This summarizes a document about the British colonists who were shipwrecked on Bermuda in 1609 after being separated from the rest of their fleet during a storm. It discusses how different scholars have viewed the discovery of Bermuda and the colonists' nine month stay there. Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith argue that while the British were the first to settle Bermuda, the Spanish discovered it first. Michael Jarvis examines why Bermuda was uninhabited prior to European arrival. Tony Williams focuses on what happened to the rest of the fleet after it was separated from the Sea Venture.

1. The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea:
The Marooned British Colonists’
Discovery of Bermuda
By
Daniel Spinelli
The Craft of History
15 December 2015

2. Spinelli 1
Daniel Spinelli
The Craft Of History: 210-03
15 December 2015
The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: The Marooned British Colonists’ Discovery of Bermuda
The winds were gusting, the sky was gray, the waves were crashing the bow of the
pinnace. It was the year 1609, and 150 English colonists and a dog were aboard the Sea Venture.
Originally a part of a fleet of ships sailing to the recently established Jamestown, Virginia
settlement in the New World, the Sea Venture was separated during a frightful storm. Now on
their own, the only hope on the horizon for the forlorn passengers aboard the Sea Venture was a
faint strip of land known not as a place of refuge, but as a place of devilish evils. This was “The
Isle of Devils,” also known as Bermuda. What would result in these colonists landing on the
uninhabited shores of Bermuda would be the beginning of a whole new chapter in English
exploration, and a legacy often forgotten today. This essay will explore how scholars Lorri
Glover, Daniel Blake Smith, Michael J. Jarvis, and Virginia Bernhard view the discovery of the
uncharted island of Bermuda by the British, and how their sources fit together to form a
completed puzzle that tells the story of the island’s history in the New World through varying
voices and perspectives.
Scholars have examined the exhilarating journey that the English colonists took in
initially discovering Bermuda, and what would later come of it. Additionally, most scholars have
remained unanimous in agreeing with much of the general history of the island. In the book titled
The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown, Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith write in a format
suited for more of an academic audience than just the general public with more advanced
vocabulary and sentence structure. Unlike some of the other scholars on the subject, Glover and
Smith argue that colonists nearly bypassed landing on the island when, “Seeing only two terrible

3. Spinelli 2
options, (the colonists) picked the devil over the deep blue sea, although they knew it would take
all known skill and divine intervention.”1 Glover and Smith also focus on the background of
Bermuda’s legend, noting Juan de Bermudez, the first of several unfortunate Spanish mariners,
who was stranded on the previously unknown island around the year 1503, and fittingly named it
after himself. 2 Therefore, Glover and Smith credit the Spanish with founding Bermuda, rather
than the British, particularly when revealing “By 1511 “La Bermuda” was marked on maps.”3
Although the British were the first to settle on the island, Glover and Smith contend that since
the Spanish discovered the island’s actual existence, the Spanish are the rightful founders of
Bermuda. Another source in this paper agrees with Glover and Smith’s view of the Spanish
origins in Bermuda, and further explore the background of Spanish involvement.
Glover and Smith also focus more solely on the Bermuda castaways, and do not delve
into what was happening in Jamestown until the castaways actually arrived there, which was met
with the starved Jamestown colonists “crying out WE ARE STARVED! WE ARE STARVED!”4
Hence, Glover and Smith structure their account on the discovery of Bermuda almost as a journal
entry of an actual person aboard the Sea Venture. Glover and Smith actually reference A
Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, a first-hand account
published by John Smith, captain and leader of the Virginia colonies. Glover and Smith use the
primary source of Smith’s experience with the actual voyage of the Sea Venture to enhance their
thorough account of the Bermuda castaways.
Unlike the other books used in this paper, the reader is not at all informed as to what is
occurring anywhere else during the nine month period of time that the colonists are stranded on
1 Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith, The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the
Fate of America (New York, New York: Henry Holt, 2008), 128.
2 Ibid.,133
3 Ibid.,133
4 Ibid.,189

