Well, well, well, fancy that: the United States, a sovereign nation, has apparently suggested that present travel rights for some residents of the “Isle of Devils” “can be revised” entirely at its (USA) sole discretion. I mean, who do they think they are, we who have ridden on their coattails (affluently) these past 250 years?

Maybe a Greenland-like takeover would be a good idea, so that as “Yankees” our shopping trips could continue with visa-less ease. To say nothing of the immense higher-education opportunities and the oft-necessary medical interventions by the best-of-the-best, stateside, unavailable in this village of 60,000.

What privileges of access we have had, probably dating a long way back to the advent of aircraft tourism in the 1950s, when the best of travel technology landed on a multi-million-dollar airfield funded by US taxpayers. American tech, one might add, that reduced a three-day seasickness epic to a three-hour flight with food and drink, affordable to all in due course.

So, it might have been after 1956, when “Bermuda Status” was invented to block out “non-belonger” British passport holders from free, visa-less access to our private paradise that the US decided that bona-fide “Bermudians” (ie, status holders) could have visa-free access to the great western nation. All should be reminded, though I stand to be corrected, but before Bermuda Status, anyone with a British passport could come here, settle and remain for the duration, no worries.

Before the mid-1950s, Bermuda’s “Schengen” arena was defined by the possession of that royal-blue passport, which allowed for visa-free circulation around the vast British Empire. For those unfamiliar with the word, the actual Schengen area includes Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Missing, perhaps owing to Brexit (in which the Dependent Territories peoples may have had no vote), is Great Britain, yet a part of the Continent of Europe where those named countries lie.

For many, the Schengen area replaced the former freedom of the Empire, as there was now (pre-Brexit) a UK/EU red passport that allowed for Bermudians to travel visa-free in most of Europe, to live for ever, work, study or do as their hearts desired. Now we need ETAs, ESTAs or whatever, and are limited to 90 days, und so weiter. After Brexit, our western “Schengen” arena now comprises visa-free travel to the United States, Canada and some of the southern lands of the Americas, but to get to the last, we usually have to first get into the first two countries.

Of course, there is another way round this vexed issue of travel and, inter alia, immigration, legal and illegal: Declare war! That way, your visa is your gun, your ammunition and your right to stay, provided of course that you win the conflict. Or, as in the War of 1812-15, it was the US that declared, though it had not the slightest of chance of invading and subduing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It might have captured the mighty outpost of Bermuda and unless returned to Britain at the cessation of hostilities, we might today truly have visa-free travel to Walmart, Harvard and the Mayo Clinic!

Anyway, battle was joined and on the high seas, ships were taken by one side or the other and the last such encounter brought the wounded Midshipman Dale to St George’s, where the good folks there cared for him until the end. That is a story of forced immigration that is commemorated with an annual ceremony at St Peter’s Church, where the warrior is interred.

Then it was, without visas, that we sailed up the Chesapeake and sacked the capital of the United States in August 1814. In sacking, you don’t have to use a credit card or cash to acquire goodies to bring home and I quote myself:

“Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Melville Dill OBE wrote in the first issue of the Bermuda Historical Quarterly in 1944 that four paintings of George III and Queen Charlotte were found in a warehouse in Washington on the 24th or 25th of August and were duly commandeered by the British forces.

“Sir George Cockburn had the portraits put on board his flagship, which was, I think, at the time the Euryalus, and on her arrival in Bermuda presented portraits of the royal couple to each of the newly created corporations of St George’s and Hamilton.

“That booty from the sack of Washington now hangs, two apiece, in Bermuda’s parliament, the House of Assembly, and at the Cabinet Office: the ‘Mad King’ might have been much amused.”

In addition, a “tall clock” also found its way back to Bermuda and still keeps time these 212 years later, having entered without HM Customs or Immigration inspection and permission … or import duty. The fine piece was made by Ephraim Willard, one of four American watchmaker brothers. We hope we don’t have to send any of these “commandeered” immigrants back in this 250th USA anniversary year!

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