Bermuda

"Please, I need your help. Come on!"
This article is in need of referencing per sourcing guidelines.

This article needs appropriate citations. Help us improve this article by referencing valid resource material. Remove this notice when finished.

"Me ship was a tidy little schooner name of Cobra. We were sailin’ in waters north of Bermuda, on our way back from an encounter we'd had with a Frenchy barque. Took a nice haul, we did. Ivory. We were ridin' low in the water, so laden we be."

―Hector Barbossa to assembled pirates at the Great Chamber^[src]

Bermuda, sometimes written as Burmuda, was an island in the Atlantic Ocean, one of many British colonies around the world.

History

"She's trying to give a sign!"
"Tor...tu...ga."
"Did you hear that?"
"Bur-mu-da?"

―Bellamy, Elizabeth Swann, Cook, and Bursar^[src]

Bermuda takes its name from the Spanish sea captain Juan de Bermúdez, who sighted the uninhabited islands either in 1503 or 1515. The Spanish did not claim the islands, but they soon became an important navigational landmark for galleons crossing the Atlantic between Spain and the New World.

In 1609 Admiral Sir George Somers was en route from England with supplies for the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, when his ship, Sea Venture, was wrecked off Bermuda. Finding it a rather pleasant place to be washed up, the admiral built replacement ships of fine Bermuda cedar, sailed off and left a couple of men behind to establish a English claim to the islands. Somers returned to Bermuda later that same year but died soon after arrival. The English renamed Bermuda the Somers Islands in honor of the admiral, but the name failed to stick.

The Virginia Company took a keen interest in the islands after hearing of their suitability for colonisation, particularly in light of Jamestown's hostile relations with the local Indians. Only three years after Somers' misadventure, the company organized 60 settlers to establish a permanent colony on the islands. Unfortunately the islands were not as abundant as was first thought. The shallow topsoil limited agriculture and the lack of water prevented commercial crops like sugar cane from being introduced. The settlers soon became reliant on food imports from the American colonies, which they paid for by supplying sea salt secured from the Turks Islands.

For many years the Virginia Company, and then the Bermuda Company, ran the islands like a fiefdom. This wearied the settlers so much they sued to have the company's charter rescinded, and in 1684 Bermuda became a British crown colony. Slaves were first introduced in 1616, most of them brought forcibly from Africa though some were American Indians. They lived in degrading conditions but were generally employed as domestic servants or tradespeople rather than agricultural laborers.

In late 1718, Blackbeard's sloop Adventure sailed near Bermuda where she captured several merchant ships.^{[citation needed]} In the 1720s, a British merchant ship on which Robert Greene sailed was captured by La Vipère off the coast of Bermuda, and he was forced to join the rogue pirates of Christophe-Julien de Rapièr. A few years later, a battle between the two pirate factions occurred near Bermuda.^[1]

Behind the scenes

Bermuda was first mentioned in Irene Trimble's junior novelization for the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,^[2] misspelled as "Burmuda" as per a late production draft of the film's screenplay.^[3] As correctly spelled, "Bermuda" was mentioned in The Price of Freedom.^[1]

While creating Captain Jack Sparrow's iconic look for the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Johnny Depp himself based the trinket-collecting part of the character, partially on his friend Keith Richards. "Having spent some time with Keith Richards was certainly a huge part of the inspiration for the character," said the actor. "I spent a little time with Keith here and there, and each time I'd see him he'd have a new thing tied into his hair. 'What is that hanging?' I'd ask, and Keith would say, 'Ah yeah, I got that in Bermuda,' or wherever. So it felt to me like Jack, on his travels and adventures, would see something and go, 'Oh yeah, I'll keep that,' tie it in his hair or have someone else do it.^[4]

In Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's screenplay for Dead Man's Chest, when Elizabeth Swann used her wedding dress to trick the Edinburgh Trader crew to sail for Tortuga, the Bursar asked if the dress meant "Burmuda?"^[3] The scene never made it to the final cut, but was retained as "Bur-mu-da?" in the film's junior novelization.^[2] It was also among the deleted scenes featured in various Blu-ray releases beginning in 2011, where "Bermuda" was spelled correctly in the subtitles.^[5]