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| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 10% wereBermuda-born out of a total population of (31%) 19,466 (2016 census)[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Bermuda 19,466[2]31% of total pop. (2016) | |
| Paget | 3,252[3] |
| Pembroke | 3,029[4] |
| Smith's | 2,903[5] |
| Warwick | 2,565[6] |
| Languages | |
| Bermudian English[citation needed] | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity,Judaism[citation needed] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Europeans • White Caribbeans • English • Scottish • Irish • Portuguese • Americans • Canadians[citation needed] | |
White Bermudians areBermudians of total or predominantlyEuropean ancestry, most notably theBritish Isles andPortugal, who stand out for havinglight skin and self-identify aswhite. In a more official sense, theDepartment of Statistics uses the term "white". The 2016Bermuda census reported that White Bermudians are currently the second-largest group representing 31.0% of the population.[7]
Aside fromBritish andPortuguese settlers, Bermuda has welcomed many people from theEuropean diaspora. The islands have also become a popular home for wealthyBritons andAmericans.
The first Europeans to discover Bermuda were Spanish explorers. The earliest depiction of the island is the inclusion of "La Bermuda" in the map ofPedro Martyr's 1511Legatio Babylonica. The earliest description of the island wasGonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés' account of his 1515 visit withJuan de Bermúdez aboardLa Garza'. Spanish explorerJuan de Bermúdez discovered the island in the early 1500s.[8][9]
On 2 June 1609, SirGeorge Somers had set sail fromPlymouth, England aboardSea Venture, the newflagship of theVirginia Company, leading a fleet of nine vessels, loaded with several hundred settlers, food and supplies for the new English colony ofJamestown, inVirginia.[10] Somers had previous experience sailing with both SirFrancis Drake and SirWalter Raleigh. The fleet was caught in a storm on 24 July, andSea Venture was separated and began to founder. When the reefs to the East of Bermuda were spotted, the ship was deliberately driven on them to prevent its sinking, thereby saving all aboard, 150 sailors and settlers, and one dog.[11]
Bermuda's first capital,St. George's, was established in 1612.[12]The White population at the time made up the entirety of the Bermuda's population, other than a black and an Indian slave brought in for a very short-lived pearl fishery in 1616,[13] from settlement (which began accidentally in 1609 with the wreck of the Sea Venture) until the middle of the 17th century, and the majority until some point in the 18th century.
The majority of the first European settlers arrived from England as indentured servants or tenant farmers, as most of Bermuda's land was owned by absentee landlords who remained in England as shareholders (adventurers) in theVirginia Company and then its offshoot theSomers Isles Company. LaterIrish Gaels were sent to Bermuda after theCromwellian conquest of Ireland that followed theEnglish Civil War.[14] Usually described as 'prisoners-of-war', these Irish men and women were removed from Ireland involuntarily, and sold intoindentured servitude on arrival in Bermuda. A small number ofScots were sent to Bermuda in the same way after Cromwell's invasion of Scotland. The Irish were ostracised by the English, and were found so troublesome that their further import was banned. By the middle of the 18th century, they, and the Native American slaves also sent to Bermuda after the conquest of their homelands, had largely merged, with the free andenslaved blacks (most of whom came from Spanish, or formerly Spanish, colonies in the West Indies), with Bermuda's population boiled down to two demographic groups: White and 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."[15]
The Population of Bermuda in 1727 included 4,470 whites (910 men; 1,261 boys; 1,168 women; 1,131 girls) and 3,877 coloured (787 men; 1,158 boys; 945 women; 987 girls).
By 1871 the permanent population (not including the thousands of sailors and soldiers stationed in the colony) included 4,725 whites (2,118 males; 2,607 females) and 7,376 coloured (3,284 males and 4,112 females).[citation needed]
The termcoloured was generally used in preference toblack as anyone who was of wholly European ancestry (at least Northern European) was defined as white, leaving everyone else as coloured. This included themulti-racial descendants of the previous minority demographic groups (Black, Irish and Native American), as well as the occasional Jew,Persian,South-Asian, East Asian or other non-White and non-Black Bermudian.[17]
It was largely by this method (mixed-race Bermudians being added to the number of Blacks, rather than added to the number of Whites or being defined as a separate demographic group) thatcoloured (subsequently redefined after the Second World War asblack) Bermudians came to outnumber white Bermudians, despite both starting off at a numerical disadvantage and low Black immigration prior to the latter 19th century. Other contributing factors included the scale of white relative to black emigration in the 17th and 18th centuries, the greater mortality of whites from disease in the late 17th century, and large-scale West Indian immigration, which began, like Portuguese immigration, in the 19th century to provide labourers for the new export agriculture industry and expansion of theRoyal Naval Dockyard. The Black West Indians, unlike the Portuguese, were British citizens and not obliged to leave Bermuda, as many Portuguese were, at the end of a contracted period.[citation needed]
Officially Bermuda has had population censuses since the period (1629-1939) and 8 (1950-2016) during the modern period.[18]
Table shows the population and proportion who identify as white in every census since 1950 to the present.[19][20][21][22][23][24]
| White Bermudians 1950 - 2016 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N. | Year | Population | Pop. (%) | ||||
| 1 | 1950 | 14,724 |  | ||||
| 2 | 1960 | 15,892 | 37.27 | ||||
| 3 | 1970 | | |||||
| 4 | 1980 | | |||||
| 5 | 1991 | 21,159 | 36.4 | ||||
| 6 | 2000 | 21,134 | 34.0 | ||||
| 7 | 2010 | 19,926 | 31.0 | ||||
| 8 | 2016 | 19,466 | 31.0 | ||||
Most White Bermudians are of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish descent. White people in Bermuda currently make up 31% of the total population according to the 2016 census.[25]
Below is the official and most recent 2016 census figures for white Bermudians as a percentage of the total population and their distribution in each parish.[26]
| Parish[27] | Population | White (%) |
|---|---|---|
| St. George's | 1,156 | 20.4 |
| Hamilton | 1,608 | 28.8 |
| Smith's | 2,903 | 48.5 |
| Devonshire | 1,832 | 25.8 |
| Pembroke | 3,029 | 27.1 |
| Paget | 3,252 | 55.1 |
| Warwick | 2,565 | 28.5 |
| Southampton | 1,915 | 29.8 |
| Sandys | 1,206 | 17.3 |
| Bermuda | 19,466 | 31.0 |
The 2010 Bermudian census showed that White Bermudians accounted for 31% (10% native Bermudians and 21% foreign-born) of the territory's total population, with a further 7% of Bermuda's population self-identifying as being of mixed African and European descent.[28]
A majority of Bermudians classified as white are foreign-born nationals. The most common place of birth for them are:
A question onancestry was first introduced in the 1991 Bermuda census and asked until 2010. It was omitted from the 2016 census.[30][31]
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