4. Spinelli 3
Bermuda. Instead, Glover and Smith literally examine the history of Bermuda on a chronological
scale without any outside manifestations. This approach by the authors provides a clearer and
more organized account for the reader unfamiliar with the history of Bermuda. This organization
method is also much less confusing than jumping back and forth between what was happening
on the Virginia mainland and Bermuda. Thus, the history articulated by Lorri Glover and Daniel
Blake Smith is laid out for the reader in the most clear and efficient way, unique among the
books featured in this paper.
A very different angle is taken in Tony Williams’s The Jamestown Experiment. In his
book, Williams resorts to adding drama to make his story more interesting for the reader who
might not be interested in the most scholarly piece of literature. Williams begins by taking the
familiar route of detailing the initial goals of the fleet of ships that left England for the
Jamestown colony in Virginia. However, Williams’s account remains with the rest of the fleet
during the storm instead of floating adrift with the lost Sea Venture. Williams describes how the
rest of the fleet now functioned without their flagship and commanders leading the journey.
Williams writes,
“The sailors had a rough idea of their bearing as they progressed across the Atlantic. They determined their
latitude with a cross-staff,viewing the sun in its relative position and comparing it with their astronomical
tables. They attempted to use dead reckoning to discover their longitude, which was no more than guess.
Still, they knew their approximate course, and considering that they had encountered few problems,
experienced navigators such as Christopher Newport could roughly estimate when they might make
landfall.”5
Williams’s focus on the other ships in the fleet separated from their leaders aboard the
Sea Venture is unique among all of the sources used in this paper. It fills a gap that is necessary
5 Tony Williams, The Jamestown Experiment : The Remarkable Story of the Enterprising Colony and the
Unexpected Results That Shaped America. (Naperville, Ill: Sourcebooks Inc, 2011), 141

5. Spinelli 4
in understanding the full history behind the discovery of Bermuda by the British colonists. It
alerts the reader on how the voyagers deprived of their commanders managed to continue
onwards and successfully reach land. Additionally, Williams explains that the colonists aboard
the remaining ships in the fleet were able to “keep in friendly consort together. They rode the
gentle breezes to their destination and were on schedule to make landfall in Virginia well ahead
of the four months it took the original fleet during the winter of 1607.”6 Without an official
leader instated, the fact that the colonists initially got along is quite remarkable. History has
proven these types of instances to frequently lead to unscrupulous results.
Nevertheless, the pleasantry soon fades for drama worthy of a Shakespearean play. Tony
Williams describes that, “The boredom of staring across the unrelieved expanse of the blue
ocean was starting to grate on everyone’s nerves.”7 Rumors had started blaming certain
passengers on other ships in the fleet for infecting others with diseases. Williams describes it as
the “blame game” in full force, with these jaded colonists having nothing else better to do.
Williams refers to some rumors, such as, “The Diamond [a ship in the fleet] has the plague in
her” would be spoken aboard other ships in the fleet. One can only imagine if this childish drama
actually occurred as Williams describes, or if it is just spiced up for the benefit of the twenty-first
century reader. After all, besides Williams’s, another account of the rest of the ships sailing for
Jamestown after the separation of the Sea Venture is not easily found to reference. Tony
Williams eventually returns back to the colonists aboard the separated Sea Venture, but also
jumps back to the Virginia mainland colonists again, which causes some confusion between the
two groups.
6 Ibid., 141
7 Ibid., 142

6. Spinelli 5
In “Maritime Masters and Seafaring Slaves in Bermuda,” Michael J. Jarvis describes the
early reasons why Bermuda was untouched by man before the British, which remains absent in
most sources on the topic. Jarvis describes, “The island of Bermuda maintains a lone outpost in
the midst of the wide North Atlantic. Neither American nor Caribbean, this ancient British
colony has escaped the attention of most colonial historians, a neglect perhaps owing to its small
size and anomalous location.”8 Jarvis writes to the unfamiliar reader on the subject, briefly
covering the history of the island. Jarvis then takes a firm stance in his argument that “Bermuda
is in fact one of Europe’s few true discoveries in that it was completely uninhabited by any
native population before the arrival of the Jamestown-bound castaways.”9 Though not making
mention of the Spanish, Jarvis asserts that the same cannot be said for any other European
discovery, which is an undoubtedly bold statement to make.
Unlike the other sources, Jarvis examines Bermuda’s geographical location and its
impact. Jarvis mentions how the geographical location of Bermuda was quite significant,
especially for future British endeavors in the North American colonies. Additionally, Jarvis
explains Bermuda as being “the most central location in England’s American empire, roughly
equidistant from all the colonies in the broad thousand mile arc from Newfoundland to
Antigua.”10 Later sources in this paper further describe how this unique location was noticed in
the sixteenth century prior to any British involvement by the early Spanish explorers, such as
Juan de Bermudez, who wanted to make Bermuda a trading outpost. Due to the shallow
surrounding waters and abundant coral reefs the Spanish failed to ever settle the island.
8 Michael J. Jarvis, Maritime Masters and Seafaring Slaves in Bermuda, 1680-1783 (The William And Mary
Quarterly), 586
9 Ibid.,587
10 Ibid.,587

