This is the fifth in a series of occasional articles on the shared histories of Bermuda and the United States, which celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence this year. The articles, by Heritage Matters author Edward Cecil Harris, will run throughout the year.

A little while ago, we left the surviving seven ships of the Third Supply, out of Britain, limping westward for a landfall at James Fort in Virginia in late July 1609. They brought the sad news of the sinking of the little boat Catch and the apparent loss of the “admiral” of the fleet, the newly-built Sea Venture, out of the original complement of nine vessels, laden with people and goodies (iPhones, etc) for the struggling colony some 700 miles west of the “Isle of Devils”.

The dawn on that Friday, July 28, 1609, found the sinking Sea Venture and its 150 occupants (including a couple of Native Americans), becalmed in a now serene ocean, but approaching the eastern shores of Bermuda, the only dot of possible salvation in the wide, wide, Western North Atlantic. Neither the ship-to-shore, nor the GPS was working, so to the wider world, the Sea Venture had reached a state of oblivion. Who, indeed, would put the people of the ship and “the still-vexed Bermoothes” back on the map of world consciousness and knowledge?

That idiom “on the map” means that “something or someone has become famous, widely recognised, or prominent”, and, one might suggest, it all began with “maps”, a major development of the 1500s. Known as “modern cartography”, mapmakers such as Gerardus Mercator and other indigenous Europeans, put Bermuda on the map, literally, after its discovery in 1505, 13 years after Columbus discovered for southern European sensibilities, the new world of two continents in the west of the globe, the “Americas”.

That new “way of seeing” for our native home has been elucidated by the doyen of Bermuda map studies, Jonathan Land Evans, in his landmark book, Bermuda Maps, published a few years ago by the National Museum of Bermuda, as elegantly designed by Paul Shapiro, both artists in their way of this enchanted isle.

Bermuda was first put on the map only in 1511 in a book by one Peter Martyr, though it is not known if he was crucified for his efforts.

Throughout the next 100 years, Bermuda appeared offshore of the North American continent in many maps, some cartographers liking its artistic fishhook shape, while others showed it as a blob of ink, floating like chum in a silver sea.

In such small-scale maps of continental, or world coverage, there could be no fine details, although Captain Ramirez, during his 1603 package holiday at Spanish Point, can be credited with the start of putting Bermuda into large-scale images. That was followed a few years later most eloquently by Sir George Somers, in his rendition of 1609-10, as illustrated here from the treasure house of Bermuda Archives.

Mr Land Evans gives a wonderful exposition of the map attributed to Sir George in his book, especially regarding the place-names thereon, some of which could have been added later. Here, we would reference the “Birds Islands”, off “Ravens Sound” (now Castle Harbour).

Remembering that we believe that the Spanish swine (being hunted with dogs up Southampton way on the map) exterminated much of the Cahow population on the main island of Bermuda, is “Birds Island” a way of saying, or putting on the map, that the cahows were already concentrated on those smaller islets, where they were rediscovered in the 1930s? They have of course been put back on the map by being nursed from extinction by the dedication of David Wingate and Jeremy Madeiros.

Moving on in time from 1609, the greatest English bard, Shakespeare, with his last play, The Tempest, written 1610-11, put Bermuda on the map in the annals of world literature, especially after a publication in 1623.

Other writers would follow including Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, who stated categorically that Bermuda was Heaven, but you had to go through Hell to get there. Namely by a wave-swept ship, as the denizens of the Sea Venture knew only too well.

In this 250th anniversary year, the United States has often put Bermuda on the map, particularly after the late unpleasantness and ruination of China tea bags in Boston Harbour.

The revolution of the original 13 English colonies on the East Coast, including Virginia, caused the British military to look anew at Bermuda and it was put, very expensively over 20 years, on the map as the “Gibraltar of the West”. In an officer’s words: the “bit in the mouth of the horse”, ie, the new United States of America.

Later, the role was reversed and the US put us on the map with the establishment of Kindley Field during the Second World War, following which, at their multi-million-dollar airfield expenses over 54 years, Bermuda was absolutely put on the map of the new, post-war travel format, aircraft tourism. We had the airfield, many other islands did not: thus we profited immensely!

We could go on about the many other ways the US has put Bermuda on the map, but in very current times, where would the island be without the so-called “international business”, much of which is generated and sustained by American finance and interests? Read the room, read your maps!

• Dr Edward Harris is the founding executive director emeritus of the National Museum of Bermuda