Continued

There were certainly people shipwrecked on the Island as sea traffic in this part of the world increased – Spanish Rock in Smith’s Parish is carved with the initials F T, a cross and the date 1543. The Englishman, Henry May, wrote of being on a ship that struck a reef and sank here in 1593. About half of the ship’s company, 26 men, made it to shore. There, over six months or so, they saved themselves by building a small boat and sailing to Cape Breton, in Canada. There were others, including a black man called Venturilla, who is said to have been wrecked here in 1603.

In 1609 there occurred a shipwreck that was to have important consequences. An English fleet, under the command of Admiral Sir George Somers, was bound for the first new world settlement, Jamestown in Virginia. They were carrying supplies and settlers, but were hit by a hurricane. After a three-day fight with the elements, the crew of the Sea Venture spotted land and, working their way in as close as they could, lodged the ship between two shoals at what is now called Sea Venture Flat. All 140 men and women aboard were able to get ashore in what we now know as St. George’s Parish. They built two ships, Patience and Deliverance, in which to continue the journey. The admiral fell in love with Bermuda, and eventually returned here with settlers, where he died in 1610. His heart is said to have been be interred in Somers Gardens, a park in Bermuda’s first capital, also called St George’s.

What Might Have Been

In 1527, a Portuguese man called Hernando Camelo received a commission from King Philip of Spain to found a colony in Bermuda. There is no sign that Camelo did anything about it, but Bermuda nonetheless made a link with Portugal when it began, at the end of the 19th Century, to bring in workers from the Portuguese Islands, the Azores. Many of these workers settled in Bermuda, and a substantial part of our population (5,500 in 2,000) now identify themselves as being of Portuguese descent.