Demographics of Bermuda
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Bermuda, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
History
Demographics is a thorny subject in Bermuda, the legacy of a long history of racism. From settlement until the 19th century, the largest demographic group remained what in the United States is referred to as white-Anglo. The reason Black slaves did not quickly come to outnumber Whites was that Bermuda's 17th century agricultural industry continued to rely on indentured servants, mostly from England, until 1684, thanks to it remaining a company colony. Spanish-speaking Blacks began to immigrate in numbers from the West Indies as indentured servants in the mid-17th century, but White fears at their growing numbers led to their terms of indenture being raised from seven years, as with Whites, to ninety-nine years. Throughout the next two centuries, frequent efforts were made to lower the Black population.Free Blacks, who were the majority of Black Bermudians in the 17th century, were threatened with enslavement as an attempt to encourage their emigration, and slave owners were encouraged to export enslaved Blacks whenever a war loomed, as they were portrayed as unnecessary bellies to feed during times of shortage.
In addition to free and enslaved Blacks, 17th century Bermuda had large minorities of Irish indentured servants and Native American slaves, as well as smaller number of Scots, all forced to leave their homelands and shipped to Bermuda. The Irish and Scots were ostracised by the English population, who were particularly fearful of the Irish, who plotted rebellions with Black slaves, and intermarried with the Blacks and Native Americans. The majority white-Anglo population, or at least its elites, became alarmed very early at the increasing numbers of Irish and non-whites, most of whom were presumed to be clinging to Catholicism.
Despite the banning of the importation of any more Irish after they were perceived to be the leaders of a foiled 1661 uprising intended to be carried out in concert with black slaves, the passing of a law against miscegenation in 1663, the first of a succession of attempts to force free blacks to emigrate in 1656, and frequent encouragement of the owners of black slaves to export them, by the Eighteenth Century the merging of the various minority groups, along with some of the white-Anglos, had resulted in a new demographic group, "coloured" Bermudians, gaining a slight majority.
Some islanders, especially in St David's, still trace their ancestry to Native Americans, and many more are ignorant of having such ancestry. Hundreds of Native Americans were shipped to Bermuda. The best known examples were the Algonquian peoples, who were exiled from the New England colonies and sold into slavery in the 17th century, notably in the aftermaths of the Pequot War and King Philip's War, but some are believed to have been brought from as far away as Mexico.
During the course of the 18th century, Bermuda's population was boiled down to two demographic groups: White and Coloured.
The population of Bermuda on the 1 January, 1699 was 5,862, including 3,615 white and 2,247 coloured.
The population of Bermuda on 17 April 1721, was listed as 8,364, composed of: "Totals:—Men on the Muster roll, 1,078; men otherwise, 91; Women, 1,596; boys, 1,072; girls, 1,013. Blacks; Men, 817, women 965; boys 880; girls, 852."
The population of Bermuda in 1727 was 8,347, and included 4,470 whites and 3,877 coloured.
By 18 November 1811, the permanent population of Bermuda was 10,180, including:
By 1831, the permanent population of Bermuda was 11,250, including 7,330 white and free coloured, and 3,920 enslaved.
By 1871, the permanent population of Bermuda was 12,101, including 4,725 whites and 7,376 coloured.
The term coloured was generally used in preference to black as anyone who was of wholly European ancestry was defined as white, leaving everyone else as coloured. This included the multi-racial descendants of the previous minority demographic groups, as well as the occasional Jew, Persian, East Asian or other non-White and non-Black Bermudian.
It was largely by this method that Coloured Bermudians came to outnumber White Bermudians by the end of the 18th century, despite starting off at a numerical disadvantage, and despite low Black immigration prior to the latter 19th century. The scale of White relative to Black emigration in the 17th and 18th centuries also doubtless played a factor. Roughly 10,000 Bermudians are estimated to have emigrated, primarily to the North American continental colonies before United states independence in 1783. This included white Bermudians from every level of society, but particularly poorer, landless ones as Bermuda's high birth rate produced population growth that could not sustained without emigration. Many free black Bermudians also emigrated, but this was less likely to be voluntary given that they would be leaving families behind and generally faced poorer prospects outside of Bermuda.
