|
The Somers Isles Company (fully, The London Company of The Somers Isles or the Company of The Somers Isles) was formed in 1615 to operate the English colony of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda, as a commercial venture. It held a royal charter for Bermuda until 1684, when it was dissolved, and the Crown assumed responsibility for the administration of Bermuda as a royal colony. ==Bermuda under the Virginia Company== Bermuda had been settled, inadvertently, in 1609 by the Virginia Company when its flagship, the ''Sea Venture'', was wrecked on the reefs to its east..〔A Discovery of The Barmudas, Sylvester Jordain〕 The Admiral of the Company, Sir George Somers, was at the helm as the ship fought a storm that had broken apart a relief fleet destined for Jamestown, the Virginian settlement established by the Company two years earlier. Somers had deliberately driven the ship onto the reefs to prevent its foundering, thereby saving all aboard. 〔Woodward, Hobson. ''A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest''. Viking (2009) pp. 32–50.〕 The settlers and seamen spent ten months in Bermuda while they built two new ships to continue the voyage to Jamestown. During the building, the ''Sea Ventures longboat was fitted with a mast and sent to find Jamestown. Neither it, nor its crew, was ever seen again. When the ''Deliverance'' and ''Patience'' set sail for Jamestown, they left several people behind, some to maintain Somers' claim to the islands for England, some dead. Those aboard the two ships included Sir Thomas Gates, the military commander and future governor of Jamestown, William Strachey, whose account of the wrecking may later have inspired Shakespeare's ''The Tempest'', and John Rolfe, who would found Virginia's tobacco industry, and who left a wife and child buried in Bermuda. Rolfe would find a new bride in the Powhatan princess Pocahontas. Jamestown, and the sixty survivors of its original five hundred settlers, were found in such a poor state that it was decided to abandon the Jamestown settlement and return everyone to England. The timely arrival of another relief fleet from England granted the colony a reprieve. However, the food shortage was made more critical by the new arrivals. Somers returned to Bermuda on the ''Patience'', captained by his nephew, Matthew, to gather provisions for the Jamestown colony, but died on Bermuda in 1610. Matthew Somers was keen to receive his inheritance (Sir George and his wife were childless, but had raised his two nephews), and took the ''Patience'' to Somers' hometown, Lyme Regis, and not to Virginia. When news reached England of the adventures of the ''Sea Ventures survivors, the royal charter of the Virginia Company was officially extended to include Bermuda, subsequently known also as ''The Somers Isles'' and also as Virgineola. A Governor, Richard Moore, arrived in 1612 with settlers, aboard the ''Plough'', to join those left behind by the ''Sea Venture'' and the ''Patience''. The new settlers were primarily tenant farmers, who gave seven years of indentured servitude to the Company in exchange for the cost of transport. Although the primary industry was envisioned to be agriculture, the early Governors enthusiastically, if mostly unsuccessfully, attempted to develop other industries also. These included pearl diving (there are no pearls in Bermuda) and ambergris. The first two slaves to arrive in Bermuda, one black, one Native American, were brought in for their skills as pearl divers. Free of the endemic warfare and other hardships which plagued the continental settlement, Bermuda thrived from the beginning, though it was never to be particularly profitable for its investors. Its population quickly surpassed that of Jamestown, and consideration was given to abandoning the North American continent and evacuating its settlers to Bermuda. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Somers Isles Company」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|