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The Tourism Politics of Base Location in Bermuda

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Base Colonies in the Western Hemisphere, 1940–1967

Part of the book series: Studies of the Americas ((STAM))

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Abstract

Bermuda stands alone in the mid-Atlantic, 750 nautical miles southeast of New York City. The “fish hook” shaped archipelago consists of a string of sixty small islands of coral formation fifteen miles long. The warm currents of the Gulf Stream have produced a subtropical climate rich in vegetation and fertile soil. Hilly and uneven, the entire land area of Bermuda was a mere 19.4 square miles before the building of the U.S. bases. First sighted by the Spanish in the early sixteenth century, the islands remained unoccupied for another century due to the surrounding coral reefs. Dozens of sailing ships met their end in these treacherous waters. It is fitting, therefore, that Bermuda’s history of human settlement began with the wreck of the Virginiabound Sea Venture in 1609. Due to its physical distance from North America and the Caribbean, and its status as a colony of Great Britain, few historians have incorporated Bermuda into their scholarship. One might say that Bermuda is the “lost colony” of the Atlantic World.1

Days passed—and nights; and then the beautiful Bermudas rose out of the sea, we entered the tortuous channel, steamed hither and thither among the bright summer islands, and rested at last under the flag of England and were welcome. … A few days among the breezing groves, the flower gardens, the coral caves, and the lovely vistas of blue water that went curving in and out, disappearing and anon again appearing through jungle walls of brilliant foliage, restored the energies dulled by long drowsing on the ocean, and fitted us for our final cruise—our little run of a thousand miles to New York—America—Home.

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

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Notes

  1. Michael Jarvis, “From Field to Sea: Maritime Revolution and the Transformation of Bermuda, 1680–1750” (Ph.D. thesis, Williamsburg, VA: William and Mary College, 1998).

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  2. Ibid., 679.

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  3. Clay Merrell, American Vice Consul, “Annual Economic Review,” July 15, 1941, File: 1941: 850–885, Box 4, RG 84: Foreign Service. Bermuda General Records, 1936–49. NARA.

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  4. Stephen V. Ward, Selling Places: The Marketing and Promotion of Towns and Cities, 1850–2000 (London: E & FN Spon, 1998), especially Chapters 3 and 4. See also John Urry, The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies (London: Sage, 1990), 22–23.

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  5. Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), xiv. Whether it also reflected a deep seated “anti-modernism” is a matter of some debate. Jackson Lears, for example, has suggested that anti-modern sentiment was widespread amongst the middle and upper classes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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  6. Julia Dorr, Bermuda: An Idyll of the Summer Islands (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893), 61.

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  7. Mark Twain, who Dorr met in Bermuda, also made reference to the seemingly gentle race relations that prevailed on the island. In Innocents Abroad, Twain wrote that he and his party “knew more negroes than white people because we had a deal of washing to be done, but we made some most excellent friends among the whites, whom it will be a pleasant duty to hold long in grateful remembrance.” Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1869), 432.

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  8. Dorr, Bermuda, 11.

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  9. Captain Harry Baker, “Sanitary Survey of Bermuda,” November 3–12, 1940, File 333: Inspection and Investigations by IG and Other Government Officers, 1941–42, Box 69, RG 338: Bermuda Base Command. NARA.

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  10. The nine parishes of Bermuda are St. George’s, Hamilton, Smith’s, Devonshire, Pembroke, Paget, Warwick, Southampton, and Sandy’s.

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  11. Women property owners (overwhelmingly white) in Bermuda won the right to vote in 1944.

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  14. Tourist promoters in the British West Indies, for example, emphasized signs of order, symmetry and cultivation that represented, as a “colonial picturesque.” Thompson, An Eye for the Tropics, 33.

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  15. Canadian business historian Duncan McDowall’s book on the history of Bermuda tourism is based on prodigious research and reveals much about the rise of Bermuda tourism. However, the author is wholly uncritical of the “pioneers” of island resort tourism. Their appeal to “quality” is thus presented as visionary rather than problematic. For McDowall, the “glorious rewards” of tourism—“a near-perfect marriage of commercial purpose and natural opportunity”—trumped any down-sides such as social inequality and racism. Throughout the book, McDowall allows the white tourist promoters to speak on behalf of “Bermudians”; whereas wartime labour leaders such as Dr. Gordon only “claimed to speak” for the masses.

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  16. McDowall, Another World, 128.

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  17. Ibid., 81–85.

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  25. For Henry James Tucker, the changes wrought were a “tremendous improvement on the original.” Looking back on these events from the vantage point of 1985, he told the Bermuda Council of International Affairs that “We were utterly amazed and distressed by the magnitude of the first proposal. They asked for full sovereignty rights to a major part of Warwick Parish.” In response, the Governor appointed a committee “to suggest an alternative.” The solution that the Committee arrived at was to urge the United States to situate the bases in St. George’s Parish. J. Randolf Williams. Man of Stature: Sir Henry James Tucker (Bermuda: Camden Editions, 1987), Chapter 5 is on “Jack and the Bases.”

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  26. “Bermuda Amazed by Scope of Bases,” New York Times (November 19, 1940), 7.

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  29. Dorr, Bermuda, 93.

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  30. Ibid., 94.

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  31. Kathleen Bragdon, “Native Americans in Bermuda,” Bermuda Journal of Archaeology and Maritime History 10 (1998), 54.

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  32. Ibid., 53–68.

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  33. Phillip Rabito-Wypensenwah has done extensive work on the Indian ancestry of island residents and published his results in the popular press.

