Demographics of Bermuda

This is a demography of the population of 'Bermuda' including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population, including changes in the demographic make-up of Bermuda over the centuries of its permanent settlement.

Population

According to the 2016 census the de jure population was 63,779, compared to 64,319 in 2010 and 62,098 in 2000. The estimated mid-year population of is .

Structure of the population

Age group	Male	Female	Total	%
Total	30 690	33 089	63 779	100
0–4	1 482	1 511	2 993	4.69
5–9	1 705	1 648	3 353	5.26
10–14	1 650	1 523	3 173	4.97
15–19	1 521	1 629	3 150	4.94
20–24	1 451	1 514	2 965	4.65
25–29	1 659	1 809	3 468	5.44
30–34	2 160	2 282	4 442	6.96
35–39	2 253	2 328	4 581	7.18
40–44	2 437	2 321	4 758	7.46
45–49	2 533	2 472	5 005	7.85
50–54	2 712	2 741	5 453	8.55
55–59	2 505	2 846	5 351	8.39
60–64	2 045	2 338	4 383	6.87
65–69	1 584	1 865	3 449	5.41
70–74	1 208	1 477	2 685	4.21
75–79	789	1 110	1 899	2.98
80–84	631	846	1 477	2.32
85-89	268	501	769	1.21
90-94	88	258	346	0.57
95-99	9	63	72	0.11
100+	0	7	7	0.01
Age group	Male	Female	Total	Percent
0–14	4 837	4 682	9 519	14.92
15–64	21 276	22 280	43 556	68.29
65+	4 577	6 127	10 704	16.78

Age group	Male	Female	Total	%
Total	30 783	33 272	64 055	100
0–4	1 400	1 381	2 781	4.34
5–9	1 482	1 511	2 993	4.67
10–14	1 701	1 640	3 341	5.22
15–19	1 648	1 524	3 172	4.95
20–24	1 519	1 627	3 146	4.91
25–29	1 438	1 509	2 947	4.60
30–34	1 639	1 799	3 438	5.37
35–39	2 136	2 268	4 404	6.88
40–44	2 235	2 324	4 559	7.12
45–49	2 409	2 306	4 715	7.36
50–54	2 492	2 446	4 938	7.71
55–59	2 639	2 703	5 342	8.34
60–64	2 403	2 797	5 200	8.12
65-69	1 927	2 288	4 215	6.58
70-74	1 450	1 786	3 236	5.05
75-79	1 055	1 366	2 421	3.78
80-84	644	967	1 611	2.52
85+	566	1 030	1 596	2.49
Age group	Male	Female	Total	Percent
0–14	4 583	4 532	9 115	14.23
15–64	20 558	21 303	41 861	65.35
65+	5 642	7 437	13 079	20.42

Ethnic groups

Current

As noted above, only in recent years have Bermudians been given the option to define themselves by more than one race on census returns, with the 2000 Census giving respondents the options of black, white, Asian, black and white, black and other, white and other, other, and not stated. For a variety of reasons, most Bermudians have continued to identify themselves by a single racial group.

One race

The 2016 Census results reported roughly 91% of the population self-identifying as only one racial group which was slightly lower than the 2010 Census. The largest group reported Black alone, which decreased slightly from 54% in 2010 to 52% in 2016. The White population remained constant at about 31% of the total population in 2016. The remaining 8% of the 2016 population who reported one race consisted of persons reporting Asian only, and those reporting an other race from the ones listed. The proportions of these respective racial groups were similar to what they were in 2010.

More than one race

Nine percent of the population reported belonging to more than one race in 2016, up from 8% in 2010. The black and white category was the most common, representing 39% of the number reporting multi-racial groups and 4% of the total population of Bermuda. The proportion of 'black and other' increased from 2% to 3% of the total population, making up 35% of the people identifying as mixed race. The remainder were of 'white and other' mixed descent, and remained unchanged at 2% of the total population. The changing racial composition of Bermuda's population is consequence of immigration and an increase of interracial marriage.