Enslaved black Bermudians, by comparison, had little choice but to go were they were taken, and more affluent white Bermudians who settled on the continent or elsewhere often brought slaves with them, as was the case with Denmark Vesey. Given the choice, enslaved black Bermudians consequently generally chose not to emigrate, even when it would have meant freedom. Abandoning their families in Bermuda was too great a step. Enslaved, adult, black Bermudian males, like white Bermudian men, were generally sailors and or shipwrights, and hired themselves out as did free men, or were hired out, with their earnings usually divided between themselves and the slave masters, who relied on the enslaved man's family bonds to Bermuda to ensure he did not abscond; allowing slaves to carry out a small degree of control over their economic life and to amass their own savings also worked to discourage slaves from escaping overseas, where they might find freedom, but also likely face poverty and social exclusion.
By example, in 1828 the ship Lavinia stopped in Bermuda on a voyage from Trinidad to Belfast, Ireland, and signed on twelve enslaved Bermudian sailors as crew. On reaching Belfast, where slavery was illegal, in September, eleven of the enslaved Bermudians were brought before a magistrate with members of the Anti-Slavery Society in attendance after a member of the Society of Friends had reported their presence. Each man was asked individually whether he wished to remain in Ireland as a free man. Their replies were:
Benjamin Alick : "I wish to go back to my family and friends"
Richard Place: "I wish to return to my mother"
Francis Ramio: "I wish to return to my wife"
Joseph Varman: wished to return
James Lambert: wished to return
Thomas Williams: wished to return to his wife and child
Joshua Edwards: wished to remain free in Ireland
Robert Edwards: wished to remain free in Ireland
Joseph Rollin: wished to remain free in Ireland
John Stowe : "I wish to go back to my family"
George Bassett: "I am much obliged to the gentlemen for their offer of freedom, but I wish to return to my friends"
The Royal Gazette, on 13 December 1926, quoted a contemporary Irish newspaper as having described the enslaved Bermudians as they spoke English very well, and were stout, healthy men, clean and well dressed. They told the magistrate that in Bermuda their employment was not arduous, they did very little work on the Sabbath day, and they all attended a place of worship. They were usually hired out by their masters, who got two-thirds of their wage and they got the other third. They knew before they left Bermuda that they might be freed in Great Britain, but they had no complaint to make of their condition and, when they spoke of returning to their families, they indicated "the finest emotions and susceptibilities of affection".
Other contributing factors to the changing ratio of the coloured to white population during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries included the greater mortality of Whites from disease in the late 17th century, and patriarchal property laws that transferred a woman's property to her husband upon her marriage. This, combined with the shortage of white males due to the steady outflow of marriageable white sailors from Bermuda who settled abroad or were lost at sea, resulted in a sizeable contingent of ageing and childless white spinsters for which Bermuda was noted well into the Twentieth Century. From the end of the Nineteenth Cantury, large-scale West Indian immigration began. The Black West Indians, unlike the Portuguese immigrants, were British citizens and not obliged to leave Bermuda, as many Portuguese were, at the end of a contracted period.
In the latter 20th century, those with any degree of sub-Saharan African ancestry were redefined as Black, with Asian and other non-White Bermudians defined by separate racial groups. On Census returns, only in recent years have Bermudians been given the option to define themselves by more than one race, although there was considerable opposition to this from many Black leaders who discouraged Black Bermudians from doing so.
