| |||||||
| Capital (and largest city) |
Hamilton (de jure; temporarily abandoned) | ||||||
| Other cities | Saint George, Somerset Village | ||||||
| Language official |
English | ||||||
| others | Portuguese | ||||||
| Monarch | Elizabeth II | ||||||
| Governor | John Morrison, Viscount Dunrossil | ||||||
| Area | 53.2 km² km² | ||||||
| Population | 56,000 (1983) | ||||||
| Currency | Bermudian dollar/Caribbean Federation dollar | ||||||
Bermuda is a former British colony comprising an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean. After a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union, the islands became uninhabitable. Many people were saved by evacuating to the Bahamas and other Caribbean islands. A government in exile carried on for a time, dedicated to completing the evacuation and assisting the resettlement of the Bermudian people in other islands. Today Bermuda is the only Federal Territory of the Caribbean Federation. The CF has the primary responsibility for patrolling and defending the abandoned islands, with a few other powers assisting under the terms of various agreements.
History[]
Before Doomsday[]
England colonized Bermuda at the very start of its era of overseas expansion. Its House of Assembly first met in 1620, making it one of the oldest legislatures in the world. Bermuda's strategic importance to the Royal Navy greatly increased after the independence of the United States, at which point it became a key to British power in the North Atlantic.
The American presence in Bermuda dates to the lend-lease programs of the Second World War. The US Navy built a flying boat base at Morgan's Point, while the army built an airfield on Saint David's Island. When flying boats became obsolete in the early Cold War, the Navy took over the airfield to establish Naval Air Station Bermuda. The base housed P-3 Orion aircraft, intended to spot and strike at Soviet nuclear submarines that might be going into position to attack the American mainland. During the same period, the British (and Canadian) naval presence in Bermuda was reduced. The once-grand Royal Navy Dockyard was only a minor supply station by the 1960s. A single frigate was based there, responsible for patrolling British islands in the Caribbean.
Bermuda's economy also shifted in the postwar era as agriculture declined and tourism and banking grew rapidly. Farmland was abandoned, and hotels and resorts expanded. While many Bermudians maintained backyard gardens, no more than a handful were employed in full-time agricultural work.
Doomsday[]
The Americans had around twenty minutes to scramble their aircraft once word came of incoming Soviet missiles. Most of the Orions were aloft before a nuclear warhead struck the Naval Air Station, just one part of an ICBM whose other warheads most likely struck targets along the US coast. The American planes spread out to look for submarines. Since the Soviets did not believe themselves to be striking first, their forces were not yet in position, so the Orions were able to successfully attack several that were on their way. This no doubt saved a number of secondary targets, most likely in the United States, the Caribbean, Ascension Island, and possibly Bermuda itself - the old flying boat base at Morgan Point and the old Royal Naval Dockyard came through Doomsday unscathed.
The nuclear attacks also caused Bermuda to lose contact with the governments of Britain and the United States and cut off its access to supplies from other countries. The governor was John William Morrison, 2nd Viscount Dunrossil. Like most residents of the capital, he survived but saw how precarious that survival was. He immediately declared an emergency and desperately sought ways to save as many people as possible.
Bermuda's civil airport sat on land that was part of the American naval air station, so escaping by air was out of the question. Lord Dunrossil instead announced that all ships in port would be commandeered by the government to evacuate civilians from the islands. For the next few weeks, thousands of Bermudians were loaded onto cruise ships, freighters, fishing boats, and anything else that could float to make for the Bahamas. Surviving American, British, and Canadian naval personnel were integrated into the local Bermuda Regiment and put to work helping with the evacuation.
The haste of this operation and the overcrowded conditions onboard meant that many Bermudians died at sea. The Bahamas, meanwhile, were no safe haven. Many Bermudians had to move onto dismal refugee camps, or else be shunted along to the Caicos or other islands that were equally unable to handle the influx.
After assisting in this evacuation effort, the American military forces that escorted the refugees down to the West Indies soon received radio contact from other vessels in the US Atlantic Fleet, urging all US vessels to converge in friendly waters in the Virgin Islands. The American troops that had formerly been stationed in Bermuda were thus absorbed into the nascent United States Atlantic Remnant.
