The Somers Isles Company (fully, the Company of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles or the Company of The Somers Isles) was formed in 1615 to operate the English colony of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda, as a commercial venture. It held a royal charter for Bermuda until 1684, when it was dissolved, and the Crown assumed responsibility for the administration of Bermuda as a royal colony.
Bermuda under the Virginia Company
Bermuda had been settled, inadvertently, in 1609 by the Virginia Company when its flagship, Sea Venture, was wrecked on the reefs to its east.A Discovery of The Barmudas, Sylvester Jordain The Admiral of the company, Sir George Somers, was at the helm as the ship fought a storm that had broken apart a relief fleet destined for Jamestown, the Virginian settlement established by the Company two years earlier. Somers had deliberately driven the ship onto the reefs to prevent its foundering, thereby saving all aboard.Woodward, Hobson. A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest. Viking (2009) pp. 32–50.
The settlers and seamen spent ten months in Bermuda while they built two new ships to continue the voyage to Jamestown. During the building, Sea Venture'''s longboat was fitted with a mast and sent to find Jamestown. Neither it, nor its crew, was ever seen again. When Deliverance and Patience set sail for Jamestown, they left several of the original party behind to maintain Somers' claim to the islands for England, as well as some dead. Those aboard the two ships included Sir Thomas Gates, the military commander and future governor of Jamestown, William Strachey, whose account of the wrecking may later have inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest, and John Rolfe, who would found Virginia's tobacco industry, and who left a wife and child buried in Bermuda. Rolfe would find a new bride in the Powhatan princess Pocahontas.
Jamestown, and the sixty survivors of its original five hundred settlers, were found in such a poor state that it was decided to abandon the Jamestown settlement and return everyone to England. The timely arrival of another relief fleet under Thomas West from England granted the colony a reprieve. However, the food shortage was made more critical by the new arrivals. Somers returned to Bermuda on Patience, captained by his nephew, Matthew, to gather provisions for the Jamestown colony, but died on Bermuda in 1610. Matthew Somers was keen to receive his inheritance (Sir George and his wife were childless, but had raised his two nephews), and took Patience to Somers' hometown, Lyme Regis, and not to Virginia.
When news reached England of the adventures of Sea Venture's survivors, the royal charter of the Virginia Company was extended to include Bermuda on the 12th of March, 1612, at Westminster, with the archipelago granted by the Crown unto the Treasurer and Company of Aduenturers and Planters of the Cittie of London for the first colony in Virginia. The new colony was officially named Virgineola, although this was soon changed to The Somers Isles or The Somers Islands in honour of Sir George Somers.
A Governor, Richard Moore, arrived in 1612 with settlers, aboard Plough, to join those left behind by Sea Venture, Patience, and Deliverance. The new settlers were primarily tenant farmers, who gave seven years of indentured servitude to the Company in exchange for the cost of transport. Although the primary industry was envisioned to be agriculture, the early Governors enthusiastically, if mostly unsuccessfully, attempted to develop other industries also. These included pearl diving (there are no pearls in Bermuda) and ambergris. The first two slaves to arrive in Bermuda, one black, one Native American, were brought in for their skills as pearl divers.
Free of the endemic warfare and other hardships which plagued the continental settlement, Bermuda thrived from the beginning, though it was never to be particularly profitable for its investors. Its population quickly surpassed that of Jamestown, and consideration was given to abandoning the North American continent and evacuating its settlers to Bermuda.
Formation of the Somers Isles Company The Virginia Company ran Bermuda until 1613, when the colony was transferred to Sir William Wade et al in exchange for £2,000, who then resigned it to the Crown in 1614. The Crown briefly administered the Colony directly before the adventurers (shareholders) of the Virginia Company formed a second company, the Somers Isles Company, to which Bermuda was transferred in 1615. The Virginia Company was dissolved in 1622, with the administration of its continental colony passing to the Crown. The Somers Isles Company, with its separate charter, continued to administer Bermuda for another six decades.
