Bermuda is a self-governing British overseas territory located in the western North
Atlantic ocean. It is an archipelago of seven main islands with an additional 170
small islets. About three-fifths of the population are of African descent, many of
whom are the descendants of slaves brought to the New World from Africa before the
outlaw of slave trading in 1806.1 Scholars debate over when exactly Bermuda was “discovered” by Europeans, some historians
stated that it could have been as early as 1503 by Juan Bermúdez. Bermuda was included in the third charter of the Virginia Company
in the early 1600s and became administered by the crown in 1684.2
For much of its history, Bermuda was a central place to send slaves and convicts.
Many convicts were Irish or Scottish political prisoners, who would pay off their debt to society by helping build the dockyards. Lord Carnarvon outwardly expressed his disgust in the conditions of the places (“hulks”) in which
convicts were kept. By 1861, the crown decided no more convicts would be sent to Bermuda, and thirty years earlier,
in 1833, slavery was outlawed.3
Lord Durham, who prosecuted political prisoners in lower Canada after the Patriote's revolts,
coerced the primary instigators to admit their guilt and then subsequently exiled them to Bermuda.4