Languages

The predominant language on Bermuda is Bermudian English. It exhibits characteristics of British, West Indian, and American English. Perhaps most interesting is its closeness to acrolectal English compared to varieties in the West Indies.
British English spellings and conventions are used in print media and formal written communications.
Portuguese is also spoken in Bermuda; this is owing to immigration from Portugal, particularly from the Azores, as well as from Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands.

Religion

During the intercensal period, the distribution of persons across the various religious affiliations shifted but remained generally widespread. All religious groups experienced declines in their followings with the exception of Roman Catholics, Seventh-Day Adventists and non-denominational groups. Nearly one fifth or 20% of the population claimed no religious affiliation in 2010 compared with a 14% share in 2000. Although the number of Roman Catholics increased to 9,340 persons, its share remained constant at 15% compared to 2000. Over the ten-year period, nondenominational congregations increased a strong 33% while the Seventh-Day Adventist following rose 6%.

History

From settlement until the 19th century, the largest demographic group remained what in the United States is referred to as white-Anglo. The reason Black slaves did not quickly come to outnumber Whites, as was the case in continental and West Indian colonies at that time, was that Bermuda's 17th-century agricultural industry continued to rely on indentured servants, mostly from England, until 1684, thanks to it remaining a company colony. Spanish-speaking Blacks began to immigrate in numbers from the West Indies as indentured servants in the mid-17th century, but White fears at their growing numbers led to their terms of indenture being raised from seven years, as with Whites, to 99 years. Throughout the next two centuries, frequent efforts were made to lower the Black population.
Free Blacks, who were the majority of Black Bermudians in the 17th century, were threatened with enslavement as an attempt to encourage their emigration, and slave owners were encouraged to export enslaved Blacks whenever a war loomed, as they were portrayed as unnecessary bellies to feed during times of shortage.
In addition to free and enslaved Blacks, 17th-century Bermuda had large minorities of Irish indentured servants and Native American slaves, as well as a smaller number of Scots, all forced to leave their homelands and shipped to Bermuda. Native Americans sold into chattel slavery in Bermuda were brought from various parts of North America, including Mexico, but most particularly from the Algonquian areas of the Atlantic seaboard, from which natives were subjected to genocide by the English; most famously following the Pequot War and Metacomet's War. The Irish and Scots are usually described as prisoners-of-war, which was certainly true of the Scots. The Irish shipped to Bermuda following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland included both prisoners-of-war and civilians of either sex ethnically cleansed from lands slated for resettlement by Protestants from Britain, including Cromwell's soldiers who were to be paid with Irish land. In Bermuda they were sold into indentured servitude. The Scots and the Irish were ostracised by the white English population, who were particularly fearful of the Irish, who plotted rebellions with Black slaves, and intermarried with the Blacks and Native Americans. The majority white-Anglo population, or at least its elites, became alarmed very early at the increasing numbers of Irish and non-whites, most of whom were presumed to be clinging to Catholicism.
Despite the banning of the importation of any more Irish after they were perceived to be the leaders of a foiled 1661 uprising intended to be carried out in concert with black slaves, the passing of a law against miscegenation in 1663, the first of a succession of attempts to force free blacks to emigrate in 1656, and frequent encouragement of the owners of black slaves to export them, by the 18th century the merging of the various minority groups, along with some of the white-Anglos, had resulted in a new demographic group, "coloured" Bermudians, who gained a slight majority by the 19th century.

National Archives population numbers

The population of Bermuda on 1 January 1699 was 5,862, including 3,615 white and 2,247 coloured.
The population of Bermuda on 17 April 1721 was listed as 8,364, composed of: "Totals:—Men on the Muster roll, 1,078; men otherwise, 91; Women, 1,596; boys, 1,072; girls, 1,013. Blacks; Men, 817, women 965; boys 880; girls, 852."
The population of Bermuda in 1727 was 8,347, and included 4,470 white and 3,877 coloured.
The population of Bermuda in 1783 was 10,381, and included 5,462 white and 4,919 coloured.
By 18 November 1811, the permanent population of Bermuda was 10,180, including 5,425 coloured and 4,755 white:

Robert Kennedy's population figures, 1812

By 1831, the permanent population of Bermuda' was 11,250, including 7,330 white and free coloured, and 3,920 enslaved.