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  36. Quoted in William H. Beck, “Annual Political Review—Bermuda,” December 31, 1940, File: 1940: 330–879.7, Box 3, RG 84: Bermuda, General Records, 1936–49. NARA.

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  39. “Assembly Again Debates Bases for United States Here,” Royal Gazette and Daily Colonist (Tuesday, November 26, 1940), 1–2.

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  40. District Engineer, “Land Acquisition,” November 8, 1941, File: 834.5: Bermuda, 1941, RG 84: Records of Bases Leased by the United States in Bermuda. NARA.

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  41. Ibid. A confidential memorandum by the U.S. War Department, dated September 26,1942, indicated that 437.71 acres of the 472.58 acres acquired by the U.S. Army were privately owned. U.S. War Department. U.S. Engineer’s Office, File: “Miscellaneous Correspondence,” Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives.

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  42. The first thirty-five claims (D-1 to D-35) were submitted by the mainly white residents of St. David’s West End; whereas the next seventy-seven claims (D-36 to D-113) involved the mainly black residents and white absentee landowners to the east.

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  43. Testimony, January 19,1942, File: “Arbitrators Committee Minutes, 1942,” Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrators, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives. Another lily farmer, Hammond Reeve Tucker Smith, explained to the arbitrators his practice of rotating his crops using a combination of land he owned and land he rented: “one year to plant lilies in about half an acre of my own land and about three quarters of an acre to lilies in either D-8 or D-12. In the next year succeeding this I would plant about three quarters of an acre to lilies in my own land and about half an acre in D-8 or D-12 and so on from year to year.”

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  44. He shared his property with his five brothers and sisters who lived in four homes of wooden construction. Case 40: A.A. Fox, File: St. David’s Arbitration: Minutes, 1941,” Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives.

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  45. Gilbert Lamb owned 1.5 acres (D-47), John Lamb 0.24 acres (D-56), Grover M.P. Lamb 0.45 acres (D-85), Mrs. Marie Borden 0.24 acres (D-90), Elsie Maud Violet Foggo 0.42 acres (D-104), Jeremiah Pitcher 0.44 acres (D-45), Harriet Minors 0.24 acres (D-61), and Solomon T. J. Fox 0.20 acres (D-66). Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives.

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  46. Case #23, Jeremiah L. Pitcher, August 27, 1941, Box 1, Edmund Brownlow Gray Papers. Board of Arbitration, 1941–44. PA 91. Bermuda Archives.

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  47. Case #1, W.B. Smith, Long Bird Island, File: Press Notices, 1941–3, Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives.

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  48. Case #43, Mrs. Sarah Ann Smith, Box 2, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives.

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  49. Case #12, Mr. Morris A. Gibbons, D-17, File: Press Notices, 1941–43, Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives.

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  50. Case #22, Sir Stanley S. Spurling, D-41, Box 2, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives.

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  53. C.H.L. Hayward, for example, lost 6.21 acres of land that he had purchased a decade earlier. He had since erected a home, cow barn and assorted out buildings. When his land was taken, he had one half acre planted. He farmed lilies and tomatoes; for which he earned £200 and £100 respectively. He had been offered £5,027, but he wanted an additional £2,500 for lost earnings. He was unable to continue farming on his new property because the land was poor. Case #59: C. Henry L. Hayward, File: St. David’s Arbitration: Minutes, 1941, Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives; and, Case #59: C. Harry L. Hayward, File: St. David’s Arbitration Correspondence, Colonial Secretary, 1941–43, Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives.

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  54. August 8, 1941, Testimony of R.M. Sivier, File: “St. David’s Arbitration: Minutes, 1941,” Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives.

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  55. Neville Butler, British Embassy in Washington to J.G. Dunn, U.S. Department of State, February 10,1941,File: Miscellaneous Correspondence, Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives. The same document is found in other archives, see Neville Butler, British Embassy, Washington, to J.G. Dunn, U.S. Department of State, February 10, 1941, File: 834.5: Bermuda, 1941, RG 84: Records of Bases Leased by the United States in Bermuda. NARA.

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  56. According to a November 10, 1942 dispatch from the Colonial Office, the procedure agreed to “has been varied in respect of cases where the Colonial Government valuation is higher than the United States valuation. Under the original procedure these cases would at once be referred to the court for decision. Under variation which has been adopted, offer will be made without prejudice of the amount of the United States valuation, and if that offer is not accepted, negotiations will proceed with a view to reaching settlement at a figure not exceeding the amount of the Colonial Government valuation.” Secretary of State for the Colonies, November 10, 1942, File: “St. David’s Arbitration: Matters Pending,” Box 1, Public Works Department. Office of the Arbitrator, 1941–44. Bermuda Archives.

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  57. Minute of Colonial Secretary, September 10,1941, USB/15, “Rehabilitation of Dispossessed Persons, 1941–56.” Bermuda Archives.

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  58. Bermuda passed several key legislative acts in 1941 including the Acquisition of Land Act, the U.S. Bases (Acquisition of Land) (St. David’s Island) Act, and the U.S. Bases (Acquisition of Land) (Rehabilitation) Act. District Engineer, “Land Acquisition,” November 8, 1941, File: 834.5: Bermuda, 1941, RG 84: Records of Bases Leased by the United States in Bermuda. NARA.

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  61. District Engineer, “Land Acquisition,” November 8, 1941.

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  66. In other words, total compensation dispensed to St. David’s Islanders amounted to £250,452. This was a far cry from the £570,000 demanded.

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© 2009 Steven High

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High, S. (2009). The Tourism Politics of Base Location in Bermuda. In: Base Colonies in the Western Hemisphere, 1940–1967. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230618046_3

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