Early Colonial Militias, 1612-1812.
With the arrival of the first governor and the commencement of deliberate settlement by the Virginia Company in 1612, defense of the colony became an immediate and over-riding concern for the company and the new colonists. Although the island had been often visited in the previous century by mariners of a variety of nations, and although it's position astride the majopr route by which shipping returned to Europe from the Americas, no attempt to settle them had ever been contemplated before. Perhaps the fearsome reputation of a storm-wracked, devil-inhabitted outpost of Hell, lurking behind impassable reefs, had failed to inspire such notions. With England's settlement all the news back in Europe, however, the Company knew the powerful Spaniards would be unlikely to let the naval superiority this would give to English privateers and naval vessels in plundering Spanish vessels to go unchallenged.
Fearing an imminent attack, the colonists quickly fortified the entrance to the major harbour by which the Spaniards might land-Castle Harbour. This was far enough from Saint George's to be beyond the town's defences and entering it would allow the Spaniards a good anchorage from which they might land on Saint George's, Saint David's or the main island.
Connsequently, a collection of forts were built on the small islets around Castle Roads, the Harbour's entrance from the Atlantic. Equipped with artillery, these were manned by militias raised among the colonists. Infantry militias would be raised as the years progressed, and in time a troop of horse, also. The militias wouldd eventually be operated on a Parish basis and various acts of the Colonial Parliament were responsible for their manning and funding. By the end of the American War of Independence, however, with the establishment of Regular Army units on the island to guard the growing naval establishment, interest in the militias, and numbers , dwindled. With a large portion of the island's manpower away at sea at any given time, the militias had always been something of a paper tiger. The War Office was quite concerned to keep up the militias, but their pleas to the Colonial Assembly fell on dead ears. Oddly, it was the white population found lacked the interest-and after the recent treachery, whereby George Washington had been supplied at Valley Forge with gun-powder stolen from the magazine in Saint George's (without which he would surely have lost the American War of Independence,) their loyalties were still considered highly debatable at the end of the eighteenth-Century. Washington, himself, had cited the common heritage the American colonies (notably Virginia,) shared with the island. As would be noted time and again by many Governors and other officials through the centuries, however, the loyalty of the islanders had always been closest to money, and their own material interests. Washington had been supplied with powder, not so much out of support for his cause as to gain an exemption from the US Congress allowing the island's vessels to continue their trade with the American colonies upon which they were still dependent for food. Despite receiving this exemption (it was still against our own laws to trade with the rebellious colonies!) the island's privateers continued to prey upon American shipping throughout the war. The US naval commander at Boston harbour once sent out a vessel to chase down two of these nimble, locally-built sloops which had been picking off any vessels that had succeeded in slipping through the Royal Navy's blockade. The American vessel eventually returned, unsuccessful, and its captain reported that 'the Bermudians sailed their vessels two feet for every one of' his.
The disinterest of the white islanders, therefore, can hardly be seen as malevolent, only apathy and selfishness.
The black islanders-most, or many, still enslaved-however, were reported to be 'very keen on Britain', loyal and eager to form militias. The War Office plead with the colonial Assembly to allow this, but were steadfastly refused. The whites, who still held all the seats at that point, did not care at all for the idea of their black countrymen arming and organizing themselves, and 'drilling at night'.
The delicate racial situation on the island was to thwart the attempts of the War Office to organize a permanent military reserve from the islanders for most of the Century.
The American War of 1812
The War of 1812, as it is known in the United States, resulted in a temporary resurgence not only of the militia, but of patriotic fervour, also. As before, war with the US threatened both the island's normal economy and its food supplies. The first was largely offset by the resumption of privateering and the opportunities provided by the build up of naval forces on the island. The latter was a thornier issue. In an attempt to relieve the pressure on limited food supplies in wartime, the Assembly had enacted laws to encourage the exportation of un-neccessary bellies-- horses and slaves, specifically. The primary method of transportation around the island would remain by boat until the Twentieth Century. The roads were in a poor state, the land densely wooded (though by the 1830s shipbuilding had denuded much of the landscape,) and the Capital, with most of the population, Saint George's, on the island of the same name, was accesible from the main island only by water til the completion of the Causeway.There was very little farming, hence little need for plough-horses, and possession of a horse was little more than a frivolous status-symbol. As Americans are today urged, from Patriotism, to conserve, and to reduce their nation's import of, fuel by reducing the size of their cars, so islanders were encouraged to export horses.
Slaves, of course, had no legal right of abode and could be as easily deported.
The same patriotic fever that led islanders to give up their status-symbols also led them to join the militias in numbers more than adequate to serve their function. Although the behaviour of these civilian soldiers initially lacked the disciplined, obedient character desired of any army, they proved to be committed, intelligent and patriotic troops. The War Office was greatly pleased at the response and advised the Governor to try to get the Assembly to authorize a permanent militia. Perhaps wary of creating and funding a unit that would not be under their own control, the Assembly refused and would only agree to provide a yearly budget by which they could maintain their control.
The Modern Territorials
In any case, the militias soon dwindled into extinction with the end of the war. The Regular Garrison, which included artillerymen in the many forts and batteries, a battalion of infantry, engineers and various support elements-in addition to the Royal Marine detachment at the dockyard, grew to a peak of 3,000 men after the American Civil War. The old threats of Spain and France had, by now, been replaced by the threat of the former American colonies. The last serious threat from this quarter came after the close of the US Civil War when Washington intimated it might attack as retaliation for the aid Britain had given to the Confederates (or rather, sold at criminally high prices.) The colony had been one of the primary funnels for that aid, and the cotton sent in return, greatly enriching many of the mercenary islanders. The government had realized, though, that the primary defense of the Dockyard should be its own vessels and the reduction of the coastal artillery had already begun. After the Crimea, the War Office was trying to re-organize the Army in order to make it more flexible. This would lead, in 1908, to the formation of the British Expeditionary force. Rather than pay for the increase of the army, however, the WO opted to redeploy assets from various Imperial garrisons where their absence would not spark some native revolt. Bermuda was slated to have its infantry garrison reduced-and to lose its engineers-to this effort, but the War Office could not neglect the defence needs of the colony-or, more pointedly, of the naval dockyard, the Cable and Wireless trans-Atlantic cable, and other strategic assetts, particularly in light of the threat of sabotage by US-based Fenians. The only way to spare the regular troops was to raise local volunteer units, on the pattern of the Volunteer Army the government had recently taken over in Britain.
As with earlier efforts, they were thwarted by the colonial parliament's refusal to play along. The primary concern of the Assembly, again, was racial. It was felt that white volunteers would be unwilling to serve alongside-let alone undder-black compatriots, and that barring blacks from entry would only incense them and increase their sense of being disenfranchised ( though Blacks had, by this time, already contested (NEXT)