Somers Isles Company
Encyclopedia
The Somers Isles Company was formed in 1615 to operate the English colony
of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda
, as a commercial venture. It held a royal charter
for Bermuda until 1684, when it was dissolved, and the Crown
assumed responsibility for the administration of Bermuda as a royal colony
.
Bermuda had been settled, inadvertently, in 1609 by the Virginia Company
when its flagship, the Sea Venture
, was wrecked on the reefs to its east. The Admiral of the Company, Sir George Somers
, was at the helm as the ship fought a storm that had broken apart a relief fleet destined for Jamestown
, the Virginian settlement established by the Company two years earlier. Somers had deliberately driven the ship onto the reefs to prevent its foundering, thereby saving all aboard. The settlers and seamen spent ten months in Bermuda while they built two new ships to continue the voyage to Jamestown. During the building, the Sea Ventures longboat was fitted with a mast and sent to find Jamestown. Neither it, nor its crew, was ever seen again. When the Deliverance and Patience set sail for Jamestown, they left several people behind, some to maintain Somers' claim to the islands for England
, some dead. Those aboard the two ships included Sir Thomas Gates, the military commander and future governor of Jamestown, William Strachey
, whose account of the wrecking may later have inspired Shakespeare's
The Tempest, and John Rolfe
, who would found Virginia's tobacco industry, and who left a wife and child buried in Bermuda. Rolfe would find a new bride in the Powhatan
princess Pocahontas
.
Jamestown, and the sixty survivors of its original five hundred settlers, were found in such a poor state that it was decided to abandon the settlement and return everyone to England. However, the timely arrival of another relief fleet from England granted the colony a reprieve. However, the food shortage was made more critical by the new arrivals. Somers decided to return to Bermuda aboard the Patience, captained by his nephew, Matthew, for provisions. He died in Bermuda, however, in 1610. Matthew Somers was keen to receive his inheritance (Sir George and his wife were childless, but had raised his two nephews), and took the Patience to Somers' hometown, Lyme Regis
, and not to Virginia.
When news reached England of the adventures of the Sea Ventures survivors, the royal charter of the Virginia Company was officially extended to include Bermuda, subsequently known also as The Somers Isles and also as Virgineola. A Governor, Richard Moore, arrived in 1612 with settlers, aboard the Plough, to join those left behind by the Sea Venture and the Patience. The new settlers were primarily tenant farmers, who gave seven years of indentured servitude to the Company in exchange for the cost of transport. Although the primary industry was envisioned to be agriculture, the early Governors enthusiastically, if mostly unsuccessfully, attempted to develop other industries also. These included pearl diving (there are no pearls in Bermuda) and ambergris
. The first two slaves to arrive in Bermuda, one black, one Native American, were brought in for their skills as pearl divers.
Free of the endemic warfare and other hardships which plagued the continental settlement, Bermuda thrived from the beginning, though it was never to be particularly profitable for its investors. Its population quickly surpassed that of Jamestown, and consideration was given to abandoning the North American continent and evacuating its settlers to Bermuda.
. The Somers Isles Company, with its separate charter, continued to administer Bermuda for another six decades.
Most of Bermuda was subdivided into eight equally-sized tribes, later called parishes. These were named for shareholders in the Company, and were further divided (by tribe roads) into lots which equated to shares in the Company. The Company's return on investment came specifically from cash crops raised on that land. A ninth subdivision, now the eastern-most parish, was Saint George's
, comprising Saint George's Island
, Saint David's Island
, part of the Main Island, and various smaller islands and islets around Castle Harbour
(then known as Southampton Harbour) and Saint George's Harbour
. This area was held as common, or King's land, and was not subdivided for exploitation by the Company. This was where the capital, Saint George's Town
was located. The choice of this location followed the original settlement created by the Sea Venture survivors, and was also determined by the two eastern harbours being the only ones then readily accessible to shipping.
A surveyor, Richard Norwood, was hired to produce a survey of the colony, which also served as a census. This was completed in 1616, although he made later updates. In the process, he discovered that the total landmass of the eight commercial parishes was greater than originally estimated. His superior, Daniel Tucker, the Governor of Bermuda
, appropriated a choice piece of land, equivalent to the excess, for himself.
. Suffrage was restricted to male land owners, and there was no upper house. An appointed council, composed primarily from the leading merchant families of the Colony, came to fill a role similar to both an upper house, and a cabinet, and often proved the true repository of power in Bermuda.
