| This was a century punctuated by war – the War of 1812 between the Americans and the British at one end, and the American Civil War at the other. But it was also a century in which Bermuda came of age, in a way, and during which the foundations of modern Bermuda were laid. Slaves were emancipated. The capital was moved from St George’s to Hamilton. The British built their naval base, the Dockyard, at Ireland Island. The Government’s Postal Service was created. The Bermuda Library was opened. Gibb’s Hill Lighthouse was built. The first modern hotel, the Hamilton Hotel, was built on the site of what is now the City Hall car park. A British Army base was created at Prospect. The Causeway between St George’s Island and the mainland was built. The first electricity and telephone services became available. An undersea telephone cable was laid between Bermuda and Halifax. Government House, the residence of British Governors, was built. And Mark Twain paid us a visit…symbolically, perhaps, marking the start of Bermuda’s highly successful tourist trade.
During the years before the War of 1812, Bermuda had been doing well in the shipbuilding business, and in trading. Trouble brewed between Britain and its former American colonies for years before war was officially declared in June, 1812, and Bermuda seemed to have done some work to prepare itself for the outbreak of hostilities. Quickly, the Island got permission from the British Government to export to the US sugar and coffee that had been brought to Bermuda on British vessels, and bring back American foodstuffs to Bermuda, without being molested by British ships.
But Bermuda ships trading in the West Indies and Canada, were given no similar safe passage by American privateers. During the course of the war, 39 of them were taken or destroyed, which was a severe blow. What sank the maritime business once and for all, though, was the emancipation of slaves in 1834. Paying the going rates to their now-freed sailors was more than the businesses could bear.
Bermuda benefited from the large amounts of money that were spent by the British Government on building the Dockyard facility and in maintaining the large population of convicts who had been sent out to do the hard labour involved, and who were quartered aboard floating prison hulks at Ireland Island and in St George’s. Bermudians also turned back to farming, growing and exporting good-quality arrowroot, onions and green vegetables. It was a humble existence, for the most part.
The American Civil War changed all that. Bermuda became, as did Cuba and the Bahamas, a port through which materiel and supplies for the Confederate Army were shipped, despite a blockade of southern ports by Union forces. Blockade running was a big and dangerous enterprise, in which many people in Britain, in Bermuda and in the United States, made their fortunes. Everyone involved did well financially. And although the Government made nothing out of the immense cargoes of goods that were transshipped, Bermuda became packed with ships and seamen, officials, agents and spies, all of them needing provisions of one type or another. Many Bermudians became wealthy as a result.
1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s |
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