Women in Bermuda

The term Women in Bermuda includes British nationals with local status, British nationals without Bermudian status who are resident in Bermuda, Commonwealth nationals and foreign nationals who are resident in Bermuda, although in most cases only the first of these groups is intended to be connoted.

Bermudian sisters Rosalie, Helen and Ellesif Darrell in 1846

History

A Police Sergeant confiscates women's suffrage activist Gladys Morrell's table in the 1930s

Portrait of Bermudian woman "Rattery" (1885–1890)

Although women and girls were among the passengers of the Sea Venture, the flagship of the Virginia Company that was wrecked at Bermuda in 1609, starting the permanent settlement of the archipelago as an English (following the 1707 union of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, "British") colony, none were among the three (living) people left in Bermuda in 1610 (when most of the crew and passengers continued to Jamestown, Virginia in two newly constructed ships. Also left behind, buried in Bermuda, was Sarah Hacker, the first wife of John Rolfe, and their Bermuda-born child Bermuda. In 1612, with its Royal Charter officially extended to include Bermuda (officially named "Virginiola", and quickly renamed "The Somers Isles") as part of its territory in Virginia, the Virginia Company sent sixty settlers, including women, under a Lieutenant-Governor aboard the "Plough" to join the three men left behind in 1610. An under-company, the Company of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles (or Somers Isles Company) was already planned in 1612 and administration of the Somers Isles was transferred to it in 1615, though Bermuda and Virginia continued to be closely interlinked. Bermuda was grouped with the North American continental colonies until 1783 as part of British America, and from then until 1907 as part of British North America, when the Colony of Newfoundland became the Dominion of Newfoundland, leaving Bermuda as the only remaining British colony in the North American region, and it was thereafter administered by the Colonial Office under the same department as the British West Indies. Bermuda's closest neighbours in order of distance are the United States of America (640 miles), Canada (768 miles) and the nearest West Indian islands (roughly 1,000 miles).

The companies would utilise indentured servitude as a source of cheap labour until the latter company lost its Royal Charter in 1684 and the Crown took over direct administration. Most settlers who arrived voluntarily over the early decades of settlement exchanged seven years of servitude for the cost of their transport. The early settlers were disproportionately men, and female convicts were shipped to Bermuda and sold to local men to provide an adequate supply of brides. During the Civil War, women were among the native Irish who were forcibly exported to Bermuda and other trans-Atlantic colonies and sold into servitude. Native American prisoners from areas of the continent that were ethnically cleansed to make way for settlers were also sent to Bermuda in the mid-17th Century, disproportionately women. Although slavery was not to become the feature it did in other colonies, due to the indentured servants, privateers based at Bermuda from its settlement onwards often brought enslaved Africans or people of African ancestry captured from the Spanish or French or other foes. Others arrived via shipwreck, and after the Civil War there was a considerable influx of coloured indentured servants from former Spanish territories annexed by England.

The founder population of the 17th Century was consequently diverse. All women in Bermuda, regardless of status, were constrained by the same laws as elsewhere in England and its colonies. They had no representation, or ability to stand for election, and their property generally became their husbands' upon marriage. Some men were as cruel to their daughters, wives and enslaved females as was common elsewhere, but in 1684, following the revocation of the Somers Isles Company's charter, Bermudians were freed to develop their maritime economy, and by the 18th Century virtually the only industries were shipbuilding and sea faring.

This had a profound effect on the lot of women as most Bermudian men spent months away at sea, leaving wives to handle matters at home as best as they could, with many becoming competent at managing financial affairs. As a significant number of Bermudian men were lost at sea, there were, as mentioned above, a large number of young widows who, having come into possession of their husband's estates (including what had been their own property 'til marriage) declined to remarry and lose their property to another husband. Being a small, closely-knit community, where good manners and modesty were the norm, when Bermudian men were at home they were mindful of their reputations. As Mary Prince, born into slavery in Bermuda, related in " The History of Mary Prince" (1831) vicious attacks on herself, his wife and daughters by one of her masters in which she sought to protect the other women, and when another master attempted to have her bathe his naked body she refused, chastising him that they were in Bermuda, not the Turks Islands (where some Bermudians, free and enslaved, migrated seasonally to gather salt for sale on the continent, and where, out of sight of their wives and polite society, some men resorted to debauchery they would not dare to at home).

This led to a marked difference in the way women functioned in Bermuda, and were and are perceived (both by themselves and by men), when compared with Britain, the United States, Canada, or the British West Indies. Bermudian society is often perceived as matriarchal by outsiders.

From the 1840s, there has been a steady immigration from Portuguese Atlantic islands, and there has been a considerable immigration during the 20th Century from the British Isles, the British West Indies, the United States, and Canada, among other areas, often causing culture clashes over the perceived treatment of women by men of various demographic groups (with Bermudians sometimes perceiving West Indian and Portuguese immigrants as patriarchal, or even misogynistic).