The original Adventurers of the Somers Isles Company listed in the letters patent were essentially the same as those of the Virginia Company. Major-General Sir John Henry Lefroy, Governor of Bermuda from 1871 to 1877, transcribed the list which was ordered by social rank, but commented that the original list began with Henry, Earl of Southampton:
Bedford, Lucie, Countess of Cavendish, William, Lord William, Lord Paget Pembroke, William, Earl of Southampton, Henrie, Earl of Auger (Aucher) Sir Anthoine Cranfield, Sir Lionel Diggs, Sir Dudlie Grobham, Sir Richard Hide, Sir Lawrence Hogan, Sir Thomas Howard, Sir John Mansell, Sir Richard (Robert) Mericke, Sir John Rich, Sir Robert Sandys, Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir Samuel Smith, Sir Richard Smith, Sir Thomas Watts, Sir John Winwood, Sir Ralphe Caraway, William Esq. Chamberlaine, Richard Esq. Heydon, Jeremie Esq. Hide, Nicholas Esq. Martin, Richard Esq. Thorpe, George Esq. Walter, John Esq. Westenholm, John Esq. Wrath, John Esq. Abbott, Maurice, merchant Abby, Anthony Adderlie, William Anthonie, Charles, goldsmith Banks, John, mercer Barnard, John Barkeley, George, merchant Baron, Christopher Benson, Nicholas Bretton, John Bishop, Edward Brainfield, Arthur Campage, William, merchant Cartwright, Abraham Casewell, Richard Chamberlaine, Abraham Chamberlaine, George, merchant Church, Thomas Clitherow, Christopher Cotton, Allen Conell, Thomas Dawes, Abraham De Laurie, Gideon Delbridge, John Dike, John Ditchfield, Edward, salter Edwards, Richard Etheridge, George Exton, Nicholas Farrer, Nicholas, merchant Ffellgate, William Fletcher, John Fletcher, Edward Gearing, John Giles, Ffrancis Gore, Robert, merchant tailor Greenwell, William, merchant tailor Haleman, George Hamer, Ralphe, merchant taylor Harwood, Leonard Herne, John Heyward, John, clarke Hinton, Anthonie, doctor of Hodges, John Jacobson, Philip Jadwin, Thomas John, Thomas Johnson, Robert, grocer Kerell, John Kinge, Ralphe Leuis, Thomas Lukin, Edward Maplesdon, Richard Martin, Edward Mercer, Richard Nicholls, William Norcott, Thomas Offley, Robert, merchant Osborn, John Palmer, William Payne, William Esquire Phipps, Robert Poulson, Richard Prason, Hildebrand Quick, William Rich, George Roberts, Elias, merchant tailor Rogers, Richard Scott, Edmon Scott, George Shepheard, Matthew Smith, Cleophas Smith, George, grocer Smith, Robert Smith, Waren Speckhardie, Abraham Swinow, George Tomlins, Richard Tymberdale, Henry Wale, Thomas Webb, Rice, haberdasher Webb, Thomas Webster, William Weld, John Welby, William, stationer West, John, grocer Wheatley, Thomas Woddall, John
Bermuda as a company colony
Most of Bermuda was subdivided into eight equally sized tribes, later called parishes. These were named for shareholders in the Company, and were further divided (by tribe roads) into lots which equated to shares in the Company. The Company's return on investment came specifically from cash crops raised on that land. A ninth subdivision, now the easternmost parish, was Saint George's, comprising Saint George's Island, Saint David's Island, part of the Main Island, and various smaller islands and islets around Castle Harbour (then known as Southampton Harbour) and Saint George's Harbour. This area was held as common, or King's land, and was not subdivided for exploitation by the Company. This was where the capital, Saint George's Town was located. The choice of this location followed the original settlement created by Sea Venture survivors, and was also determined by the two eastern harbours being the only ones then readily accessible to shipping.
A surveyor, Richard Norwood, was hired to produce a survey of the colony, which also served as a census. This was completed in 1616, although he made later updates. In the process, he discovered that the total landmass of the eight commercial parishes was greater than originally estimated. His superior, Daniel Tucker, the Governor of Bermuda, appropriated a choice piece of land, equivalent to the excess, for himself.
Local government The Company continued to appoint governors until its dissolution in 1684. In 1620, however, a colonial parliament was created, the House of Assembly. Suffrage was restricted to male land owners, and there was no upper house. An appointed council, composed primarily from the leading merchant families of the Colony, came to fill a role similar to both an upper house, and a cabinet, and often proved the true repository of power in Bermuda.
The immediate concern of the first governors was for the colony's protection from a feared Spanish or Dutch attack, and the building of fortifications, and the raising of militias, was sustained throughout the company's administration, and beyond. A review of the colony's defences was carried out by Captain John Smith.
Demographics and immigration
The immigration of European indentured servants underpinned the Bermudian economy during the Company's administration over the island, and this source of cheap labour meant that Bermuda never adopted a slavery-based economic system which came to characterise other European colonies in the West Indies. Though the majority of the Bermudian population was of English descent, a number of other ethnic groups were brought to Bermuda during the Company's administration; the first group being Irish and Scottish indentured servants, with both groups primarily consisting of prisoners of war captured during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (including the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland).
The second group were Native Americans from North America who were brought to Bermuda as slaves after being sold into slavery in the aftermath of various conflicts in colonial New England such as the Pequot War and King Philip's War. The third group were Africans; though a few were free people of colour from Spanish America, the majority were imported by European slave traders as part of the transatlantic slave trade. A rapid influx of Africans to Bermuda during the 17th century led to the white majority becoming uneasy, and resulted in the terms of indenture for African indentured servants to be raised from seven to ninety-nine years.
After the outbreak of the English Civil War (1642–1651), Bermuda remained sympathetic towards the Royalist cause, perhaps due to the fact that the shareholders of the Somers Isles Company consisted primarily of wealthy members of the upper-class. Despite the Royalist defeat during the conflict, Bermuda was largely spared the effects and aftermath of the Parliamentarian victory. Supporters of the Parliamentarians in Bermuda, which like their counterparts in England were similar to the Puritan and anti-Episcopalian demographic, were forced into exile by the Company administration, becoming the Eleutheran Adventurers who settled on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas.
Economy and industry