7. Spinelli 6
Michael Jarvis also describes the future benefits that Bermuda would witness because of
its unique outpost in the middle of the Atlantic, which is not as thoroughly focused on by any of
the other sources presented in this paper. Jarvis describes, “The English discovered that the
island was a healthy and fertile paradise with considerable potential as a colony.”11 Low and
behold, Jarvis describes by 1612, “the Virginia Company dispatched 600 settlers to fortify and
colonize the island.”12 Jarvis designates this being followed by Bermuda’s own separate joint-
stock venture establishment of the Somers Island Company, resulting in “almost all the island’s
twenty square miles under cultivation by 1625.”13 Bermuda would continue to develop its
infrastructure in later years for aspects such as trade and other economically enhancing means
beyond what’s discussed in this essay.
Kieran Doherty, author of Sea Venture, agrees with Glover and Smith’s earlier stance
with the Spanish being the credited discoverers of Bermuda. Writing in a format suited for a
more popular audience than Glover and Smith and Jarvis, Doherty describes Juan de Bermudez
“on his way to Spain following such a voyage to Hispaniola. He imagined the Bermudas as a
potential haven for passing Spanish vessels, a place where they might find water and food.”14
Kieran Doherty delves deeper into the motives of Bermudez, none of which is written of in any
of the other sources in this paper. Doherty describes Juan de Bermudez’s second attempt to visit
the forlorn island, and “hoping to land hogs so passing ships could stop and replenish their
stores. While contrary winds kept Bermudez and his men from landing themselves, they did
11 Ibid.,587
12 Ibid., 588
13 Ibid., 588
14 Kieran Doherty, Sea Venture: Shipwreck,Survival,and the Salvation ofthe First English Colony in the New
World. New York (New York, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2007), 53.

8. Spinelli 7
manage to send a few hogs ashore.”15 These “few hogs” would later significantly benefit the
English colonists who would arrive to a large hog population a century later.
Doherty describes how Spanish exploration of Bermuda even went beyond the activities
of Juan de Bermudez. Doherty thoroughly defines the additional Spanish explorers who traveled
to Bermuda following Bermudez’s initial discovery, such as Fernando Camelo and Diego
Ramirez. Each of these explorers found similar struggles to what the English colonists would
find in 1609. However, Diego Ramirez also found paradise on Bermuda, unlike his previous
Spanish countrymen. Doherty mentions the incredible abundance of resources present on the
supposed “Isle of Devils.” Even the screams that legend claims all passing the forbidden island
heard emanating from it were that of the congested native bird population called Bermuda
cahows. Doherty notes that Ramirez described these cahows as “very large herons and sparrow
hawks “so stupid” that the Spanish were able to club them and the crows that came and perched
on the sailors’ shoulders.”16 Doherty also notes the great number of fish, “grouper, parrot fish,
and red snapper, that were so unafraid that men could catch them in their bare hands or with
pointed sticks.”17
Eileen Stamers-Smith takes the most strictly scientific route of all the sources presented
in this paper when observing the island of Bermuda in her article Reflections on the Bermuda
Flora. Instead of providing an entertaining historical read as Kieran Doherty’s Sea Venture,
Stamers-Smith’s article delivers the facts without any fluff. As described earlier by Michael J.
Jarvis, Eileen Stamers-Smith stresses the island of Bermuda’s geographical isolation when
writing, “set in the Atlantic at latitude 32 degrees north and longitude 64 degrees west, it lies
about 568 miles east of Cape Hatteras, the nearest land on the American seaboard, and 700 miles
15 Ibid.,53
16 Ibid., 56
17 Ibid., 56