Terminology

The term coloured was generally used in preference to black, with anyone who was of wholly European ancestry defined as white, leaving everyone else as coloured. This included the multi-racial descendants of the previous minority demographic groups that had quickly blended together, along with some part of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority, as well as the occasional Jew, Persian, East Asian or other non-White and non-Black Bermudian.
It was largely by this method that Coloured Bermudians came to outnumber White Bermudians by the end of the 18th century, despite starting off at a numerical disadvantage, and despite low Black immigration prior to the latter 19th century. The scale of White relative to Black emigration in the 17th and 18th centuries also doubtlessly played a factor. Roughly 10,000 Bermudians are estimated to have emigrated, primarily to the North American continental colonies before United States independence in 1783. This included white Bermudians from every level of society, but particularly poorer, landless ones as Bermuda's high birth rate produced population growth that could not be sustained without emigration. Many free black Bermudians also emigrated, but this was less likely to be voluntary given that they would be leaving families behind and generally faced poorer prospects outside of Bermuda.

Testimonies of enslaved Black Bermudians

Enslaved Black Bermudians, by comparison, had little choice but to go where they were taken, and more affluent white Bermudians who settled on the continent or elsewhere often brought slaves with them, as was the case with Denmark Vesey. Given the choice, enslaved black Bermudians consequently generally chose not to emigrate, even when it would have meant freedom. Abandoning their families in Bermuda was too great a step. Enslaved adult black Bermudian men, like white Bermudian men, were generally sailors and or shipwrights, and hired themselves out as did free men, or were hired out, with their earnings usually divided between themselves and the slave masters, who used the enslaved man's family bonds to Bermuda to control him; allowing slaves to carry out a small degree of control over their economic life and to accumulate meager savings also worked to discourage slaves from escaping overseas, where they might find freedom, but also likely face poverty and social exclusion.
By example, in 1828 the ship Lavinia stopped in Bermuda on a voyage from Trinidad to Belfast, Ireland, and signed on twelve enslaved Bermudian sailors as crew. On reaching Belfast, where slavery was illegal, in September, eleven of the enslaved Bermudians were brought before a magistrate with members of the Anti-Slavery Society in attendance after a member of the Society of Friends had reported their presence. Each man was asked individually whether he wished to remain in Ireland as a free man. Their replies were:

Benjamin Alick : "I wish to go back to my family and friends"
Richard Place: "I wish to return to my mother"
Francis Ramio: "I wish to return to my wife"
Joseph Varman: wished to return
James Lambert: wished to return
Thomas Williams: wished to return to his wife and child
Joshua Edwards: wished to remain free in Ireland
Robert Edwards: wished to remain free in Ireland
Joseph Rollin: wished to remain free in Ireland
John Stowe : "I wish to go back to my family"
George Bassett: "I am much obliged to the gentlemen for their offer of freedom, but I wish to return to my friends"

