History

Bermuda in the age of agriculture Commerce Chameleon

Given that this is one of the smallest, more isolated inhabited islands in the world, with no natural resources to speak of, it is not surprising that Bermudians quickly became masters of business adaption. Close one window of opportunity and we tend to open another.

From the early years of settlement, the export of crops was important to the country’s survival, but the cost of transporting them to market — if they got there at all — was always a problem. Also, little Bermuda was often muscled out by larger competitors: local tobacco production was no match for Virginia’s, and more recently somebody made a fortune in “Bermuda onions”, by the expedient renaming of an area in Texas. Still, the island did manage to get itself into the annals of agriculture — first by introducing the potato to the American colonies in 1621 then bananas to England in 1633.

The Easter lily, brought here during the 19th century, was extensively cultivated for export. (A bouquet of lily blossoms is sent to the Queen every spring). There was also large-scale arrowroot production.

However, US tariffs during the 1930s along with the growth of tourism here essentially ended agricultural exports. And when tourism started to falter two decades ago, Bermudians had already built the infrastructure to support the further expansion of international business.

Shakespeare in luck

Academics have long seen a connection between the wreck of the Sea Venture off Bermuda in 1609 and The Tempest, which was first performed two years later.

The Irish critic Edmund Malone was the first to argue that Shakespeare had drawn inspiration from contemporary pamphlets about the ship’s demise, which led to the settlement of Bermuda three years later. These pamphlets include Silvester Jourdain’s narrative, published in 1610, and William Strachey’s more detailed account in the form of a letter to a woman in England. Both men had been aboard the Sea Venture, which was heading for Virginia when it literally bumped into Bermuda. Jourdain was among the crew and Strachey — the Secretary-designate of Virginia — was a passenger.

Shakespeare must have read these accounts, given that his patron, Henry Wriothesely, Earl of Southampton, was a member of the Virginia Company. (The earl later invested in the Somers Island Company and had a Bermudian parish named after him.)

In any case, so miraculous was the nature of the Sea Venture’s “deliverance”, to quote Strachey, from “the windes and seas … as mad as fury and rage could make them” that the story was surely the talk of London.

The events of the summer of 1609 gave Shakespeare more than enough material to spin one of the world’s truly great yarns. Indeed, his play has remained better known and better understood than the island that helped shape it.

How Bermuda was Juan

Bermuda’s name game began in 1503 when Spanish explorer Juan de Bermudez spied the island and christened it “Las Bermudas”. However, in his Mappa Mundi, Sebastian Cabot identified us as Ya de Demonios — the Isle of Devils — due to a growing reputation for sudden storms and fiendish noises. As such, the Spanish duly crossed the island off their colonisation list.

It was the British admiral, Sir George Somers and his fellow 1609 castaways who finally figured out that the evil lurking among the cedars was nothing worse than mewing seabirds, grunting hogs and wind whistling through the caves.

When, three years later, the Virginia Company was granted permission to settle the Isle of Devils, someone — probably in an effort to please his boss — suggested renaming it Virginiola. Thankfully, this was soon abandoned for the more dignified Somers Islands, in honour of Sir George. But humans being fickle creatures, after ownership passed to the Somers Island Company, preference for the original name began to resurface.