adult suffrage, Bermudians have shown a remarkable ability to adapt to change and to prosper Aeolus, the ancient Greeks declared, was King of the Winds, and you can think of him hovering over Bermuda at the start of this millennium, his winds piling up the seas which crush the coral reefs into sand, and blowing the sand up into dunes on top of the existing dunes.

From Africa the King brings Saharan soil which dropping in the valleys provides a place for vegetation to take hold -- the tough cedar, the spreading palmetto and the neat olivewood bark.

Seabirds hover over the island, nest, and bring up their young. Fish teem in the sea. The rains fall, providing sustenance for the vegetation, and causing the sand to harden into harder and harder rock, which today is called Aeolian limestone, in honour of the King. No humans had set foot on it, and so the Island continued for the first half of the millennium. Our human history, filled with joy and anguish, love and hate, jealousy and pride, misery and ambition, has taken place during only half of this millennium. Juan Bermudez discovered the island in 1505 or 1506, but even then it took another 100 years before the start of continuous human habitation as a result of the wreck of the Sea Venture.

Throughout the century others came at different times. Among them were the unknown Portuguese who carved 1543 on "Spanish Rock'' and Henry May, the first Englishman to set foot on Bermuda. Another visitor was the ship commanded by Diego Ramirez which had Venturilla on board -- the first black man known to have visited Bermuda. Tossed onto the reefs of the "Isle of Devils'' by a storm, their ship miraculously arrived in the Great Sound, and a boat was launched to explore. It banged into a reef and lost its rudder. Night was falling, and Captain Ramirez asked Venturilla -- a daring man as his name indicates -- to go ashore and find some wood so that repairs could be made.

Venturilla reached shore, and his shipmates were startled by his screams and yells.

"The Devils have got him,'' they exclaimed, and lowered a boat to go to his aid. When they arrived, they found he was beating off unknown swarms of beings -- which turned out to be birds! So they caught 500 of them and had a feast that night. Eventually they succeeded in finding a passage out to sea through the reefs, and eventually returned to Spain.

Human habitation Human habitation started in 1609 when the sinking Sea Venture's company was saved from death by being blown to Bermuda waters in a hurricane. Here they ran their ship towards St. Catherine's Beach, hit a reef, then stuck fast between two reefs and were able to launch their boats and reach shore and safety. Ten months later, after much quarrelling and three mutinies, most of the 150 persons embarked on the Patience and the Deliverance and sailed to Jamestown, Virginia, where their ship's stores saved the colony from starvation. Sir Thomas Gates, the Governor designate, and Sir George Somers, admiral of the fleet of which the Sea Venture had been the flagship, decided to abandon the colony -- yet another English failure to found a settlement in the new world. But before the vessels could get out of Chesapeake Bay, they encountered Lord De La Warre with another relief fleet -- and with great courage all returned to Jamestown. Sir George volunteered to return to Bermuda, where he had already staked out a future home on the large island to northwest, which bears his name to this day -- Somers Seate, or Somerset. Also on Bermuda were Christopher Carter and Robert Waters. Somers may have asked Carter to remain on the island as his servant and representative.

In any case Carter stayed on in Bermuda for the rest of his life, making, as far as we know, only one trip to England. He was Bermuda's first inhabitant, and over 400 years it seems likely that nearly all Bermudians whose island ancestry goes back two generations are descended from him. He had a chance to go back when the Deliverance returned to Bermuda, Sir George died, and Matthew Somers decided to return to England...instead Carter stayed behind with two other men.

Bermuda was colonised in 1612 when the first settlers arrived on the Plough under the command of Richard Moore, Bermuda's first Governor. Those first colonists achieved a great deal, building forts, a town, a church and a governor's house. The next full Governor, Daniel Tucker, was a tough character who set the colony on its feet and hired Richard Norwood to survey the island so that permanent legal boundaries might be established for the shareholders and colonists. He also sent the ship Edwin to the West Indies. The Edwin returned in 1616 with the first black man and the first Indian to join the inhabitants of Bermuda -- so in that year the racial make-up of Bermuda today was established.

A few years after Tucker retired, Nathaniel Butler came out as Governor. On August 1, 1620, he organised the first meeting of the House of Assembly -- and thus established a representative institution which serves Bermuda to this day. He built the State House in St. George's of stone, setting an easily viewed example of the utility of Bermuda stone. He also wrote a revealing history of Bermuda, which tells much about those early days.