Meanwhile, Dunrossil attempted to manage food supplies on Bermuda itself. He ordered that as much land as possible be put under cultivation to grow food for the survivors. This proved next to impossible in the chaos following Doomsday. Most Bermudians wanted to get out, not put down crops. Soldiers and a few members of the government took the lead in organizing teams of workers to plant, but it was not enough - and anyway, crops once planted needed time to produce food, but the people were already beginning to starve. And on top of this, nuclear fallout from the blast reduced the productivity of the soil.
Return voyages were infrequent because fuel was becoming scarce. A few captains were able to persuade firms on other islands to donate enough fuel to go back for another load of refugees, but most ships remained stranded in the Bahamas. By the end of 1983, many Bermudians were resorting to crude rafts, reasoning that likely drowning was better than certain starvation.
Caribbean evacuation[]
In early 1984, the Bahamian government requested that Governor Dunrossil come to help keep order among the suffering refugee community. Some other survivors urged him to go, arguing that from there he could more effectively arrange new rescue voyages. Accordingly the governor sailed for Nassau in February and set up a government-in-exile for Bermuda. For the next two years, he moved frequently between refugee sites in the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and Saint Kitts, supervising continuing evacuation and relief efforts. Manpower in these efforts were provided by a combination of East Caribbean Federation forces, American forces from the (soon-to-be-named) USAR (many of whom were the same units that had been in Bermuda earlier, assigned to help due to their familiarity with the territory and people), and Bermudian refugees who agreed to be embedded with the CF and USAR forces to help coordinate their efforts.
After two years of constant movement, Dunrossil was exhausted and suffering from various health problems. But he was still admired and adored by most of the Bermudian survivors. The Premier in exile, John Swan, persuaded him to hold on to the title of Governor while reducing his work load. From that point, Swan assumed many of his duties, and gradually so too did the governor's daughter, Joanna Catherine Morrison.
Settling in[]
The East Caribbean Federation came into being on 1 January 1987, reviving the old dream of a West Indies Federation. Swan and both Morrisons lobbied the new federal government relentlessly to send ships to bring back the surviving Bermudians, by now reduced to just a thousand or so souls. Even this was not easy to arrange, this time not because of fuel, but because the Caribbean nations were reluctant to take in additional refugees.
Eventually the government of Belize was persuaded to set aside additional space for the Bermudians, and the last few families left Bermuda in 1988 and 9. A significant portion of survivors in the Bahamas and other islands would later join them. In Belize, some survivors received allotments of land, allowing them to escape from the squalor of refugee camps. The government in exile left Nassau at this time and made Belmopan its main headquarters, with the federal capital Castries in Barbados housing a secondary office.
Shortly after the move to Belmopan, the government in exile attempted to hold elections among all surviving Bermudian citizens in the Caribbean islands. The process took months because of the distances involved, but it helped to maintain a sense of connectedness among the exiles and a sense of vitality in the organization. A new, much smaller, house of assembly met in 1990 to discuss the future of Bermuda. There was wide agreement that their country could no longer support them and probably never could. An act of the assembly formally requested that its citizens be allowed to integrate into the countries in which they had settled.
For the next two years, the exiled Bermudian and the federal governments negotiated the terms of this integration. The exiled administration would be reconstituted as a Caribbean federal agency. Refugees would still be allowed to vote for its governing board, which would keep the name House of Assembly as a nod to that body's long history. But their citizenship and nationality would be with the Federation and with the member nations in which they had settled. The Bermudian National Refugee Administration would be tasked with safeguarding the human rights and well-being of the survivors and helping them connect with local public services and opportunities for employment.
The Federal Parliament passed the Bermuda Act in 1993, marking the end of Bermuda's existence as a separate political entity. Lord Dunrossil finally stepped down from his now almost totally symbolic post of Governor. The now even smaller House of Assembly asked his daughter Joanna Catherine to fill his shoes, the role having become similar to a kind of replacement monarch. On 22 March 2000, John died and his daughter began to use his title. The community of Bermudians still affectionately know her as "the Viscountess".