The Royal Gazette, on 13 December 1926, quoted a contemporary Irish newspaper as having described the enslaved Bermudians as they spoke English very well, and were stout, healthy men, clean and well dressed. They told the magistrate that in Bermuda their employment was not arduous, they did very little work on the Sabbath day, and they all attended a place of worship. They were usually hired out by their masters, who got two-thirds of their wage and they got the other third. They knew before they left Bermuda that they might be freed in Great Britain, but they had no complaint to make of their condition and, when they spoke of returning to their families, they indicated "the finest emotions and susceptibilities of affection".
Other contributing factors to the changing ratio of the coloured to white population during the 17th and 18th centuries included the greater mortality of Whites from disease in the late 17th century, and patriarchal property laws that transferred a woman's property to her husband upon her marriage. This, combined with the shortage of white males due to the steady outflow of marriageable white sailors from Bermuda who settled abroad or were lost at sea, resulted in a sizeable contingent of aging and childless white unwed women for which Bermuda was noted well into the 20th century.
Considerable written material that survives in archives and museums gives insight into the social, economic and political life of Bermuda between its settlement in the 17th century and the mid-19th century. Most of the Bermudians mentioned by name in these documents, however, tend to have been the more prominent white males. The views expressed about Bermudians, certainly in official correspondence from governors, naval and military officers, and other representatives of the imperial government, were often negative, resulting from the antagonistic relationship with Bermuda's native elites, whose economic interests often were not aligned with imperial interests. After the American War of Independence, there was deep distrust of Bermuda's local government and the merchant class that dominated it due to the prominent Bermudians who had schemed with the continental rebels, supplying them with ships and gunpowder, and continuing to trade with them in violation of the law. Although it was observed that enslaved coloured Bermudians were generally less likely to revolt than slaves in other colonies, the experience of various slave revolts in other British colonies during the preceding decades and the then ongoing uprising of slaves in Saint Domingue during the French Revolution, the facts of which it was believed that well-travelled enslaved Bermudian sailors were particularly well-acquainted with and would be inspired by, combined with the relative freedom of movement and association of Bermuda's slaves, meant they were seen as a potential threat by officers of the British Government. As it was also perceived that slaves were not vital to the colony as slave-ownership was common among less well-to-do white households in which much of the work performed by slaves should, and elsewhere would, have been carried out by the more common class of whites themselves, it was also felt that the threat of a slave revolt was an unnecessary one.
This was not the only instance where the assumptions of officers of the British government, who were usually aristocrats or from the most privileged class of commoners, coloured their views of Bermudians and Bermudian society. A frequent comment made of Bermudians in the late 18th and early 19th century was that they were lazy or indolent. Most frequently cited in evidence of this was the apparent failure of Bermudians to fell the cedar forest cloaking the archipelago in order to adopt any manner of intensive agriculture. Numerous governors attempted to encourage agriculture, with little success due partly to the stigma in Bermuda against working the land. What was not obvious to many outside observers was Bermuda's shortage of wood, specifically Bermuda cedar, upon which its maritime economy relied. Bermuda's shipbuilders struggled not to exhaust this precious resource, and land-owning Bermudians counted cedars on their property as wealth which accrued interest over decades as the trees grew, and the remaining forest was consequently protected.
The voices of Bermudians themselves, at least of the poorer ones, the enslaved, and the women, were not generally recorded in the documents that were handed down by those generations.
Bermuda was a popular subject for playwrights, authors and poets in England during the early years of its colonisation, given the drama of its unintended settlement through the wreck of the Sea Venture and its being by far the more successful of the Virginia Company's two settlements until the 1620s. However, as Virginia developed and new colonies were established in the West Indies, Bermuda slipped from the view of writers and the public in England. Although rarely mentioned in histories or other reference books between the latter 17th century and the 19th century, Bermuda's designation as an Imperial fortress, Britain's primary naval and military base in the region of North America and the West Indies following US independence, and the emergence of the tourism industry in the latter 19th century, brought many erudite visitors and short-term residents, some already published authors, and more comprehensive ethnographic information on the people of Bermuda was included in many subsequently published recollections, travel guides, and magazine articles, such as the book BERMUDA; A COLONY, A FORTRESS AND A PRISON; OR, Eighteen Months in the Somers Islands, published anonymously in 1857, though the authors' observations often gave more reliable insight into the assumptions and nature of their own societies and classes.