By this time the principal economic activity in Bermuda was growing and exporting tobacco. It was work with problems on a small island with small fields, for the tobacco absorbed nutrients from the soil and nothing was done to replace them. So the fields wore out. On top of these difficulties the Bermuda Company forced the tobacco farmers to ship their tobacco to England on company ships paying company freights and to use the same ships for all imports -- a monopolistic situation which the shareholders in England took advantage of.

The English Civil War between the Parliamentary Roundheads and the Cavaliers who supported Charles I had a ricochet effect in Bermuda. The Bermuda Company in London tended to the Parliamentary and Puritan side, but when the news that Charles I had been executed arrived in Bermuda the local militia, terming themselves "The Army'', staged a demonstration in St. George's against the Puritan government, which led to John Trimingham's becoming Bermuda's first local Governor. Compromises were reached when Oliver Cromwell, now Lord Protector of England, sent a warship across the Atlantic, and Trimingham relinquished his post.

Charles II was placed on the throne, in 1660, but it made no difference to the waning productivity of Bermuda's tobacco fields, and the colonists' unhappiness with the Bermuda Company. It took more than 20 years to bring the company to an end, but at last Crown lawyers were persuaded to seek a writ of quo warranto, the legal means used to change Crown charter, and Bermuda became a Royal colony in 1684.

The Turn to the Sea Bermudians turned away from their small fields and looked to the sea to make a living -- an economic base which lasted well into the 1900s. They took over the isolated Turks Islands and made salt there, which they traded for food up and down the Eastern Seaboard. The small ships were manned by black and white Bermudian males who were thrown together and had to work together, although the whites were free and the blacks were slaves. Bermuda women, equally, were forced to work together to keep food on the table, and their strength, many feel, is reflected in Bermuda women to this day. Of course not all men were sailors -- some built the ships and probably the lovely cedar furniture which is a legacy of that time, while others dressed the stone to build houses. The original cedar post houses, it is believed, began to fall down when the posts started to rot in the ground -- their end coming with two ferocious hurricanes which hit Bermuda early in the 1700s.

Seafaring Bermudians inevitably became involved with pirates. Some became pirates, some were victims, and some were fences for stolen goods. A Bermuda vessel, the Amity , under the command of Rhode Islander Thomas Tew, was one of the most successful of all recorded pirates (the most successful was a Chinese known in the West as Coxinga). Two Bermudians, Nathaniel North and John Bowen, operated successfully from bases on Madagascar, with North becoming the ruler of a part of that enormous island. A group of Bermudian slave sailors who were captured by pirate captain John Lewis seem to have become full members of pirate crews. It is believed that they ended up living on Madagascar as well.

In the old days a seafaring community became used to death or disappearance.

One man, John Graisberry, who survived many years of slaving in Cuba, finally returned to Bermuda nearly 50 years after his ship was captured by a Spanish frigate. Many others died without trace.

Although there was never a slave revolt in Bermuda such as other British colonies experienced, the unhappiness of slaves with their condition was shown on a number of occasions. Among the most important was the Sally Bassett plot for slaves to murder their owners: although she herself was found guilty only of attempting to kill her master, mistress and a fellow slave, she was regarded as the ringleader and her sentence was to be burned at the stake. As she was taken to the place of her execution (it was somewhere along Point Finger Road), she told people rushing past: "Don't hurry. The fun doesn't start until I get there.'' It was a very hot day and ever since a hot day has been a Sally Bassett day.

An even more serious attempt on the slave owners took place in 1761, when a John Vickers reported to the authorities that he had heard talk of a conspiracy among a group of slaves, particularly between Nat, George and Peter. Apparently the scheme was widespread, but the authorities acted quickly and no revolt occurred. Eventually six persons were executed.

An English visitor named Harriet Suzette Lloyd said of Bermuda slavery: "It must be confessed that in these islands, slavery wears the mildest aspect of which that pitiable condition is susceptible. The character of the Bermudians is kind and humane, and their slaves enjoy many secular advantages of which the poor in our own country are frequently destitute. Still however ...The coloured inhabitants of Bermuda are bondsmen, and have long suffered the heaviest ills of bondage, a political incapacity to receive equal justice, and a spiritual privation of religious instruction and happiness.'' Although a view of differing masters, two of them harsh and sadistic, is given by Mary Prince, a Bermuda slave, Miss Lloyd's statement reflects what slavery must have been like in the sugar islands and the plantations of the southern United States and Latin America, as well as life in the lower classes in Britain.