Annexing the islands[]
Starting in the mid-90s, the National Refugee Administration began to advocate for the annexation of the Bermudian archipelago to the Caribbean Federation. This was not so much out of a belief that their home would be inhabitable again, more that the survivors believed that annexation would bring closure and a sense that they truly belonged in their new country. This advocacy helped to put the idea of annexation in the air, but it did little to sway many policymakers.
In the 2000s, however, growing trade in the Atlantic convinced Caribbean Federation leaders of the practical benefits of annexing Bermuda. There was evidence that pirates were using the islands to harass shipping. It was looking like if the CF did not take over the islands, another power soon would. Annexation would demonstrate the Federation's growing maritime strength and its commitment to its citizens. A second Bermuda Act of 2005 declared the islands to be a federal territory, the first in the CF.
The Bermuda Act of 2005 also laid out an important proviso for Bermuda's future. One of its clauses stated that when conditions (such as the decline of radiation) eventually changed enough to allow resettlement, the Bermudian refugees and/or their descendants would get first priority in claiming land in Bermuda, including the possibility of reclaiming the exact properties and lands owned by their families, assuming they could prove ownership.
This clause of the Bermuda Act of '05, popularly referred to as the "Bermudian Homecoming Clause," serves a major legal justification for the continued existence of the Bermudian House of Assembly up through the present day, with its honorary Governor and associated agencies. One of the House of Assembly's duties since Doomsday has been to commission the CF troops that periodically man the military installation at Bermuda to secure pre-Doomsday property records and bring them to the Administration's headquarters to be catalogued and stored for the future resettlement.
Patrolling distant Bermuda proved to be difficult, and the CF sought partners in the North Atlantic that could help. Canada, Portugal, and the US Atlantic Remnant had a substantial presence in the ocean and were already cooperating with the Caribbean on other matters; they agreed to share the responsibility of keeping the area around Bermuda free of threats.
Bermuda today[]
Government[]
Bermuda today is governed by the Caribbean navy. A small facility on the outskirts of the old capital Hamilton is enough to support its occasional missions - a few storage buildings, a crude airstrip, and a radar beacon. The installation isn’t constantly manned, but on occasion has some personnel.
Future prospects[]
The conditions of starvation in the 1980s guaranteed that no one wanted to stay on Bermuda; but the islands are not without the means of supporting life. They get plenty of rainwater, and Bermudian builders were adept at making roofs to efficiently collect it. The islands' soil still has contamination in places from the nuclear blast but most fallout has dissipated. Bermuda's constant ocean winds are a potential source of electricity. The naval installation has one wind turbine, dismantled and stowed when not in use. Solar panels could also be installed to heat water and provide backup power for periods of less wind.
So far, no concrete plans have formed to resettle Bermuda. The islands remain off-limits to civilians in almost all cases. The Caribbean Federation has, however, partnered with the League of Nations to conduct scientific surveys of the islands to determine a safe time and procedure for the eventual repopulation of Bermuda.
In terms of government, Bermuda is expected to begin electing the more usual style of Governor after future resettlement, and go from being a federal territory to a regular territorial status. However, Viscountess Dunrossil (the current honorary Governor) is still beloved among the Bermudian community, regularly chairing the annual Bermuda Carnival and other cultural programming. In 2004, she married a native Afro-Bermudian man named James Smith, with whom she has had 4 children. The Morrison-Smith family, as they are now called, are considered the "unofficial Royal Family" of Bermuda, and it has been seriously proposed that a future resettled Bermuda might have a "mini-constitutional monarchy" of sorts, with an elected Governor reporting to the CF government, and the Viscountess (and future members of the Morrison-Smith family) serving as a ceremonial leader for the archipelago, albeit within the framework of the Caribbean Federation, whose constitution leaves open the possibility for such arrangements at the local level.