The immediate concern of the first governors was for the colony's protection from a feared Spanish or Dutch attack, and the building of fortifications, and the raising of militias
, was sustained throughout the company's administration, and beyond. A review of the colony's defences was carried out by Captain John Smith
.
at the end of the 17th century, a number of minority groups were established under the Company's management. As England began to challenge Spain's supremacy in Florida
and the West Indies, Spanish-speaking Blacks began to emigrate from territories taken from Spain
. These immigrants arrived under the same conditions of indenture as most English immigrants, but the white majority soon became uneasy with the increasing numbers of blacks. The terms of indenture for black West Indian immigrants were consequently raised successively from seven years to ninety-nine. An attempt was also made to encourage Blacks to emigrate under threat of being enslaved. Numbers of Black slaves were also being imported to Bermuda, primarily as the result of shipwrecks, or as part of the prizes taken by privateers, although Bermudian vessels went as far as Africa specifically to acquire slaves. As England's settlements in New England
expanded, large areas were ethnically cleansed to make way for European expansion. This resulted in various Algonquian
peoples being shipped to Bermuda and sold into slavery, notably after the Pequot War
and Metacomet's War
. A great many Native American
slaves were being brought to Bermuda by other means, also, possibly from as far as Mexico
. The third main minority group was composed of Irish prisoners-of-war
(POW), and ethnically-cleansed civilians, shipped to the Colony and sold into slavery following Cromwell's
bloody adventure in Ireland
in the 1650s (see Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
). Smaller numbers of Scottish POWs were also sent as a result of Cromwell's forcing his 'protectorship' on Scotland
.
Bermuda had tended towards the Royalist
side in the English Civil War
, perhaps because the shareholders of the Somers Isles Company were primarily nobles
, but was largely spared the effects and the aftermath of that conflict.
remained the mainstay of the economy
under the Somers Isles Company. The primary cash crop was tobacco
, but the quantity and quality produced were very poor. The Bermuda cedar boxes in which the tobacco was shipped to England were said to be worth more than their contents, and much of the tobacco was destroyed on arrival. The Colony also had little success with other export crops. Additionally, the several acres of arable land that had been cut from the forest meant that each farmer had only a very small area under cultivation, by comparison to the 50 acres (202,343 m²) granted to each settler in Virginia. Bermudian farmers had to raise as many as three crops a year in order to be economically viable. This meant that they could not allow fields to lie fallow, and the soil, already high in alkaline and low in magnesium
(used by plants to form chlorophyll
), became depleted.
Bermudians began to turn away from agriculture quite early, building boats and developing the Bermuda sloop
to pursue maritime trades. As the Company derived no income, except from agriculture, it acted to stymie these activities. The building of vessels was banned without its license, and the first laws to protect the Bermuda cedar, which were passed early in the seventeenth century, may have been intended more to restrict shipbuilding than to conserve the resource.
English colonial empire
The English colonial empire consisted of a variety of overseas territories colonized, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the former Kingdom of England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries....
of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
, as a commercial venture. It held a royal charter
Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...
for Bermuda until 1684, when it was dissolved, and the Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
assumed responsibility for the administration of Bermuda as a royal colony
Crown colony
A Crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal colony, was a type of colonial administration of the English and later British Empire....
.
Bermuda under the Virginia Company
Virginia Company
The Virginia Company refers collectively to a pair of English joint stock companies chartered by James I on 10 April1606 with the purposes of establishing settlements on the coast of North America...
when its flagship, the Sea Venture
Sea Venture
The Sea Venture was a 17th-century English sailing ship, the wrecking of which in Bermuda is widely thought to have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest...
, was wrecked on the reefs to its east. The Admiral of the Company, Sir George Somers
George Somers
This article is about the English naval hero. For the American football player, see George Somers Admiral Sir George Somers was an English naval hero. Born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, the son of John Somers, his first fame came as part of an expedition led by Sir Amyas Preston against the Spanish...
, was at the helm as the ship fought a storm that had broken apart a relief fleet destined for Jamestown
Jamestown, Virginia
Jamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 14, 1607 , it was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States, following several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke...
