This is the third 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.

In the tenor of the times, I must apologise to the people of the state of Maine for the appalling state of my last article in failing to mention their failed settlement on the Kennebec River in 1607. Yes indeed, while this was the third attempt by the English to settle in “Virginia”, Fort Popham (discovered by archaeologists some years ago) lasted but 14 months before the adventurers hustled back to the safety of Britannia.

However, aside from the fort, they had time to build the first English ship in the Americas and the Virginia returned “home” as part of the Third Supply Fleet from London to Jamestown in 1609. She made it through (good American first growth timber perhaps), while the capital ship of the convoy, Sea Venture, ended up on the rocks off the Ritz Carlton, Bermuda. So, mea culpa, Bermuda was the fourth settlement, not the third.

To recap to my “followers”, Roanoke (1585-1590) was first good try, but a serious flop; Jamestown was the second and Fort Popham the third, followed by Bermuda, the most successful and enduring, as Jamestown gave way to Williamsburg in 1699.

So, after his recent trek to the capital of his former East Coast possessions, the good King Charles III alighted upon Bermuda on May 1, 2026, 414 years after the island became and yet remains what is now called a “British Overseas Territory”.

We were pleased to see the first British king to visit Bermuda but given activity regarding that greatest of islands (non-British) to the North, our status might be moving into an endangered species category. Our 416-year relationship with “America” might be changing in this, their 250th anniversary year, or next!

May has been a significant month in those times, for it was on May 14, 1607 that Jamestown was established and on a May date in 1610 when a supply of much needed food arrived from Bermuda. The first perhaps is the “May Day” which the democracies of the world, including Bermuda, should celebrate, “International Workers Day” aside.

Without the new concept of democracy encapsuled in the 1776 American idea of a “constitutional republic”, millions of “workers” today would likely be living under tyrannical dictatorships or absolute monarchies, such as some over there still are that shall be unnamed.

With the investment of the newly formed “Virginia Company of London” (which also settled Bermuda in 1612), three ships, the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery set sail in very late 1606 for their new world. This was not the Virgin Atlantic, so the voyage took over four months, via the Canaries and Puerto Rico, finally hitting the Chesapeake Bay in late April 1607.

Under the leadership of Captain Edward Maria Wingfield, they selected a peninsula up the James River on 14 May as it was out of sight of any passing Spaniards and there were no locals in occupation of the mosquito-infested swampy land. There James Fort, later Jamestown, named for the reigning monarch, James I, was built in timber, whereas the first Bermuda fort was of our local limestone.

The settlers were largely ill-suited for the task at hand and there was no one in the Native communities that was willing to treat them as modern refugees (no free iPhones). However, Captain John Smith (apparently a former slave in the Ottoman Empire) rose to the occasion, or rather bent to the harrow, and got the immigrants fishing and farming. His motto was, “He that will not work, shall not eat”: no benefits in his bailiwick!

However, the overall lack of food and prevalent illnesses left only some 40 survivors of the original 104 incumbents by September 1607. In January following, another hundred settlers arrived on the “First Supply”, or more aptly “resupply”. Then in October 1608, Christopher Newport, making possibly a third round-trip across “the Pond”, arrived with the Second Supply from England with 70 new personalities.

Despite the resupplies and influx of people, Jamestown was progressing in fits and starts and some wished to abandon the place and head back to England. In the spring of 1609, a “weeks-long emergency” was broken with the arrival of an unanticipated ship under Captain Samuel Argall: perhaps most importantly, he brought some wine.

Argall also brought news of the imminent arrival of the “Third Supply” in the summer, a fleet of nine vessels, including the Virginia from Maine and the now fabled Sea Venture. It was from that summer that tiny Bermuda and the immense “Virginia” collided and (some might say) have been inseparable ever since.

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