In 1828, Purser Richard Otter of the Royal Navy published Sketches of Bermuda, or Somers' Islands, a description of Bermuda based on his own observations while serving there, assigned to the North America and West Indies Station. Of his reasons for writing the account, he wrote in the preface:
Of Bermuda's importance to the British Empire, he observed:
Of the prevailing opinion of Bermudians as expressed by other Imperial government officials who had served there, and of his own opinion of Bermudians, he wrote:
The rich history of Bermudians and Bermuda, and the important roles they had played in almost every Imperial endeavour of England and Britain in the Americas and beyond during the 17th and 18th centuries, eluded Otter, who briefly summarised the first few years of settlement before recording:
And:
On the subject of contemporary Bermudians, he wrote:
He also wrote at length about the industry, economy and subsistence strategies of Bermuda, showing the usual attitude of Imperial officials to Bermudians perceived failure to clear forest to turn land over to commercial agriculture:
Susette Harriet Lloyd travelled to Bermuda in company with the Church of England's Archdeacon of Bermuda Aubrey Spencer, Mrs Spencer, and Ella, Miss Parker, Major and Mrs Hutchison and their daughter, the Reverend Robert Whitehead, Lieutenant Thompson of the 74th Regiment of Foot, and Lieutenant Young, aboard, which was delivering a military detachment from England to the Bermuda Garrison. Lloyd's visit to Bermuda lasted two years, and her Sketches of Bermuda was published in 1835, immediately following the abolition of slavery in Bermuda and the remainder of the British Empire in 1834. Lloyd's book gives a rare contemporary account of Bermudian society immediately prior to the abolition of slavery.
Of white Bermudians, her observations included:
She devoted more attention to the subject of black Bermudians, writing:
Lloyd's negative comments on the dissenters reflected the Church of England's belated attempts to counter the inroads made by Methodists with coloured Bermudians. Although the Church of England is the established church, and as such was the only church originally permitted to operate in Bermuda, Presbyterians were permitted to have separate churches and to conduct their own services during the 18th century, and Methodists were permitted worship in the 19th century, despite initial steps taken by the Government to prevent this. The Wesleyan Methodists sought to include enslaved blacks resulting in 1800 in the passage of a law by the Parliament of Bermuda barring any but Church of England and Presbyterian ministers from preaching. In December 1800, the Methodist Reverend John Stephenson was incarcerated for six months for preaching to slaves. The Methodists also promoted education of slaves. The Church of England had generally been unwelcoming to slaves, and was never able to catch up to the Methodist's lead. In 1869, the African Methodist Episcopal Church was launched in Bermuda, and today the Anglican Church of Bermuda, though the largest denomination, has a disproportionately white membership. Stephenson was followed in 1808 by the Reverend Joshua Marsden. There were 136 members of the Society when Marsden left Bermuda in 1812. The Methodists were permitted to conduct baptisms and weddings, but not funerals for some time, which were the remit of the established church.
The foundation stone of a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was laid in St. George's Town on 8 June 1840, the local Society having previously occupied a small, increasingly decrepit building that had been damaged beyond use in a storm in 1839. The inscription on the foundation stone included: Mr. James Dawson is the gratuitous Architect; Mr. Robert Lavis Brown, the Overseer. The Lot of Land on which the Chapel is built was purchased, 24 April 1839, from Miss Caroline Lewis, for Two hundred and fifty pounds currency. The names of the Trustees are, William Arthur Outerbridge, William Gibbons, Thomas Stowe Tuzo, Alfred Tucker Deane, James Richardson, Thomas Richardson, John Stephens, Samuel Rankin Higgs, Robert Lavis Brown, James Andrew Durnford, Thomas Argent Smith, John P. Outerbridge, and Benjamin Burchall. The African Methodist Episcopal Church First District website records that in the autumn of 1869, three farsighted Christian men—Benjamin Burchall of St. George's, William B. Jennings of Devonshire and Charles Roach Ratteray of Somerset—set in motion the wheels that brought African Methodism to Bermuda. The first AME church in Bermuda was erected in 1885 in Hamilton Parish, on the shore of Harrington Sound, and titled St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church. Although the Church of England remains the largest denomination in Bermuda, the AME quickly flourished, overtaking the Wesleyan Methodists.
Among other observations of coloured Bermudians, Lloyd also recorded:
Usage of the word "nigger" was generally avoided in Bermuda, where blacks and whites always lived in close quarters, even by the most negrophobic whites, and, unlike the reclamation of the word by some blacks in the United States of America, it has not been adopted or made in any way acceptable today by Bermuda's blacks and remains the foulest and most unutterable racial slur. Lieutenant-Colonel John McMaster Milling, an avid fisherman who befriended coloured Bermudians who shared his passion, wrote of his period serving in Bermuda as a Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion, The Bedfordshire Regiment, from 1910 to 1912:
Later writers generally agreed on the subject of Bermuda's politely mannered society, generally understood to be a requirement in a small, tightly knit community which could not afford to allow tempers to be frayed.
As Christiana Rounds wrote in Harper's Magazine :
H.C. Walsh wrote in the December 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine:
As Bermuda's maritime economy began to falter during the 19th century, Bermudians would turn some of the woodland over to growing export crops, but most of the farming would be carried out by imported labour, beginning with immigration from Portuguese Atlantic islands in the 1840s. Later in the 19th century, large-scale West Indian immigration began. The Black West Indians, unlike the Portuguese immigrants, were British citizens and not obliged to leave Bermuda, as many Portuguese were, at the end of a contracted period, although they were effectively indentured to the firm contracted by the Admiralty to carry out the construction work, and due to delays in construction, many found themselves in financial hardship.
In the latter 20th century, those with any degree of sub-Saharan African ancestry were redefined as Black, with Asian and other non-White Bermudians defined by separate racial groups. On census returns, only in recent years have Bermudians been given the option to define themselves by more than one race, although there was considerable opposition to this from many Black leaders who discouraged Black Bermudians from doing so.
In the U.S., there is similar resistance from minority groups to defining themselves by more than one race on census returns, or as multi-racial, as it is feared that this will fragment demographic groups, and lower the percentage of the population recorded as belonging to a particular race, with possible negative effects on government policies aimed at addressing the concerns of disadvantaged minority groups. As Bermuda's Blacks have been in the majority for two centuries, but are still comparatively less well-off than White Bermudians, this fear may presumably also be the cause for the opposition to census reform in Bermuda. Large-scale West Indian immigration over the last century has also decreased the ratio of Black Bermudians who are multi-racial, and hardened attitudes. Most academic books on the subject emphasise the characteristic multi-racialism of Bermuda's Black population, and it has been pointed out in other publications that, if those Black Bermudians who have White ancestry were numbered instead with the White population, the Black population of Bermuda would be negligible.
This overlooks the resentment felt by most Black Bermudians over a history of racial repression, segregation, discrimination and marginalisation that continued long after slavery, and that did not distinguish between black and bi/multi-racial Bermudians. With the increasingly racially divisive politics that have followed the election of the PLP government, as well as the decades of increasing costs-of-living, the exclusion of unskilled workers from jobs in the white collar international business sector that has come to dominate Bermuda's economy, and the global economic downturn, all of which many Black Bermudians perceive as hitting them hardest, there is little sentiment today amongst people who have long been obliged to think of themselves as Black, in opposition to being White, to identify even partly with their European ancestry. Additionally, most multi-racial Bermudians do not today result from having parents of different races, but inherit diverse ancestry via many generations of mixed-race forebears, most of whom may have assumed themselves to have been entirely of Black African ancestry, and certainly were generally characterised as such by whites. The Progressive Labour Party, the first party formed in 1963 before party politics was legalised, quickly came to be dominated by West Indians and West Indian Bermudians such as Lois Browne-Evans, and Deputy Premier Walter Roban, and is still derided by many white and black Bermudians as promoting racially divisive, black nationalist "plantation politics".
Many West Indian labourers emigrated from the West Indies at the end of the 19th Century as United States victory in the 1898 Spanish-American War was to result in United States companies gaining control of the sugar and tropical fruit production of several former Spanish colonies, driving down the prices that British West Indian producers of the same products, exporting primarily to the United States, could obtain. This co-incided with the expansion of the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda. The system of convict labour that had been relied upon to build the original yard had ended in the 1860s, and with the price of labour being high in Bermuda, the Admiralty's contractor brought in desperate, impoverished manual labourers from the West Indies without consulting the local Government.
Bermudian blacks were generally antagonistic to West Indians, who, like the early Portuguese immigrants, were perceived as driving down the cost of labour, primarily to the disadvantage of Bermudian blacks, and in recent decades have often been blamed for the illegal drug trade and violent crimes, including the 1996 murder of Rebecca Middleton. In recent decades, West Indians also came to be associated in Bermuda with law enforcement. The difficulty faced by the Bermuda Police Service in obtaining recruits locally had long led to recruitment of constables from the British Isles, which resulted in criticism of the racial make up of the force not reflecting that of the wider community. Consequently, in 1966 the Bermuda Police Force began also recruiting constables from British West Indian police forces, starting with seven constables from Barbados. Although the practice of recruiting from the British west Indies would continue, it was not deemed entirely successful. As the "Bermuda Report for the year 1971" recorded:
