Editing Demographics of Bermuda (section)

==History==
[[File:Bermudians Rosalie, Helen & Ellesif Darrell in 1846.jpg|thumb|Bermudian sisters Rosalie, Helen and Ellesif Darrell in 1846]]
[[File:129 Inpackning af Lök.jpg|thumb|Black labourers packing onions on Bermuda, 1895. As such work was stigmatised amongst Bermudians, much of it was carried out by families brought in from Portuguese Atlantic islands, the British West Indies, and even from Baltic countries]]
From settlement until the 19th century, the largest demographic group remained what in the United States is referred to as white-Anglo (or [[white Anglo-Saxon Protestant]]). The reason Black slaves did not quickly come to outnumber Whites, as was the case in continental and West Indian colonies at that time (such as [[Carolina Colony]] and [[Barbados]]), 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 (with poor would-be settlers contracting to provide a fixed number of years' labour in exchange for the cost of transport). 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 99 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 (even before abandoning agriculture for maritime activities in 1684, Bermuda had become reliant on food imports).

In addition to free and enslaved Blacks, 17th-century Bermuda had large minorities of [[Irish people|Irish]] indentured servants and [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native American]] slaves, as well as a smaller number of Scots, all forced to leave their homelands and shipped to Bermuda.<ref>''Slavery in Bermuda'', by James E. Smith. Vantage Press. First edition (1976). {{ISBN|978-0533020430}}</ref> Native Americans sold into chattel slavery in Bermuda were brought from various parts of North America, including Mexico, but most particularly from the [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] areas of the [[East Coast of the United States|Atlantic seaboard]], from which natives were subjected to [[genocide]] by the English; most famously following the [[Pequot War]] and [[King Philip's War|Metacomet's War]]. The Irish and [[Scottish people|Scots]] are usually described as [[Prisoner of war|prisoners-of-war]], which was certainly true of the Scots. The Irish shipped to Bermuda following the [[Cromwellian conquest of Ireland]] included both prisoners-of-war and civilians of either sex [[Ethnic cleansing|ethnically cleansed]] from lands slated for resettlement by Protestants from Britain, including Cromwell's soldiers who were to be paid with Irish land. In Bermuda they were sold into indentured servitude. The Scots and the Irish were ostracised by the white English population, who were particularly fearful of the Irish, who plotted rebellions with Black slaves, and intermarried with the Blacks and Native Americans.<ref name="Bermuda 1976">''Slavery in Bermuda'', by James E. Smith. Vantage Press (1976). {{ISBN|978-0533020430}}</ref> 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 ([[recusancy]] was a crime in Bermuda, as it was in England).

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 (in response to an uprising by enslaved blacks), and frequent encouragement of the owners of black slaves to export them, by the 18th century the merging of the various minority groups, along with some of the white-Anglos, had resulted in a new demographic group, "coloured" (which term, in Bermuda, referred to anyone not wholly of European ancestry) Bermudians, who gained a slight majority by the 19th century.