The exact title for this proposed ceremonial figurehead remains up for debate. Some have proposed calling this figure the President or Governor-General. Some have proposed simply continuing to call the role the Viscount/ess, and some have proposed calling the role the Queen or King of Bermuda, citing the classical mystique of such a title. In any case, the Morrison-Smith family remains extremely popular, and they are seen as unifiers of the Bermudian community (the two eldest children of the Viscountess and her husband are now serving in the CF military, one as an Army medic, netting them further popularity and respect).
These proposals are still merely ideas, and will not be formally debated until an official date is chosen to begin resettlement, but it is widely believed that the high popularity of the Morrison-Smiths will likely guarantee them some sort of ceremonial role in Bermuda's future.
Bermuda Triangle[]
Just because Doomsday occurred, not all abnormalities in the world had gone away. The Bermuda Triangle, infamous for causing the disappearance of dozens of ships, had mysteriously consumed aid ships from South America.
Bermuda's exile community[]
Administration[]
The refugee community continues to be served by Bermudian National Refugee Administration (now renamed the Administration for the Bermudian Community, ABC). On the one hand, it is an agency of the Caribbean federal government and responsible to the department of home affairs. On the other, it is guided by an elected board, the Bermudian House of Assembly, considered a direct descendant of the former legislature. It has 9 members chosen in at-large elections to staggered six-year terms. All Bermudan-born citizens in the CF can vote, and so can their children if they are of age. Despite their small numbers, the Bermudan refugee community has a lively political culture, and a system of Bermudan political parties compete for Assembly seats.
The House of Assembly must choose a Premier from among its membership every two years. It also has the power to name an honorary Governor with an indefinite term of office; in practice, this position exists for the Viscountess Dunrossil, the only person to have occupied it.
Part of the rationale for the ABC's continued existence is the likelihood of future resettlement of Bermuda. The Bermuda Act of 2005, which annexed the archipelago, famously included the "Bermudian Homecoming Clause" which states that the Bermudian refugee families have the legal right to be first in line to claim territory on Bermuda when resettlement someday occurs, and also provides the legal opportunity for them to reclaim the exact homesteads and properties that belonged to their families before Doomsday. This has resulted in piecemeal efforts, during CF and USAR military visits to Bermuda, to secure the territory's property records for cataloguing and storage. The ABC also--for this same purpose--keeps decenially-updated census records on the names/identities and other relevant information of all currently-living Bermudians throughout the CF, to be prepared for the transition to repatriation for all those who choose it.
If and when resettlement of Bermuda occurs, the Administration for the Bermudian Community is expected to be revamped as the official local government of Bermuda, under the umbrella of the national government of the Caribbean Federation. At that point, it is expected to return to its former seat at Hamilton town.
Military[]
The Bermuda Regiment led much of the evacuation of the islands and was involved in keeping order in Bermudian refugee settlements in the Bahamas. In 1988 it was incorporated into the Caribbean Defence Force, years before Bermudian refugees were given Caribbean citizenship. The new CF wanted to ensure that no external military could operate within its territory and so adopted the unit. In later years recruitment was opened to all Caribbean citizens, but the Regiment still honors its historic ties to Bermuda and has a noticeable Bermudian character.
Culture[]
The evacuated Bermudians and their children and grandchildren, by a lopsided majority, still tend to live in the towns set up for them during the evacuation years. Thus, despite living in the Bahamas or Belize or other parts of the CF, they still tend to retain a distinct Bermudian cultural character and strong ties to other Bermudian families.
Furthering these ties is the annual Bermuda Carnival, held during the Caribbean's traditional Lenten Carnival season. The location of the Bermuda Carnival currently rotates every year, but it is always held in a city or town that was settled by the Bermudian refugees and that retains a Bermudian neighborhood presence. The Bermuda Carnival facilitates a continued Bermudian identity long past Doomsday, as it keeps Bermudian families and acquaintances in regular contact with one another despite living on different islands, and provides a forum for Bermudian music (both new and old) to be played and sold.
There are future plans to eventually permanently relocate the Bermuda Carnival back to Bermuda itself if and when resettlement ever occurs.
See also[]
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