Britain Learned How to Set Up Its Global Empire on a Tiny Bermudan Island

History Unplugged Podcast · Apr 22, 2025 · 44m

Years before Jamestown planters made New World farming profitable by growing tobacco, and years before their countrymen up north in Plymouth Colony managed to overcome their starvation conditions and acclimate to New England’s growing conditions, there was an English settlement in Bermuda that was wealthier, larger, and more prosperous. It was established in 1612 on an island less than one square mile but grew to the heart of the Atlantic economy. Bermuda, once home to more settlers than Virginia or Massachusetts, became England’s first profitable plantation, pioneering tobacco…