HISTORICAL NOTE
What is now known as Bermuda, sometimes called the Bermudas and at one time known as Somers Islands, is a group of islands said to be over three hundred in actual number, lying in the Atlantic some seven hundred miles southeast from New York, the nearest point on the mainland being Cape Hatteras, in North Carolina, five hundred and seventy miles west. Of these three hundred odd islands, the eight principal ones, totalling in area less than twenty square miles, lie close together and are now connected by bridges, causeways and ferries. A glance at the map of Bermuda shows its general form, with its three almost enclosed bodies of water, the Great Sound, Harrington Sound and Castle Harbor, and nautical charts with soundings marked would show its form extending as reefs under water into a great oval connecting the two ends. These reefs made actual landing difficult, giving the island an evil reputation before its settlement, and no doubt were the cause of many shipwrecks.
The islands were known to exist as early as 1511, as they were noted on a map of that date. They received their name, however, from Juan de Bermudez, who came to Spain with an account of them a few years later, although there is apparently no evidence to show that the Spaniards or Portuguese ever occupied the islands or even landed there.
In 1593, Henry May, an Englishman, was cast away there with others and, eventually making his way back to England, he published an account of his adventures and a description of the group of Islands. Bermuda thus became known to the English. In 1609, the "Sea Venture" which was one of nine ships bound for the infant plantation of Virginia, with a party of "adventurers" ran ashore on Bermuda in a hurricane. The admiral of this fleet, Sir George Somers, with Sir Thomas Gates sent out to govern Virginia, and the entire company and crew of the "Sea Venture," said to number 149 men and women, were landed. With the ship stores saved from the wreck and what the island gave them, this company subsisted there for some ten months. During this time and in spite of mutiny among his charges, two ships were built under Somers' direction, and in May, 1610, the Company proceeded to the original destination, the colony of Virginia.
The Virginia colonists were in straits through lack of food, and Somers returned to Bermuda for provisions for the colony, having found hogs and fish plentiful on the islands. He died there in 1611, and his followers returned to England soon after.
The glowing and exaggerated accounts of the richness of the islands brought back by these colonists excited the cupidity of the organizers of the Virginia Company, who enlarged their original charter to include Bermuda and established a Colony there under Governor Moore in 1612. The shipment home of ambergris by Moore seemed to confirm the reported wealth of the islands, so that, following a method not unknown to more modern exploiters, members of the Virginia Company soon formed a new sub-company which took over the title to Bermuda as a separate proprietary colony, under the name of "The Governor and Company of the City of London, for the Plantation of the Somers Islands."
In 1616, Daniel Tucker was sent out by this company as the first Governor under the new charter. He caused the islands to be surveyed, dividing them into eight tribes, and public lands. These tribes, or proportional parts, assigned to each charter member, were for the most part what are the present-day parishes, being Sandys, to Sir Edwin Sandys; Southampton, to the Earl of Southampton; Paget, to William, Lord Paget; Smith's, to Sir Thomas Smith; Pembroke, to the Earl of Pembroke; Bedford, now Hamilton Parish, to the Countess of Bedford; Cavendish, now Devonshire, to Lord William Cavendish; Mansils', now Warwick, to Sir Robert Mansil. St. George's, St. David's and adjacent small islands were public lands. The tribes were subdivided into fifty shares of twenty-five acres each. Norwood's second map showing these tribes and shares is the basis of land titles in Bermuda today.
Governor Tucker's rule was harsh. The colonists included many criminals and convicts from English jails, so a merciless discipline seemed to him necessary. The severest penalties were enforced, executions, brandings and whippings were frequent. Negro slaves were introduced from Virginia in the endeavor to make money for the proprietors, with the resultant vices leaving their trail to this day. Progress was made in building the town of St. George. Roads and fortifications were constructed and the land planted with tobacco and semi-tropical fruits.