Bermudian blacks described black West Indians disparagingly as "Jump-ups", and were in turn perceived by many West Indian blacks as what in the United States are described as Uncle Toms, although more derogatory terms have been used for Bermudian blacks who oppose the party's agenda, especially on independence from the United Kingdom. Consequently, the party long struggled to unite Bermudian blacks with West Indian Bermudians under a banner of racial solidarity against white Bermudians to whom Bermudian blacks were tied by common heritage and blood, and did not win an election until 1998, after the United Bermuda Party was split by internal conflict following Premier John W. Swan's forcing an unpopular referendum on independence in 1995. The desire amongst black nationalists, and especially those of West Indian stock, to obscure the distinction between Bermudian blacks and West Indians by stressing black African heritage has also contributed to intolerance of Bermudian blacks identifying with their non-African, especially their white, ancestry.
Despite these concerns, small numbers of Black Bermudians have chosen to describe themselves on census returns as mixed-racial, and the Native American demographic, which had disappeared for centuries, is slowly re-emerging, as more Bermudians – especially on St. David's Island – choose to identify to some degree, if not exclusively, with their Native American ancestry.
Nonetheless, any assumption of Bermudian demographics that is based on census returns, or other sources derived from them, suffers from anecdotal evidence being the basis of all of the data, in asking Bermudians to self-identify, without resorting to any documentary evidence or genetic studies being used to confirm their ancestry, if not their identification. There is similar pressure on Black Bermudians not to self-identify as mixed race as there is in Blacks in the US, where President Barack Obama, raised by his single, white mother, sparked debate when he identified himself on the census as black, rather than mixed race, and in the UK, in both of which countries greater flexibility is also now allowed for people to describe themselves racially.
Portuguese immigration, from Atlantic islands including the Azores, Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands, began in the 19th century to provide labour for the nascent agricultural industry. From the beginning, Portuguese labourers, who have emigrated under special agreements, have not been allowed to do so on the basis of permanent immigration. They were expected to return to their homelands after a fixed period. Some were able to stay, however and by the 1940s there was a sizeable number Portuguese-Bermudians who were legally Bermudian. Until the recession of the 1990s, however, Bermuda continued to rely on large-scale immigration of temporary Portuguese workers who laboured at jobs Bermudians considered unworthy. Many of these immigrants lived and worked in Bermuda for decades on repeatedly renewed work permits, without gaining the right to permanent residence, British citizenship, or Bermudian status. When work permits were not renewed, especially during the recession, many were forced to return to the Azores, often with full-grown children who had been born and brought up in Bermuda. Although the numbers of Portuguese guest workers has not returned to its former levels, the number of Bermudians today described as Portuguese is usually given as ten percent of the population. This number does not include many Black Bermudians with White Portuguese ancestry, and obscures also that some of the Portuguese immigrants were Blacks from the Cape Verde Islands. The actual percentage of Bermudians with Portuguese ancestry is likely far larger.
Noting that Bermudians of Portuguese heritage have made considerable contributions to the Island – from politics and public service, to sport, entertainment and industry – Premier Edward David Burt announced that 4 November 2019 "will be declared a public holiday to mark the 170th anniversary of the arrival of the first Portuguese immigrants in Bermuda. Those first immigrants arrived from Madeira aboard the vessel the Golden Rule on 4th November 1849."

Women in Bermuda

Women in Bermuda includes British nationals with local status, British nationals without Bermudian status who are resident in Bermuda, and 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.
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 colony, none were among the three people left in Bermuda in 1610 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 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, Canada and the nearest West Indian islands.
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 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. Mary Prince, born into slavery in Bermuda, related in " The History of Mary Prince" vicious attacks on his daughter by one of her masters in which she sought to protect the other woman, chastising him that they were in Bermuda, not the Turks Islands, and his having her bathe his naked body until she refused,.
This led to a marked difference in the way women functioned in Bermuda, and were and are perceived, 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.