In 1593, Henry May, an Englishman, was cast away there with others and,
eventually making his way back to England, he published an account of
his adventures and a description of the group of Islands. Bermuda thus
became known to the English. In 1609, the "Sea Venture" which was one
of nine ships bound for the infant plantation of Virginia, with a party
of "adventurers" ran ashore on Bermuda in a hurricane. The admiral of
this fleet, Sir George Somers, with Sir Thomas Gates sent out to govern
Virginia, and the entire company and crew of the "Sea Venture," said to
number 149 men and women, were landed. With the ship stores saved from
the wreck and what the island gave them, this company subsisted there
for some ten months. During this time and in spite of mutiny among
his charges, two ships were built under Somers' direction, and in May,
1610, the Company proceeded to the original destination, the colony of
Virginia.
The Virginia colonists were in straits through lack of food, and Somers
returned to Bermuda for provisions for the colony, having found hogs
and fish plentiful on the islands. He died there in 1611, and his
followers returned to England soon after.
The glowing and exaggerated accounts of the richness of the islands
brought back by these colonists excited the cupidity of the organizers
of the Virginia Company, who enlarged their original charter to include
Bermuda and established a Colony there under Governor Moore in 1612.
The shipment home of ambergris by Moore seemed to confirm the reported
wealth of the islands, so that, following a method not unknown to
more modern exploiters, members of the Virginia Company soon formed
a new sub-company which took over the title to Bermuda as a separate
proprietary colony, under the name of "The Governor and Company of the
City of London, for the Plantation of the Somers Islands."
In 1616, Daniel Tucker was sent out by this company as the first
Governor under the new charter. He caused the islands to be surveyed,
dividing them into eight tribes, and public lands. These tribes, or
proportional parts, assigned to each charter member, were for the most
part what are the present-day parishes, being Sandys, to Sir Edwin
Sandys; Southampton, to the Earl of Southampton; Paget, to William,
Lord Paget; Smith's, to Sir Thomas Smith; Pembroke, to the Earl of
Pembroke; Bedford, now Hamilton Parish, to the Countess of Bedford;
Cavendish, now Devonshire, to Lord William Cavendish; Mansils', now
Warwick, to Sir Robert Mansil. St. George's, St. David's and adjacent
small islands were public lands. The tribes were subdivided into fifty
shares of twenty-five acres each. Norwood's second map showing these
tribes and shares is the basis of land titles in Bermuda today.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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