
mementoes
nascent
paraphernalia
parlay
pestilence
prolific
recuperative
re-invention
rhapsodised
sporadically
vanguard
Vocabulary
Class activity
Encourage students to imagine they are tour
operators in Bermuda in contemporary
times. How would they entertain visitors
and what would they deem to be the island’s
highlights—from their own point of view.
Perhaps they would show visitors different
aspects of Bermuda than typical tourist
sites? Get students to write up their ideas
and suggestions in a first-person essay and
read it to the class, or design a brochure on
computer or film a short documentary.
Research skills
Have students find out more about the First
World War, including its causes, the nations
involved in the conflict, types of warfare,
key battles—and how the war changed the
20th-century world.
Unit project
Recreate the first decades of the 1900s in
your classroom. Break the class into groups
and have students find out about the
fashions, cuisine, transport, music, heroes,
celebrities, leisure activities, and cultural
highlights of the time. Have them make
drawings or posters and gather images or
primary-source documents, such as poems
or letters, and make a montage of life in
Bermuda and abroad during those years.
Enrichment
l Tour Bermuda’s Defence Heritage—a large
audio-visual exhibit on island-based
military and Bermuda’s war veterans on
the lower floor of Commissioner’s House,
at the National Museum of Bermuda.
Students can watch video footage of vets
remembering their wartime experiences,
and see artifacts and weaponry used in
defence and conflicts over the centuries.
Critical thinking
Read the book’s margin excerpts and text
descriptions of Bermuda in the 1880s and
the turn of the last century. Encourage
students to note how different Bermuda was
in that era, compared to today. Compare the
types of activities tourists could enjoy, modes
of transport, and what were considered
“luxuries” at hotels and guesthouses. What
types of services and experiences should a
tourist destination offer its visitors? Get
students to participate by giving examples
of different types of tourism and what they
prefer to do during their leisure time in
Bermuda or when they travel.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Fight for Rights
Summary
This chapter launches a new section covering the
first half of the 20th century. It deals with the first
of many social battles of the 1900s—the struggle for
women’s rights.The cause of Bermuda’s suffragettes
is explained in the context of similar lobby efforts by
women in Britain.The setbacks suffered by Gladys
Morrell and her supporters, and the legislative
hurdles they eventually overcame, are detailed.
Female suffrage in the context of its impact on black
civil rights is also told, with universal adult suffrage
dealt with in Chapter 18 (Growing Pains).The
chapter also details West Indian immigration to
Bermuda and the first newspapers.
VOTES, VISITORS & VICTORY 1918–1945 SECTION 4
36 Chapter 13 The Fight for Rights
Fast Facts
l Women were barred from voting in Bermuda by
archaic restrictions requiring property ownership
(the laws were made to restrict blacks from voting).
l British women won the vote in 1919, and their
US counterparts in 1920.
l As in many countries, women’s suffrage paved the
way for universal suffrage, which in Bermuda did
not occur until 1963.
l Bermudian women began their lobby for voting
rights in 1919 and succeeded when they finally
won legislative approval in 1944.
l There were some black Members of the Colonial
Parliament; the first was William Henry Thomas
Joel, elected in 1883.
l West Indians began emigrating to Bermuda in
the 1890s and continued into the 20th century.
l Two activists for black rights early in the century
were Charles Monk and Marcus Garvey.
148
he large crowd which gathered outside Mangrove Bay police
station on December 18, 1930 was abuzz with excitement.A
week before Christmas, the usually quiet streets of Somerset
rippled with high anticipation, as journalists, photographers
and Bermudian men, women and children made their way to
the West End, eager to see the outcome of a bizarre showdown—an ‘auction’
pitting a group of the island’s society women against Parliament itself.
They would,indeed,witness an historic spectacle thatThursday morning,
but one whose larger impact would not be felt for a further 14 years.While
the day marked the climax of a single courageous act of civil disobedience, it
would best be remembered in newspaper photos as symbolising the quarter-
century-long crusade for women’s rights.