Slavery came to an end on August 1, 1834, and the many legal disabilities from which free blacks had suffered were removed, but, significantly, the freehold value of land a voter needed was raised from 30 to 60.

Before the end of slavery Bermuda had suffered through the American Revolutionary War. With the outbreak of fighting in Lexington and Concord, Bermuda, as part of Britain's American Empire, was drawn into the conflict. An embargo on the shipment of food to any colonies which remained loyal caught Bermudians in a dilemma, and a private visit by Colonel Henry Tucker and a Bermuda delegation to Philadelphia, at that moment the capital, led to disappointment. Food would not be allowed to be shipped to Bermuda -- but this ruling, the Bermudians were told, might be changed if gunpowder from the colony's magazine were sent to America. And so on the night of August 14/15 the powder was duly stolen and shipped, and the embargo, as far as Bermuda was concerned, was lifted. London regarded Bermuda with suspicion, and a Royal Navy sloop was stationed in Castle Harbour. Even though the sailors rampaged through the countryside, investigating warehouses (often merchants' cellars) and actually burning a partly-built ship, they could not prevent two American privateers led by members of the Bermudian Morgan family from taking over Somerset for several days and destroying a small battery.

From forts and onions to tourism and insurance Trade became more difficult after the war since the independent colonies were no longer part of the British Empire's mercantile system, but the beginning of the wars with revolutionary France gave an opportunity for privateers, and the War of 1812 demonstrated Bermuda's importance as a naval base. Surveys carried out by Captain Hurd and the demonstration of the practicality of the Narrows channel for large ships by Pilot Jemmy Darrell, a Bermuda slave who was freed at the request of Admiral George Murray, showed that Ireland Island would make an excellent base -- taking into account land and reef, it happens to be the most distant part of the island from the open ocean and the possibility of hostile bombardment. After the war, work began in earnest on the Dockyard.

For the next century the British forts and bases would provide an important source of income for Bermudians as the era of salt, sea and sailors slowly came to an end. Bermuda had one weakness as a base which the incoming Governor in 1839, Colonel William Reid, realised...in case of a war and in the absence of the fleet, Bermuda could be starved out by an enemy squadron (probably American), for Bermudians paid little attention to farming, and what they did was done badly. So he mounted a campaign to improve agriculture, and succeeded so well that the sale of spring vegetables to the New York market became an important part of Bermuda's economy. A source of agricultural labour was sought. Portuguese workers from Madeira and more importantly, the Azores, proved to be willing to come to Bermuda, and in 1849 the barque Golden Rule brought 58 immigrants, starting the 150 year connection between the two Atlantic archipelagoes.

This was a period when Britain removed representative institutions from many colonies, replacing them with nominated legislative councils. It must have been considered for Bermuda many times, but the House of Assembly managed to avoid seriously aggravating London so the step was never taken. By the early 1900s, Bermuda, Bahamas and Barbados were the last colonies left with the old 18th Century-style governments, and were referred to as colonies: the rest were called crown colonies.

The Oddfellows Lodges trace their history back to the mid-19th century, with the first recorded meeting being called by Henry Thomas. Masonic Lodges pre-dated the Oddfellows, although all worked to provide for their members in times of sickness and to help with funeral expenses.

In the middle of the century the American Civil War broke out in 1861, and Northern President Abraham Lincoln declared a blockade of southern ports. At first the Federal blockade was weak, but as more ships were pressed into service the only vessels which could slip through the blockading squadrons were fast, slim steamers, many of which sailed from St. George's for Wilmington, North Carolina, or Charleston, South Carolina. It was a dangerous occupation, but well worthwhile, with handsome wages being paid to the crews.

The cargoes were brought to ports like St. George's, Nassau and Havana in sailing ships and slower steamships and transshipped to the runners -- all of which was a potent combination for a port and town which had been in decline since the capital was moved to Hamilton in 1815. The boom made a few fortunes, but other merchants went bankrupt when Wilmington was finally cut off in 1865.