9. Spinelli 8
north of the nearest islands of the Bahamas group - after St Helena the most isolated island in the
world.”18 Stamers-Smith asserts that the remoteness of the island makes its “endemic plants
markedly differentiated from their probable ancestors in for instance, Florida or the Bahamas.”19
The English colonists would witness what made Bermuda such an incredible discovery in 1609,
but not realizing its true distinction from the mainland until leaving.
Stamers-Smith meticulously describes the native cedar wood of the island as being
extremely important for the shipwrecked colonists. Stamers-Smith writes, “The cedar growing
there provided them with ample timber to build the two pinnaces in which they continued their
voyage after nine months and the natural resources of the island supported about 150 people
during that time.”20 Stamers-Smith continues to describe the impact of the cedar when noting,
“The cedar berries provided food for men and hogs and a way was soon found of making an
intoxicating drink from them.”21
The native cedar wood of the island could be used to make houses and cradles, as well as
ships and coffins.”22 Greatly appreciating this seemingly vast supply of cedar, the colonists did
not want to one day run out of arguably their most important resource. As a result, Stamers-
Smith explains a conservation method the colonists developed to replenish the cedar forests they
were cutting down. Stamers-Smith writes, “Settlers were required to replant and a custom grew
up of newly-weds planting a pair of cedars outside their new home.”23 This was definitely a
required method to be practiced since, as Stamers-Smith herself describes, “Cedar was a truly
native wood, used for everything.”24 Common cedar-made objects found around the colonial
18 Eileen Stamers-Smith, Reflectionson the Bermuda Flora (The Garden History Society, 1980), 115–27.
19 Ibid.,115
20 Ibid.,116
21 Ibid.,116
22 Ibid.,116
23 Ibid.,117
24 Ibid.,117

10. Spinelli 9
settlement of Bermuda would include furniture, tanks, barrels, floors, window frames, doors,
shutters, entire houses, paddles, rolling pins, buckets, brooms, and additional other entities.25
Virginia Bernhard writes her book A Tale of Two Colonies for a less academic audience
than the two previously discussed sources. Although scholarly referenced, it is written in a
format that overly embellishes aspects of the discovery of Bermuda to make it more interesting
for the casual reader. Bernhard details the wild hog population of the island, which proved to be
a saving grace for the stranded colonists when they first landed on the shores of Bermuda.
Started by Juan de Bermudez a whole century earlier, the hog population multiplied and
proved to be a plentiful food for the stranded colonists, practically greeting them as they arrived.
Bernhard describes, “The ship’s dog whose task aboard the Sea Venture had been to catch rats
led the first hunting party that took the astonishing number of thirty-two wild hogs” back to the
settlement for the shipwrecked colonists to roast and feast on.26 Bernhard is the only source,
which makes mention of a dog travelling across the Atlantic with the colonists. She makes a
point at mentioning the dog several times, leading it to almost come across as a ploy to ring in
the reader with a lovable animal.
Additionally, Bernhard inserts drama prominently while detailing a supposed rift between
Admiral George Somers and Governor Thomas Gates, the two men in charge of the expedition.
Bernhard describes that “the two leaders would now have separate commands.” At times rivaling
a soap opera, Bernhard accounts a prolonged letter exchange between the two men who were no
longer on speaking terms, resulting in Somers “begging” Gates’s forgiveness.27 Bernhard
describes, “George Somers mulled over Gate’s letter begging him to reunite with the rest of the
25 Ibid.,118
26 Virginia Bernhard, A Tale of Two Colonies:What Really Happened In Virginia and Bermuda? (Columbia,
Missouri: University of MissouriPress),72
27 Ibid.,120

11. Spinelli 10
company. At last he persuaded his rebellious sailors to give up their hideouts in the woods and
accept Lieutenant-General Gate’s pardon.”28
Bernhard maintains the melodramatic imagery meant to tug at the heart strings. When
describing the eventual arrival of the castaways at Jamestown, the reader is met with the intense
description of the remaining colonists being “as thin as trees with sunken eyes in gray, gaunt
faces… the once rounded bodies withered to stick figure shapes.”29 This excessively morbid
description paints quite an image into the head of the reader. Bernhard does not necessarily bend
the truth in her writing on Bermuda, but instead extends the truth for the benefit of satisfying the
readers’ imagination. Unlike the previous sources of Glover, Smith, and Jarvis, Bernhard does
not just lay down the general facts, but instead spruces them up into something more stimulating
for the average reader. The exaggerated descriptions in these instances is absent in all other
secondary sources researched on the topic, leading one to be skeptical of Bernhard’s validity, and
instead seeking to satisfy the imagination of otherwise uninterested readers.
Roger Stritmatter and Lynne Kositsky bring up a unique perspective about the legacy of
the dramatic voyage of the Sea Venture and its discovery of Bermuda. Written for the more
sophisticated audience, Stritmatter and Kositsky claim that William Shakespeare was directly
inspired by what went on with the Sea Venture expedition, and wrote his play The Tempest based
on it. Expecting their audience to be familiar with Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Stritmatter and
Kositsky outline possible ways that the famous playwright could have been so aware of the story
of the Sea Venture. The authors acknowledge, “The influence of the Sea Venture episode on
alleged parallelisms of thought, image, and language between The Tempest and Sylvester
28 Ibid.,120
29 Ibid.,125