At 10 o’clock, the streets erupted into equal parts cheers and boos as a
horse-drawn bus arrived from Hamilton carrying a group of well-dressed
T
The Fight for Rights
WOMEN, BLACKS AND WORKERS DEMAND FAIR PLAY
THEBERMUDIAN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Suffragettes protest outside
Somerset police station as they
auction an antique cedar table
Bermudian suffragette leader Gladys Morrell

The Fight for Rights Chapter 13 37
archaic
assessment
consolidated
desegregation
embattled
floodgates
imminent
impetus
intransigent
jubilant
militant
non-commital
oligarchy
paltry
paramount
parochial
permeated
prejudice
resurrected
suffrage
Vocabulary
Research skills
Have students examine international figures
who were catalysts for major social change.
Have them delve into online and published
sources, including primary-source materials,
to contrast those who insisted on peaceful
means to achieve reform (India’s father of
nationhood Mahatma Gandhi, civil-rights
leader Rev. Martin Luther King) and those
who preferred more militant efforts for
social protest (suffragette Emmeline
Pankhurst, animal-rights activist Paul
Watson). Which worked best in different
nations and circumstances, and why?
Enrichment
l Visit Bermuda & the West Indies, an
exhibit about Caribbean immigration to
the island, at the Commissioner’s House,
National Museum of Bermuda. Your class
can check the display of surnames and
trace them back to specific islands.
l Visit the House of Assembly in Hamilton
where, from November to June, students
can watch Parliament in session as MPs
debate national issues. When the House is
not meeting, students can stage their own
debate in the chambers and invite parents
and the public to spectate.
Critical thinking
Using the story of the suffragettes’ struggle,
ask students how attitudes towards women
have changed since the days of Gladys
Morrell. What freedoms do women enjoy
today—thanks to the fight for female rights?
Have women achieved total equality with
male peers—in Bermuda and the US?
In Third World nations? If not, how can
societies improve life for women?
Class activity
Hold a West Indian celebration in your
class. Encourage students to bring in
Caribbean dishes for a potluck lunch, West
Indian CDs, and regional poems, short
stories or narratives to read aloud. Split the
class into small groups and have each gather
information about specific West Indian
nations, their people, culture and traditions.
Depict countries on a large map, showing
their relative distance from Bermuda.
Unit project
Create a class newspaper. Students should
first form an editorial board, determining
the paper’s various departments, and the
stories they should carry. Have student
writers and photographers gather content
and editors review materials and design
pages. Discuss factual reportage vs. opinion
pieces and include both.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Perfect Paradise
Summary
Bermuda’s environmental history is an important
part of our country’s heritage.This chapter focusses
on key events in the natural history of the island,
including the individual stories of rare and
threatened species, along with the scientists and
naturalists who played major roles.The evolution
of the worldwide conservation movement and its
impact on Bermuda is also treated, as well as
international interest over the years in Bermuda’s
unique biodiversity.
VOTES, VISITORS & VICTORY 1918–1945 SECTION 4
38 Chapter 14 A Perfect Paradise
Fast Facts
l American scientists William Beebe and Otis
Barton reached a record depth of 3,028 feet
(half a nautical mile) on August 15, 1934.
l Bermuda’s location makes it an ideal laboratory
because of its mild climate, unique marine
habitat, 12,000-foot seas and coral reefs.
l Louis L. A. Mowbray and his son, Louise S.
Mowbray, were both keen environmentalists
and curators of the Bermuda Aquarium.
l Nineteenth-century Governor Sir J. H. Lefroy
published the first scientific paper on Bermuda.
l The Bermuda petrel or cahow was rediscovered
on the Castle Harbour islands in January 1951.
l The introduction of foreign species (casuarinas,
Jamaican anole, kiskadee) upset the ecosystem.
l Non-profit agencies BIOS, Bermuda Zoological
Society, Bermuda Audubon Society, Bermuda
National Trust work to preserve the environment
and educate people about its importance.
