IV.

History

The discovery of Bermuda is attributed to a Spanish navigator, Juan de Bermúdez, who was shipwrecked here in about 1503. No settlement was established, however, until 1609, when a party of English colonists under the mariner Sir George Somers sailing for Virginia, was also shipwrecked here. In 1612 the island group, known as Somers Islands, was included in the third charter of the Virginia Company, and a second group of English colonists arrived. This charter was revoked in 1684, however, and the islands then became a crown colony.

Shortly afterward the settlers imported black slaves and, later, Portuguese laborers from the Madeira Islands and the Azores (Portuguese Açores). During the American Civil War (1861-1865), Confederate blockade runners were based in the Bermudas. At the close of the Civil War some Americans, particularly Virginians, migrated here from the United States; the islands later received Boer prisoners, sent by the British government during the Boer War (1899-1902).

Because of their strategic location, the Bermuda Islands formerly served as the winter naval station for both the British North Atlantic and West Indian squadrons. From 1941 to 1995, sites on the islands were leased to the United States for naval and air bases.

Bermuda became a self-governing dependency in 1968. In 1995 voters in Bermuda soundly rejected a referendum that would have made the island colony independent of the United Kingdom. In the late 1990s international business grew into Bermuda’s most important economic activity.

The United Bermuda Party (UBP) controlled the government from 1968 when Bermuda became self-governing until it lost the 1998 legislative elections. The Progressive Labour Party (PLP) then took control of the government, and its party leader, Jennifer Smith, became premier. Smith resigned from that position after the PLP barely held onto its majority in the 2003 elections. The PLP chose Alex Scott, a former public relations manager, to replace Smith, and he became premier later that same year.