12. Spinelli 11
Jourdain's 1610 published account Discovery of the Bermuda.”30 Stritmatter and Kositsky
mention researchers, such as “Morton Luce ( 1902), C. M. Gayley (1917) , and R.R. Cawley
(1926), who have also acknowledged the similarities between Shakespeare’s The Tempest and
the actual Sea Venture affair. The authors agree that “Shakespeare probably read all three
published tracts, maybe others too, and incorporated details from them into his comedy; and he
certainly drew on Strachey’s account (another published account of a Sea Venture passenger).
And Cawley's influential 1926 study assures us that the parallels between Strachey's work and
The Tempest make it virtually certain that Shakespeare was following the document closely.”31
At the same time, Stritmatter and Kositsky’s claim is not so crystal clear. William
Strachey’s account True Reportory was not published until the year 1625, while Shakespeare’s
The Tempest was written fourteen years earlier. Nonetheless, Stritmatter and Kositsky reason
that, “the absence of a published text was not an impediment, but a sign of 'Shakespeare's
intimacy with the leaders of the Virginia Enterprise; only a prominent and well-connected author
would have had access to a letter jealously guarded from the public, and accessible for long after
1610, long after 1613, only to the inner circle of the Virginia Company.”32 This theory has gone
on to be accepted by many involved in the study of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
All the sources presented in this essay each bring their own unique qualities, while
including an abundance of the same information at the same time. Starting with Lorri Glover and
Daniel Blake Smith’s The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown, it is explained how Bermuda was
in fact a dreaded place. Glover and Smith detail the island’s initial discovery by the colonists,
and present their information in an academic fashion that keeps the reader focused. Additionally,
30 Roger Stritmatter, and Lynne Kositsky, Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited (Oxford University Press, 2007),
447–72.
31 Ibid.,449
32 Ibid.,450

13. Spinelli 12
Tony Williams takes a vastly different slant in his account, focusing on the main fleet’s
experience without the Sea Venture in control, while also spicing things up with a little drama.
Jarvis’s article “Maritime Masters and Seafaring Slaves in Bermuda, 1680-1783” provides the
geographical background of Bermuda, and foreshadows the island’s future endeavors from its
naturally positive attributes. Also, Kieran Doherty’s Sea Venture hones in on a claim previously
made, and further analyzes the Spanish discovery of Bermuda, and their planned usage for the
island. Eileen Stamers-Smith takes the botany route, and explains the natural paradise that the
island of Bermuda was for the colonists stranded there. Virginia Bernhard, like Tony Williams,
employs adding a considerable amount of supplementary drama to the story she is trying to tell
in order to rein in the reader’s attention. Finally, Stritmatter and Lynne Kositsky take an abstract
direction, and look at the Bermuda voyage as the inspiration for William Shakespeare’s The
Tempest with many blatant similarities arising between the two stories. With all this knowledge
in mind, it is interesting to witness the presented scholars’ information on the topic, all offering
distinctive information that fits together like puzzle pieces creating a map directing us, the
readers, through our own journey of understanding the historiography of Bermuda.

14. Spinelli 13
Bibliography
Bernhard, Virginia. A Tale of Two Colonies: What Really Happened In Virginia and
Bermuda? (University of Missouri Press, 2011).
This book was written with a more popular than scholarly audience in mind. Bernhard, a
leading researcher on the subject of Bermuda has published numerous writings in recent
years on her topic of expertise. A Tale of Two Colonies takes the reader on a journey
originating from the initial start of the fleet in England, to the separation of the Sea
Venture, and back and forth between the struggling colonists on the mainland and those
stranded on Bermuda. Bernhard plays her book to a popular audience by inserting a lot of
drama into some of the instances the occurred while the colonists were stranded on
Bermuda, and when they eventually met up with the other colonists on the mainland.
Doherty, Kieran. Sea Venture: Shipwreck, Survival, and the Salvation of the First English
Colony in the New World (New York, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2007).
This book focuses more on the history of Bermuda before the British arrival than any of
the other sources in this paper. The original credited discoverer of Bermuda, Juan de
Bermudez, is discussed, as well as a couple of other early Spanish explorers who
attempted to set up an outpost on the island. A lighter read than some of the other books
used, Doherty focuses more on a general audience interested in the basic history of
Bermuda. Although scholarly referenced, as an award-winning biographer, Kieran
Doherty’s account of Bermuda might read more like a biography at some points
throughout its length.