, the Virginian settlement established by the Company two years earlier. Somers had deliberately driven the ship onto the reefs to prevent its foundering, thereby saving all aboard. The settlers and seamen spent ten months in Bermuda while they built two new ships to continue the voyage to Jamestown. During the building, the Sea Ventures longboat was fitted with a mast and sent to find Jamestown. Neither it, nor its crew, was ever seen again. When the Deliverance and Patience set sail for Jamestown, they left several people behind, some to maintain Somers' claim to the islands for England
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
, some dead. Those aboard the two ships included Sir Thomas Gates, the military commander and future governor of Jamestown, William Strachey
William Strachey
William Strachey was an English writer whose works are among the primary sources for the early history of the English colonisation of North America...
, whose account of the wrecking may later have inspired Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
The Tempest, and John Rolfe
John Rolfe
John Rolfe was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia and is known as the husband of Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Confederacy.In 1961, the Jamestown...
, who would found Virginia's tobacco industry, and who left a wife and child buried in Bermuda. Rolfe would find a new bride in the Powhatan
Powhatan
The Powhatan is the name of a Virginia Indian confederation of tribes. It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 of these native Powhatan people in eastern Virginia when the English settled Jamestown in 1607...
princess Pocahontas
Pocahontas
Pocahontas was a Virginia Indian notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Chief Powhatan, the head of a network of tributary tribal nations in Tidewater Virginia...
.
Jamestown, and the sixty survivors of its original five hundred settlers, were found in such a poor state that it was decided to abandon the settlement and return everyone to England. However, the timely arrival of another relief fleet from England granted the colony a reprieve. However, the food shortage was made more critical by the new arrivals. Somers decided to return to Bermuda aboard the Patience, captained by his nephew, Matthew, for provisions. He died in Bermuda, however, in 1610. Matthew Somers was keen to receive his inheritance (Sir George and his wife were childless, but had raised his two nephews), and took the Patience to Somers' hometown, Lyme Regis
Lyme Regis
Lyme Regis is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 miles west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. The town lies in Lyme Bay, on the English Channel coast at the Dorset-Devon border...
, and not to Virginia.
When news reached England of the adventures of the Sea Ventures survivors, the royal charter of the Virginia Company was officially extended to include Bermuda, subsequently known also as The Somers Isles and also as Virgineola. A Governor, Richard Moore, arrived in 1612 with settlers, aboard the Plough, to join those left behind by the Sea Venture and the Patience. The new settlers were primarily tenant farmers, who gave seven years of indentured servitude to the Company in exchange for the cost of transport. Although the primary industry was envisioned to be agriculture, the early Governors enthusiastically, if mostly unsuccessfully, attempted to develop other industries also. These included pearl diving (there are no pearls in Bermuda) and ambergris
Ambergris
Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of and regurgitated or secreted by sperm whales....
. The first two slaves to arrive in Bermuda, one black, one Native American, were brought in for their skills as pearl divers.
Free of the endemic warfare and other hardships which plagued the continental settlement, Bermuda thrived from the beginning, though it was never to be particularly profitable for its investors. Its population quickly surpassed that of Jamestown, and consideration was given to abandoning the North American continent and evacuating its settlers to Bermuda.
Formation of the Somers Isles Company
The Virginia Company ran Bermuda until 1614, when the Crown briefly took over the Colony's administration. The adventurers (shareholders) of the Virginia Company formed a second company, the Somers Isles Company, to which Bermuda was transferred in 1615. The Virginia Company was dissolved in 1622, with the administration of its continental colony passing to the CrownThe Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
. The Somers Isles Company, with its separate charter, continued to administer Bermuda for another six decades.
Bermuda as a company colony
St. George's Parish, Bermuda
St. George's Parish is one of the nine parishes of Bermuda. It is named after the founder of the Bermuda colony, Admiral Sir George Somers.It is located in the north-easternmost part of the island chain, containing a small part of the main island around Tucker's Town and the Tucker's Town...
, comprising Saint George's Island
St. George's Island, Bermuda
St. George's Island is one of the main islands of the territory of Bermuda. It lies in the northeast of the territory. It is divided between the town of St. George's and St. George's Parish...
, Saint David's Island
St. David's Island, Bermuda
St. David's Island is one of the main islands of Bermuda. It is located in the far north of the territory, one of the two similarly sized islands that makeup the majority of St...