In the U.S., there is similar resistance from minority groups to defining themselves by more than one race on census returns, or as multi-racial, as it is feared that this will fragment demographic groups, and lower the percentage of the population recorded as belonging to a particular race, with possible negative effects on government policies aimed at addressing the concerns of disadvantaged minority groups. As Bermuda's Blacks have been in the majority for more than a century, but are still comparatively less well-off than White Bermudians, this fear may presumably also be the cause for the opposition to census reform in Bermuda. Large-scale West Indian immigration over the last century has also decreased the ratio of Black Bermudians who are multi-racial, and hardened attitudes. Most academic books on the subject emphasise the characteristic multi-racialism of Bermuda's Black population , and it has been pointed out in other publications that, if those Black Bermudians who have White ancestry were numbered instead with the White population, the Black population of Bermuda would be negligible.
on the Western Front in July 1916; volunteers for overseas service from the Bermuda Militia Artillery, which recruited coloured men, but restricted commissions to whites
, attached to the Lincolnshire Regiment on the Western Front. The BVRC only recruited whites
, and is still derided by many white and blacks Bermudians as promoting racially divisive, black nationalist "plantation politics". Bermudian blacks were generally antagonistic to West Indian, who, like the early Portuguese immigrants, were perceived as driving down the cost of labour, primarily to the disadvantage of Bermudian blacks. Bermudian blacks described black West Indians disparagingly as "Jump-ups", and were in turn perceived by many West Indian blacks as what in the United States are described as Uncle Toms, although more derogatory terms have been used for Bermudian blacks who oppose the party's agenda, especially on independence from the United Kingdom. Consequently, the party long struggled to unite Bermudian blacks with West Indian Bermudians under a banner of racial solidarity against white Bermudians to whom Bermudian blacks were tied by common heritage and blood, and did not win an election until 1998, after the United Bermuda Party was split by internal conflict following Premier John W. Swan's forcing an unpopular referendum on independence in 1995. The desire amongst black nationalists, and especially those of West Indian stock, to obscure the distinction between Bermudian blacks and West Indians by stressing black African heritage has also contributed to intolerance of Bermudian blacks identifying with their non-African, especially their white, ancestry.
Despite these concerns, small numbers of Black Bermudians have chosen to describe themselves on census returns as mixed-racial, and the Native American demographic, which had disappeared for centuries, is slowly re-emerging, as more Bermudians - especially on St. David's Island - choose to identify to some degree, if not exclusively, with their Native American ancestry.
Nonetheless, any assumption of Bermudian demographics that is based on census returns, or other sources derived from them, suffers from anecdotal evidence being the basis of all of the data, in asking Bermudians to self-identify, without resorting to any documentary evidence or genetic studies being used to confirm their ancestry, if not their identification. There is similar pressure on Black Bermudians not to self-identify as mixed race as there is in Blacks in the USA, where President Barack Obama, raised by his single, white mother, sparked debate when he identified himself on the census as black, rather than mixed race, and in the UK, in both of which countries greater flexibility is also now allowed for people to describe themselves racially.
Portuguese immigration, from Atlantic islands including the Azores, Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands, began in the 19th century to provide labour for the nascent agricultural industry. From the beginning, Portuguese labourers, who have emigrated under special agreements, have not been allowed to do so on the basis of permanent immigration. They were expected to return to their homelands after a fixed period. Some were able to stay, however and by the 1940s there was a sizeable number Portuguese-Bermudians who were legally Bermudian. Until the recession of the 1990s, however, Bermuda continued to rely on large-scale immigration of temporary Portuguese workers who laboured at jobs Bermudians considered unworthy. Many of these immigrants lived and worked in Bermuda for decades on repeatedly renewed work permits, without gaining the right to permanent residence, British citizenship, or Bermudian status. When work permits were not renewed, especially during the recession, many were forced to return to the Azores, often with full-grown children who had been born and brought up in Bermuda. Although the numbers of Portuguese guest workers has not returned to its former levels, the number of Bermudians today described as Portuguese'' is usually given as ten percent of the population. This number does not include many Black Bermudians with White Portuguese ancestry, and obscures also that some of the Portuguese immigrants were Blacks from the Cape Verde Islands. The actual percentage of Bermudians with Portuguese ancestry is likely far larger.
