Bermuda Militia 1612-1687

Bermuda Militia 1612–1687. Militias under The Virginia Company, The Somers Isles Company, and The Crown, prior to the first Militia Act, of 1687. Spain had claimed the entirety of the New World, including Bermuda, for itself, and, notwithstanding the Pope's dividing South America between it and Portugal, it ruthlessly sought to prevent other European nations, especially England, establishing a foothold, even in, North America which the Spanish had largely avoided themselves. England's first two attempts at settling the Chesapeake had come under threat from Spanish forces ordered out from Florida to destroy them. What fate ultimately befell those two colonies is unclear, but the third established, Jamestown, spent its first years teetering on the same knife-edge between the threats of the Spanish, the Native nations, starvation, and disease.

Bermuda, also, was subject to Spanish threat. Colonised by the Virginia Company, accidentally, in 1609, the first settlers arrived under Governor Richard Moore in 1612. Moore's first concern was the defence of the colony against an attack that was thought imminent. He oversaw the start of the fortifications built around Castle Harbour and the Town of St. George's.

A militia was raised to man the artillery in these fortifications. The majority of the settlers were indentured - tenant farmers, who would hand most of their produce to the Company in exchange for the cost of their transportation to Bermuda. The Company reduced by a quarter the payments to be made by those settlers who volunteered for the militia.

Although Spain never acted on its threat to destroy the English settlement, a Spanish vessel did arrive off of Castle Harbour, not long after settlement. Fortunately, the vessel turned and fled after the firing of warning shots by the Militia. According to popular accounts, the warning shots had left only enough powder for one more shot.

Under Moore's replacement, Governor Nathaniel Butler, 1619-1622, the detachment at each of the forts was re-organized to include several militia men under a trained artillery Captain. Also, each of the parishes was responsible to raise a company of volunteers, and to build a store-house for weapons and grain. Each militia man was provided with a sword and a musket, with all of the muskets required to be of a common bore.

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