156
he morning of June 6, 1930 dawned perfectly calm, the late
spring gales of the previous days giving way to a silky stillness
along Bermuda’s South Shore. Brooklyn-born biologist,
explorer and author Dr. Charles William Beebe decided to
take advantage of the good weather and, with his colleagues,
struck out to sea early in an entourage that included the tugboat Gladisfen
and a converted Royal Navy gunboat, the Ready. Leaving their East-End
headquarters at Nonsuch Island, they chugged through the island-sprinkled
Castle Roads channel, where the clifftop ruins of Richard Moore’s forts
looked down on the flotilla.The timewarp wasn’t lost on Beebe, 52, who
wondered what Moore might have said 300 years earlier,“if he could have
watched our strange procession steaming past. In all likelihood, the steaming
part would have mystified and interested him far more than our chief object.”
The “chief object” of the day was to be a test run of the bathysphere, an
odd-looking contraption that would make history in Bermuda’s waters by
carrying Beebe and its inventor Otis Barton to record-breaking ocean
depths which until then, had been strictly the realm of science fiction.
Brought to Bermuda that year, the bathysphere was a steel pod attached to
3,500 feet of 7/8-inch steel cable that would be lowered and raised by a seven-
ton steam winch that had been installed, along with boilers, on the barge.
With three window ports made of three-inch-thick fused quartz, a circular
bolted door, and a diameter of four feet, nine inches, the bathysphere was
designed to carry to record depths a maximum of two people—even a couple
of six-footers, as Beebe and Barton happened to be.
An hour later, 10 miles offshore amid mildly heaving swells, Beebe
stopped the group. Here, where Bermuda’s sea floor fell away to more than
a mile and a half, they would attempt their first manned descent.The half-
T
A Perfect Paradise
PROTECTING OUR UNIQUE BUT FRAGILE ENVIRONMENT
Bermuda: a perfect paradise in which an earnest Naturalist may luxuriate.
—The Canadian Naturalist and Geologist on Bermuda, 1857
Dr. William Beebe, left, and Otis
Barton with the bathysphere
BERMUDABIOLOGICALSTATIONFORRESEARCH
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Early Aquarium curator Louis L. A. Mowbray

A Perfect Paradise Chapter 14 39
amorphous
buzzwords
conscientiously
docile
empirical
endowment
environmentalism
fantastical
grassroots
infinitesimal
iridescent
microcosm
munitions
ornithology
periodically
repossessed
sensitivity
specimens
treatise
voracious
Vocabulary
Research skills
Instruct students to consult local resources
such as environmental group websites, the
Natural History Museum, field guides or
other published materials to learn about
an endangered native or endemic plant or
animal currently listed as a Bermuda
Protected Species (see www.conservation.bm).
The Bermuda skink, cedar, marine turtles,
the cahow, eagle ray, longtail, seahorse,
corals, palmetto, Bermuda scallop and
bluebird are examples. What is the history of
this piece of legislation and what penalties
for abuse can it enforce?
Unit project
Have your class create two large diagrams
connecting flora and fauna elements to
depict the food webs in Bermuda’s delicate
ecosystem—one marine, the other terrestrial.
Instruct students to select and research one
species, then post their photos and a fact
box on the diagram and deliver a report on
each plant or creature to the class.
Enrichment
l Screen the documentary Rare Bird, by
Bermudian Lucinda Spurling about the
cahow’s return from the edge of extinction.
l Tour the Natural History Museum at
Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo
and learn about our geology and habitats.
l Arrange a terrestrial or marine fieldtrip
through Bermuda Zoological Society’s
Education Department (www.bamz.org).
l Visit the Bermuda Institute of Ocean
Sciences (BIOS) to learn about research
on climate change, pharmaceuticals and
coral reefs (www.bios.edu).
Critical thinking
Divide the class in half and stage a debate
over the question: should the natural
environment be protected by conservation
legislation? Have students research facts to
support either side of the issue and argue
their separate points of view, with a focus on
fact-filled reasoning and clear, persuasive
communication.
Class activity
On a fieldtrip, or even a tour of the school
property, have students record numbers and
types of different species they encounter,
including both plants and animals. In the
classroom, have them use a graphing device
to illustrate the total number of every species
seen, and compare and contrast the data.
Hypothesise why some species are more
common than others. Choose two separate
habitats and note the differences.

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