An exhibition exploring the shared history and links between England's first two permanent colonies in the New World is being held at the Jamestown Settlement Museum to mark Bermuda's 400th anniversary.

A British presence was established in Bermuda in 1609 when the Sea Venture, the flagship of a fleet en route to Jamestown, Virginia, founded two years earlier, was shipwrecked.

Beginning with the wreck of the Sea Venture, upon which Shakespeare's play The Tempest is based, the exhibition, from March 1 to October 15, traces Bermuda's 400-year history, highlighting its importance as a strategic location and emergence as a premier travel destination.

The founding of Jamestown, America's first permanent English colony, in Virginia in 1607 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in Massachusetts sparked a series of cultural encounters that helped shape America and the world. The government, language, customs, beliefs and aspirations of these early Virginians are all part of the United States' heritage today.

The colony was sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, a group of investors who hoped to profit from the venture. Chartered in 1606 by King James I, the company also supported English national goals of counterbalancing the expansion of other European nations abroad, seeking a northwest passage to the Orient, and converting the Virginia Indians to the Anglican religion.

Captain John Smith became the colony's leader in September 1608, the fourth in a succession of council presidents, and established a "no work, no food" policy. Cpt. Smith had been instrumental in trading with the Powhatan Indians for food. However, in the fall of 1609 he was injured by burning gunpowder and left for England and never returned to Virginia.

His departure was followed by the "starving time," a period of warfare between the colonists and Indians and just when the colonists decided to abandon Jamestown in Spring 1610, settlers with supplies arrived from England, eager to find wealth in Virginia. This group of new settlers arrived under the second charter issued by King James I, which provided for stronger leadership under a governor who served with a group of advisors.

The first representative government in British America began at Jamestown in 1619 with the convening of a general assembly, at the request of settlers who wanted input in the laws governing them. After a series of events, including a 1622 war with the Powhatan Indians and misconduct among some of the Virginia Company leaders in England, the Virginia Company was dissolved by the king in 1624, and Virginia became a royal colony.

Jamestown continued as the centre of Virginia's political and social life until 1699 when the seat of government moved to Williamsburg. Although Jamestown ceased to exist as a town by the mid 1700s, its legacies are embodied in today's United States.