A shipwreck turned empty Atlantic rocks into a miniature parliament
Bermuda, a British Overseas Territory of 181 islands fused by bridges into about 54 square kilometres of land, lies roughly 1,035 kilometres from North Carolina. Spanish captain Juan de Bermúdez sighted the empty archipelago in the early 1500s; English settlers followed after the 1609 Sea Venture wreck bound for Jamestown.
The islands' most important members are linked by bridges and look like a single landmass. Bermuda is split into nine parishes, and its climate is tropical, with warm winters, hot summers and humid, ocean-steadied temperatures. Recurving tropical storms are a threat, though a coral reef and a position north of the main hurricane-breeding zone limit how storms can approach.
Nobody lived there when Juan de Bermúdez came upon the islands, which already appeared in Pedro Mártir de Anglería's Legatio Babylonica and on Spanish charts in 1511. Spanish and Portuguese crews stopped for fresh meat and water, and stranded Portuguese sailors probably carved the 1543 inscription on what is now called Portuguese Rock. Shrieking cahows, or Bermuda petrels, and noisy feral hogs likely inspired tales of devils, and with its storms and reefs the place was dubbed the Isle of Devils.
England had founded Jamestown in 1607. Two years later seven ships sailed with settlers and supplies to relieve it, but a storm scattered them, and the flagship Sea Venture was deliberately run onto Bermuda's reef, saving everyone aboard. Having heard how grim Jamestown really was, many wanted to stay and argued for their own government. The camp turned into a forced-labour site that built two new ships, Deliverance and Patience.
Today Bermuda governs itself as a parliamentary democracy based in Hamilton. Its House of Assembly dates from 1620, one of the oldest legislatures in the world. A governor nominated by London appoints the premier, and Britain handles defence and foreign policy; voters rejected independence by a wide margin in 1995. About 64,000 people lived there in 2019, the second-largest population among Britain's overseas territories. Around half are Black Bermudians of mixed African, European and Native American ancestry, about 30 percent are White Bermudians of mainly British, Irish and Portuguese origin, and roughly 30 percent were born elsewhere. As the last piece of former British North America, it keeps a distinctive English dialect.
Source: Bermuda