15. Spinelli 14
Glover, Lorri, and Daniel Blake Smith. The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea
Venture Castaways and the Fate of America (New York, New York: Henry Holt, 2008).
Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith’s The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea
Venture Castaways and the Fate of America is undoubtedly written for the scholarly
audience. This book by Glover, a leading historian and professor, and Smith, a noted
writer and film maker, is a highly scholarly referenced work that paints an extremely
vivid picture of the history of Bermuda. Also acknowledging the Spanish involvement in
the history of the island, Glover and Smith bring up the astounding point that the
colonists nearly bypassed steering towards Bermuda on their sinking ship, fearing its
notorious legend. Instead, Glover and Smith describe that the colonists chose “the devil
over the deep blue sea,” which is from where I drew the title for this paper.
Jarvis, Michael J. “Maritime Masters and Seafaring Slaves in Bermuda, 1680-1783”. The
William and Mary Quarterly 59 (2002).
Michael J. Jarvis’s article focuses on the geographical and economic advantages of
Bermuda. This article would be written for the scholarly audience, in that it does not
feature any information that would interest a casual reader. It is simply the facts with no
additional fat. Dr. Jarvis, a history professor based out of the University of Rochester,
begins by separating the colonists from the island, and looks at Bermuda from a
geographical standpoint. Jarvis also brings up the fact that Bermuda was not occupied by
any previous native population before the British settled there. Jarvis also looks into the
future, and how the British changed the landscape of the island so drastically within a
fifteen year period to support the Somers Island Company established there.

16. Spinelli 15
Stamers-Smith, Eileen. “Reflections on the Bermuda Flora”. Garden History 8 (3). (The
Garden History Society: 115–27. 1980).
Eileen Stamers-Smith’s article “Reflections on the Bermuda Flora” is written for the
scholarly audience purely interested in the botany of the island. Stamers-Smith, an
English researcher of the environment on Bermuda, examines just how fortunate the
stranded colonists were on Bermuda with all the natural resources they had access to. In
particular, the cedar trees, which grew in abundance on Bermuda were especially useful
to the colonists in not only building homes and furniture, but also in harvesting the cedar
berries which could be squeezed into a juice or distilled in to an intoxicating beverage.
Stamers-Smith also mentions a method of replanting the diminished cedar forests on the
island that the colonists developed so that they would never have to worry about running
out of their precious resource.
Stritmatter, Roger, and Lynne Kositsky. “Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited”. The Review
of English Studies 58 (236). (Oxford University Press: 447–72. 2007).
Roger Stritmatter and Lynne Kositsky write on a unique belief held by some in the
scholarly community who are particularly familiar with Shakespeare. Roger Strittmatter,
a leading scholar on William Shakespeare, established the Shakespeare Fellowship, as
well as teaches at Coppin State University. Lynne Kositsky is a Canadian historical writer
and novelist. Stritmatter and Kositsky propose that Shakespeare’s The Tempest was
heavily inspired from the story of the colonists’ dramatic journey to Bermuda. Stritmatter
and Kositsky link Shakespeare’s The Tempest particularly close to a Sea Venture
survivors published account of his experience. However, the dates of publication of these

17. Spinelli 16
two works do not align for The Tempest to be based off of the testimony. However,
Stritmatter and Kositsky believe that Shakespeare had privileged access to the account in
advance of its publication.
Williams, Tony. The Jamestown Experiment : The Remarkable Story of the Enterprising Colony
and the Unexpected Results That Shaped America. (Naperville, Ill: Sourcebooks, Inc,
2011).
Tony Williams’s The Jamestown Experiment : The Remarkable Story of the Enterprising
Colony and the Unexpected Results That Shaped America reads similarly to Virginia
Bernhard’s A Tale of Two Colonies. Tony Williams is a writer and professor of American
history, holding degrees from Syracuse University and Ohio State University. Williams’s
book takes a very different angel of following the rest of the British fleet after the
separation of the Sea Venture, the leading ship. Much like Bernhard, Williams adds in
drama to liven up the information that he is writing about. As a result, Williams’s book
would probably be considered written for a more popular audience than scholarly. Unlike
any of the other sources presented in this paper, Williams’s account of what the rest of
the fleet faced without their flagship was quite useful in understanding to entire scope of
the Bermuda discovery.