, part of the Main Island, and various smaller islands and islets around Castle Harbour
Castle Harbour, Bermuda
Castle Harbour is a large natural harbour in Bermuda. It is located between the northeastern end of the main island and St. David's Island. Originally called Southampton Port, it was renamed as a result of its heavy fortification in the early decades of the Seventeenth century.-Geography:A gem of...
(then known as Southampton Harbour) and Saint George's Harbour
St. George's Harbour, Bermuda
St. George's Harbour is a natural harbour in the north of Bermuda. It serves as the port for the town of St. George's and separates St. George's Island in the north and west from St. David's Island in the south and east. Several other islands lie to the south and east, closing the harbour from the...
. This area was held as common, or King's land, and was not subdivided for exploitation by the Company. This was where the capital, Saint George's Town
St. George's, Bermuda
St. George's , located on the island and within the parish of the same names, was the first permanent settlement on the islands of Bermuda, and is often described as the third successful English settlement in the Americas, after St. John's, Newfoundland, and Jamestown, Virginia. However, St...
was located. The choice of this location followed the original settlement created by the Sea Venture survivors, and was also determined by the two eastern harbours being the only ones then readily accessible to shipping.
A surveyor, Richard Norwood, was hired to produce a survey of the colony, which also served as a census. This was completed in 1616, although he made later updates. In the process, he discovered that the total landmass of the eight commercial parishes was greater than originally estimated. His superior, Daniel Tucker, the Governor of Bermuda
Governor of Bermuda
The Governor of Bermuda is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda. The Governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the British government...
, appropriated a choice piece of land, equivalent to the excess, for himself.
Local government under the company
The Company continued to appoint governors until its dissolution in 1684. In 1620, however, a colonial parliament was created, the House of AssemblyHouse of Assembly of Bermuda
The House of Assembly is the lower house of the Parliament of Bermuda. The house has 36 members, each elected for a five year term in a single seat constituencies....
. Suffrage was restricted to male land owners, and there was no upper house. An appointed council, composed primarily from the leading merchant families of the Colony, came to fill a role similar to both an upper house, and a cabinet, and often proved the true repository of power in Bermuda.
The immediate concern of the first governors was for the colony's protection from a feared Spanish or Dutch attack, and the building of fortifications, and the raising of militias
Bermuda Militias 1612-1815
Bermuda Militias 1612-1815Bermuda was settled inadvertently, in 1609, by the Virginia Company. Its first deliberate settlers arrived in 1612, aboard the Plough. The very first concern of the first Governor, Richard Moore, was the Colony's defences against an expected Spanish attack. He oversaw the...
, was sustained throughout the company's administration, and beyond. A review of the colony's defences was carried out by Captain John Smith
John Smith of Jamestown
Captain John Smith Admiral of New England was an English soldier, explorer, and author. He was knighted for his services to Sigismund Bathory, Prince of Transylvania and friend Mózes Székely...
.
Immigration and demographics under the company
Immigration of indentured servants continued throughout the Company's administration, also, and this pool of cheap labour meant that Bermuda never developed the slavery-based economy that came to characterise other English agricultural colonies. Although the bulk of the population remained Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
at the end of the 17th century, a number of minority groups were established under the Company's management. As England began to challenge Spain's supremacy in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and the West Indies, Spanish-speaking Blacks began to emigrate from territories taken from Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. These immigrants arrived under the same conditions of indenture as most English immigrants, but the white majority soon became uneasy with the increasing numbers of blacks. The terms of indenture for black West Indian immigrants were consequently raised successively from seven years to ninety-nine. An attempt was also made to encourage Blacks to emigrate under threat of being enslaved. Numbers of Black slaves were also being imported to Bermuda, primarily as the result of shipwrecks, or as part of the prizes taken by privateers, although Bermudian vessels went as far as Africa specifically to acquire slaves. As England's settlements in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
expanded, large areas were ethnically cleansed to make way for European expansion. This resulted in various Algonquian
Algonquian peoples
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
peoples being shipped to Bermuda and sold into slavery, notably after the Pequot War
Pequot War
The Pequot War was an armed conflict between 1634–1638 between the Pequot tribe against an alliance of the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies who were aided by their Native American allies . Hundreds were killed; hundreds more were captured and sold into slavery to the West Indies. ...
and Metacomet's War
King Philip's War
King Philip's War, sometimes called Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, or Metacom's Rebellion, was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Native American allies in 1675–76. The war is named after the main leader of the...
