Bermuda was discovered in 1503 by a Spanish explorer, Juan de
Bermudez, who made no attempt to land because of the treacherous
reef surrounding the uninhabited islands.
In 1609, a group of British colonists led by Sir George Somers was
shipwrecked and stranded on the islands for 10 months. Their reports
aroused great interest about the islands in England, and in 1612
King James extended the Charter of the Virginia Company to include
them. Later that year, about 60 British colonists arrived and
founded the town of St. George, the oldest continuously inhabited
English-speaking settlement in the Western Hemisphere. When
representative government was introduced to Bermuda in 1620, it
became a self-governing colony.
Due to the islands' isolation, for many years Bermuda remained an
outpost of 17th-century British civilization, with an economy based
on the use of the islands' endemic cedar trees for shipbuilding and
the salt trade. Hamilton, a centrally located port founded in 1790,
became the seat of government in 1815.
Slaves from Africa were brought to Bermuda soon after the colony was
established. The slave trade was outlawed in Bermuda in 1807, and
all slaves were freed in 1834. Today, about 61% of Bermudians are of
African descent.
The establishment of a formal constitution in 1968 bolstered
internal self-government; debate about independence ensued, although
a 1995 independence referendum was defeated. The government
re-opened the independence debate in 2004. |
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