One of the many incidents which occurred was the arrival of the Roanoke under the command of Confederate privateer John Clibbon Braine, who had hijacked the northern mail steamer when it was leaving Havana Harbour. He tried to coal the ship as it lay off Bermuda, but this failed and he then ran the ship on a reef and set fire to her. A Bermudian, R.E.N. Boggs, who had signed on as crew, remembered going down into the saloon as the fires caught, catching sight of himself in a big mirror, drawing his pistol, and shooting it to pieces -- he had always wanted to know what it was like to shoot a man.

As the 20th Century drew near, the Boer War broke out between Britain and the two Boer Republics in South Africa. As there was a large garrison in Bermuda the British decided to send Boer prisoners here, and sent the West India Regiment to Bermuda to guard them. Authorities in Bermuda decided to use the British garrison to control the camps, and the West Indians took over garrison duties. This influx of West Indians, coupled with a further influx of workers to add to the Dockyard, strengthened Bermuda's ties with the Caribbean.

Tourism The dawn of the 20th Century also brought with it the increasing importance to the economy of the tourist trade. We know that people had visited Bermuda for their health from at leas the mid-18th Century (see Alured Popple's memorial on the walls of St. Peter's Church), but it did not start to gain importance until the completion of the Hamilton Hotel in 1863, and the visit of Princess Louise, the artistic and rebellious daughter of Queen Victoria, in 1883, followed by the opening of the Princess Hotel two years later. Steamships brought Bermuda within reach of New York, the closest frost-free semitropical resort to the great and wealthy metropolis and the eastern seaboard.

Distinguished visitors such as Mark Twain and Woodrow Wilson gave important publicity to the Island and the winter season became an important part of Bermuda life.

The First World War led to the withdrawal of the ships and Bermuda struggled to maintain a sea link with the United States, eventually purchasing the Charybdis , a British light cruiser damaged in a collision, and turning her into a merchantman. Soon after the war ended the British shipping line Furness, Withy took an interest and decided that Bermuda was a good place in which to invest. They ordered superb steamships, purchased the St. George Hotel, built the Bermudiana and Castle Harbour Hotels and developed the Mid-Ocean Club as an exclusive country club and resort. The investments were successful, and tourism became the mainstay of the economy, doing so well that the island was not seriously influenced by the great depression of the 1930s.

The First World War itself affected Bermuda very little, except in a personal way through friends and relations who volunteered to serve overseas in the blood bath of trench warfare in France. Cenotaphs in Hamilton and St. George's are poignant reminders of that war, as are plaques and stained glass windows in churches -- notably the pair of stained glass windows in Holy Trinity Church, Baileys Bay, commemorating the deaths of the sons of Archdeacon George Tucker.

The Second War, however, created enormous physical and social changes in Bermuda, and the reverberations continue to affect our lives today. The war started with a startling close down of the tourist trade as Americans shunned countries affected by the war -- and by now Bermuda was so dependent on tourism that the Island was immediately plunged into depression. A make-work programme was instituted which led, among other projects, to the creation of Bernard Park.

At first the war itself saw little action across the heavily fortified French and German defensive lines on the Western Front, but in 1940 the Germans started their first offensive moves which were spectacular -- by the end of June they were masters of much of Europe east of Russia.

These terrible setbacks turned out to have a brighter side for Bermuda. First Britain moved its Atlantic censorship operations to Bermuda, and then gave the United States rights to obtain land for bases. The American demands were awesome, and soon the United States controlled one-eighth of Bermuda's small land area. An airfield was built with remarkable speed, a naval base established by the linking of two Great Sound islands with the main island, and soldiers and guns were stationed all over Bermuda. Bermuda's economic crisis was over, and when the war ended in 1945 the island was probably better off than in 1939. The bases were given up in 1995, as were the British and Canadian establishments.

A Time of Change But it was not just physical change which affected Bermuda: the bases wrought mental change as well. The first sign was the establishment of the Bermuda Workers Association and then the Bermuda Industrial Union -- both led by the dynamic Dr. Edgar Fitzgerald Gordon. The second, in 1944, was giving women the vote, a forerunner of the change of the right to vote from a land franchise to universal adult suffrage. The third was a change in the law which allowed the use of private motor cars and motorcycles.

Economically the first task after the war was to rebuild the tourist industry.

Capital was found outside Bermuda from varied sources, and once again Bermudians lived and flourished on borrowed capital, even though there were hidden social costs. With the rebuilding of the hotels came the remarkable improvements in aircraft which soon led to their superseding ocean liners -- which now have made a comeback as cruise ships.