. A great many Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
slaves were being brought to Bermuda by other means, also, possibly from as far as Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. The third main minority group was composed of Irish prisoners-of-war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
(POW), and ethnically-cleansed civilians, shipped to the Colony and sold into slavery following Cromwell's
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
bloody adventure in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
in the 1650s (see Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland refers to the conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of England's Rump Parliament in 1649...
). Smaller numbers of Scottish POWs were also sent as a result of Cromwell's forcing his 'protectorship' on Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
Bermuda had tended towards the Royalist
Cavalier
Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...
side in the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
, perhaps because the shareholders of the Somers Isles Company were primarily nobles
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
, but was largely spared the effects and the aftermath of that conflict.
Economy and industry under the company
AgricultureAgriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
remained the mainstay of the economy
Economic system
An economic system is the combination of the various agencies, entities that provide the economic structure that defines the social community. These agencies are joined by lines of trade and exchange along which goods, money etc. are continuously flowing. An example of such a system for a closed...
under the Somers Isles Company. The primary cash crop was tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
, but the quantity and quality produced were very poor. The Bermuda cedar boxes in which the tobacco was shipped to England were said to be worth more than their contents, and much of the tobacco was destroyed on arrival. The Colony also had little success with other export crops. Additionally, the several acres of arable land that had been cut from the forest meant that each farmer had only a very small area under cultivation, by comparison to the 50 acres (202,343 m²) granted to each settler in Virginia. Bermudian farmers had to raise as many as three crops a year in order to be economically viable. This meant that they could not allow fields to lie fallow, and the soil, already high in alkaline and low in magnesium
Magnesium
Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...
(used by plants to form chlorophyll
Chlorophyll
Chlorophyll is a green pigment found in almost all plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. Its name is derived from the Greek words χλωρος, chloros and φύλλον, phyllon . Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to obtain energy from light...
), became depleted.
Bermudians began to turn away from agriculture quite early, building boats and developing the Bermuda sloop
Bermuda sloop
The Bermuda sloop is a type of fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel developed on the islands of Bermuda in the 17th century. In its purest form, it is single-masted, although ships with such rigging were built with as many as three masts, which are then referred to as schooners...
to pursue maritime trades. As the Company derived no income, except from agriculture, it acted to stymie these activities. The building of vessels was banned without its license, and the first laws to protect the Bermuda cedar, which were passed early in the seventeenth century, may have been intended more to restrict shipbuilding than to conserve the resource.
Revocation of charter and dissolution of the company
It was this interference by the Company into the livelihoods of the islanders which led to its dissolution, following protests to the Crown. There was also discontent caused by the attempt of the last Company-appointed governor to rule without the consent of the colonial parliament. The Company's Royal Charter was revoked in 1684, and from then on the Crown assumed responsibility for appointing the Colony's governors (it first re-appointed the last company governor). Freed of the Company's restraints, the local merchant class came to dominate and shape Bermuda's progress, as Bermudians abandoned agriculture en masse and turned to the sea.See also
- Virginia CompanyVirginia CompanyThe Virginia Company refers collectively to a pair of English joint stock companies chartered by James I on 10 April1606 with the purposes of establishing settlements on the coast of North America...
- Virginia Company of LondonLondon CompanyThe London Company was an English joint stock company established by royal charter by James I of England on April 10, 1606 with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America.The territory granted to the London Company included the coast of North America from the 34th parallel ...
- Sea VentureSea VentureThe Sea Venture was a 17th-century English sailing ship, the wrecking of which in Bermuda is widely thought to have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest...
- History of BermudaHistory of Bermuda-Initial discovery:Bermuda was discovered by Juan de Bermudez in 1505.The island is shown as "La Bermuda" in Peter Martyr's Legatio Babylonica . Bermudez returned again in 1515, with the chronicler Oviedo y Valdés...
- Jamestown, VirginiaJamestown, VirginiaJamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 14, 1607 , it was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States, following several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke...
- History of VirginiaHistory of VirginiaThe history of Virginia began with settlement of the geographic region now known as the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States thousands of years ago by Native Americans. Permanent European settlement began with the establishment of Jamestown in 1607, by English colonists. As tobacco emerged...
External links
- Roots Web Richard Norwood’s Survey of the Land and Landholder’s of Bermuda.
- Bermuda Yellow Pages History of Bermuda.
- Dan Byrnes. Com The Business of Slavery - Chapter 9.