Noting that Bermudians of Portuguese heritage have made considerable contributions to the Island – from politics and public service, to sport, entertainment and industry - Premier Edward David Burt announced that 4 November 2019 "will be declared a public holiday to mark the 170th anniversary of the arrival of the first Portuguese immigrants in Bermuda. Those first immigrants arrived from Madeira aboard the vessel the Golden Rule on 4th November 1849."
Population
According to the 2010 census the de jure population was 64,319 on 20 May 2010, compared to 62,098 in 2000 and 58,460 in 1991.The estimated mid-year population of is .
Languages
The predominant language on Bermuda is Bermudian English. It exhibits characteristics of British, West Indian, and American English. Perhaps most interesting is its closeness to acrolectal English compared to varieties in the West Indies.British English spellings and conventions are used in print media and formal written communications.
Portuguese is also spoken in Bermuda; this is owing to immigration from Portugal, particularly from the Azores, as well as from Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands.
Vital statistics
Structure of the population
Structure of the population :| Age Group | Male | Female | Total | % |
| Total | 30 858 | 33 379 | 64 237 | 100 |
| 0-4 | 1,851 | 1,716 | 3,567 | 5,55 |
| 5-9 | 1,759 | 1,697 | 3,456 | 5,38 |
| 10-14 | 1,706 | 1,775 | 3,481 | 5,42 |
| 15-19 | 1,682 | 1,749 | 3,431 | 5,34 |
| 20-24 | 1,608 | 1,734 | 3,342 | 5,20 |
| 25-29 | 1,947 | 2,129 | 4,076 | 6,35 |
| 30-34 | 2,259 | 2,386 | 4,645 | 7,23 |
| 35-39 | 2,572 | 2,478 | 5,050 | 7,86 |
| 40-44 | 2,588 | 2,570 | 5,158 | 8,03 |
| 45-49 | 2,811 | 2,920 | 5,731 | 8,92 |
| 50-54 | 2,531 | 2,896 | 5,427 | 8,45 |
| 55-59 | 2,146 | 2,352 | 4,498 | 7,00 |
| 60-64 | 1,733 | 1,959 | 3,692 | 5,75 |
| 65-69 | 1,290 | 1,517 | 2,807 | 4,37 |
| 70-74 | 961 | 1,202 | 2,163 | 3,37 |
| 75-79 | 747 | 1,021 | 1,768 | 2,75 |
| 80-84 | 432 | 688 | 1,120 | 1,74 |
| 85-89 | 185 | 399 | 584 | 0,91 |
| 90-94 | 41 | 146 | 187 | 0,29 |
| 95-99 | 8 | 40 | 48 | 0,07 |
| 100+ | 1 | 5 | 6 | 0,01 |
Ethnic groups
One race
The 2010 Census results reported 92% of the population selecting only one racial group which remained constant with the 2000 Census. The largest group reported Black alone, which decreased slightly from 55% in 2000 to 54% in 2010. Similarly, the White alone population reduced its representation from 34% in 2000 to 31% of the total population in 2010. The remaining 8% of the 2010 population who reported one race consisted of persons reporting Asian only, and only some reporting other race. The proportions of these respective racial groups each doubled from 2% in 2000 to 4% in 2010.More than one race
Eight percent of the population reported belonging to more than one race in 2010, up from 7% in 2000. The black and white category was the most common, representing 47% of the number reporting multi-racial groups. During the intercensal period, the black and white population increased its proportion from 3% in 2000 to 4% in 2010. In contrast, the proportion of black and other, and white and other populations remained unchanged at 2%. The changing racial composition of Bermuda’s population is a reflection of the Island’sdiversity due to immigration and an increase of persons choosing mixed racial heritage.