Although wartime developments had foreshadowed the arrival of strong trade unions and universal voting rights, the struggle for these two changes was long and hard. Soon after the War Dr. Gordon took a petition to London asking for universal adult suffrage. The Colonial Office returned it to the Bermuda Legislature, which issued a report but did nothing further. The next major development came in 1959, the 350th anniversary of the Sea Venture shipwreck.

Bermuda was still in the grip of a colour bar and black people were excluded from many places, or sat in separate seating in others. A group of young black people led by Dr. E.S.D. Ratteray staged a boycott of the segregated movies, which succeeded in a short time and led to a decision by major restaurants and hotels to desegregate their dining facilities and public rooms. This in turn was followed by the opening of many jobs to black people such as sales staff in Hamilton shops and business secretaries. Schools became integrated, and overt segregation was wiped out.

The Progressive Group decided to press for universal adult suffrage, and with a series of meetings chaired by Mr. Roosevelt Brown they succeeded. It took time, but in 1963 a new franchise bill became law giving the vote to all over 25 and an additional "plus'' vote for landowners. One election was held under this franchise, and the landowners' extra vote was eliminated before the next election. Over time the age limitation has gone down to the present 18 years old.

The new suffrage brought political parties in its train, starting with the Progressive Labour Party in 1963 and the United Bermuda Party soon afterwards.

Under the UBP, Bermuda's first written constitution was worked out and for many years afterwards the party won election after election. Banker Sir Henry (Jack) Tucker was the driving force in developing the UBP and the new constitution and became Bermuda's first premier -- although he was called "Government Leader'' -- the title of first Premier going to his successor, lawyer Sir Edward Richards. The UBP had another first in naming Dr. Gordon's daughter, the Hon. Pamela Gordon, as Bermuda's first woman Premier.

The way forward for trade unionism was more difficult. The BIU led the way and as it grew stronger, faced a battle with the Bermuda Electric Light Company in February, 1965. On February 2 the pickets clashed with police outside the gates of the firm and the riot squad was called out. The pickets retired to the Devonshire Recreation Club and for a time the Island was deeply divided on racial lines. Eventually the directors of the Electric Light Co. agreed to recognise the union which commanded a majority support. That turned out to be the Electrical Supply Trade Union. The BIU lost the battle, but won the war as union recognition by majorities became the general rule (with frequent BIU victories), and unions became part of the normal fabric of life. Mr. Ottiwell Simmons, a prime mover in the BIU, became its president in 1981, only retiring from the post in 1993. Mr. Derrick Burgess was elected his successor.

Exempted Companies Although it was not recognised at first, the postwar period became a time of transition as the tourism trade gave way to exempted -- offshore -- companies as Bermuda's major economic base.

In November, 1998, as the millennium drew to its close, the Progressive Labour party won its first general election victory by a landslide, and the Hon.

Jennifer Smith, MP, became the first PLP Premier. The party, running on a platform devised by the late Mr. Frederick Wade and Ms Smith, changed its image through embracing centrist policies, and the new PLP pleased the voters disillusioned with UBP infighting. The change was a good one for Bermuda.

Until the UBP could be replaced, there would always be doubt as to whether the Government was a truly democratic one, but the change could not take place until the PLP discovered the right way to woo the people. Now the PLP faces the challenge of carrying out those policies and running an efficient Government without the kinds of favouritism people found suspect in the later days of the UBP.

Whither Bermuda? The millennium has seen us go from an uninhabited island created by wind and sea to a sophisticated community of only 60,000 people (a large village or small town by North American standards) inhabiting a beautiful island, with such amenities as a National Gallery, a lively theatrical scene, good recreational facilities, international sports aspirations with occasional major successes, a large church attendance, a defence force, an international airport, superb communications and many others. There are problems and difficulties, of course, but in the past we have overcome all that the fates have thrown at us.

"Quo Fata Ferunt'' -- whither the fates lead us -seems appropriate enough for a community which must seek success by bending and turning the winds of fortune to our advantage, as we have succeeded in doing in the past and must be prepared to do in the future. Provided we remain alert and take care, there is every reason to look forward to the third millennium.

From the salt trade to the rise of exempted companies, Bermudians have lived by their wits through periods of tumultuous change. Here, with illustrations by Peter Woolcock, historian William S. Zuill Sr. looks at the trends and forces which have shaped Bermuda over the last one thousand years.