The Rev. Richard Buck was the first minister who performed the service of the Church of England in Bermuda, having been chaplain to the expedition of Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers and a sharer of all their hardships in 1609. The Bermuda Pocket Almanack, Guide and Directory for the year of Our Lord 1898. IN an earlier discussion of the Anglican churches of the Eastern Tribes of Devonshire, Smith’s and Hamilton (later all called ‘parishes’), we noted that Bermuda was divided into eight ‘tribes’ and one lot of common land, now comprising all of St. George’s Parish, including what is today called ‘Tucker’s Town’. That division was possible because of the 1617 charting of the Island by Richard Norwood, and ‘when this survey, along with its map, arrived in England, it was very well-received by the Company, and they soon began to settle each individual man’s claim, by drawing lots’.So you see, the first allocation of land rights on the island by the Bermuda Company was really down to a roll of the dice, as it were. The eight highest-ranking ‘Adventurers’ (today’s ‘venture capitalists’) were to be given ten shares, each of 50 acres, for a total of 4,000 shares, or about a third of the total acreage of all the islands that make up Bermuda. In addition, each Adventurer would have a ‘tribe named after him as an honour’. This is how it fell out, or rather how the shares were gathered in.‘When the lots were drawn, they turned out as follows. The first tribe, adjacent to the public land of Tucker’s Town, was drawn for the Countess of Bedford and was named Bedford Tribe; but since then, for private reasons, passed over to the Marquess of Hamilton, and was then called Hamilton Tribe. The second tribe fell to Sir Thomas Smith, and was named Smith’s Tribe. The third went to the then Lord Cavendish, and so was named Cavendish’s Tribe; but when he was created Earl of Devonshire, its name was changed by an order of court to Devonshire Tribe. The fourth tribe was drawn for Lord Paget, and named Paget’s Tribe, the fifth for the Earl of Pembroke, and called Pembroke Tribe. The sixth tribe went to Sir Robert Mansfield, at that time a leading Adventurer; but since that time he had a change of mind and gave up his interests in the Island, and that tribe was instead given to the Earl of Warwick by an order of court, and its name was upgraded to Warwick Tribe. The seventh tribe fell to the lot of the noble Earl of Southampton, and was called Southampton Tribe, and the eighth to Sir Edwin Sands, and was named Sands’ Tribe.’The last of Bermuda’s first lottery winners also spelt his name as Sandys, with a silent ‘y’, often incorrectly pronounced here with hard ‘y’ to rhyme with ‘candies’. His was the westernmost, or uppermost tribe, as the prevailing winds come from the southwest and strike Sandys Tribe first, sending all of its sweetest smells downwind to the ‘lower parishes’. In each of the tribes, after 1620, a church was to be founded and that in Sandys eventually became St. James’.‘Tribe’ is an ancient world harking back to the division of peoples, and presumably land, in Rome and is associated with ‘tribune’, a word still in use, but then denoting the leader of the tribe. ‘Parish’, on the other hand, is by definition, ‘an ecclesiastical district’, but it seems that the name Parish did not replace Tribe for the major land divisions of Bermuda until perhaps the middle of the 1700s. In Richard Norwood’s last survey of the Island in 16623, the Tribes are still so named, so at some time thereafter they were renamed, perhaps at the behest of the Church of England, possibly turning a secular connotation into a religious one.In the early 1620s, the churches of the western half of Bermuda were started and ‘St. John’s Pembroke, had its origin [in] 1621, and was rebuilt in 1721 and 1821. The ponderous square tower at the West end, capable of much improvement, is a familiar point in the landscape of the valley’. Travelling eastward out of Pembroke, then west into the next parish, the early traveller would have passed by the Paget Tribe Church, now St. Paul’s, ‘remodelled 18723 after designs by Dr. Hinson, the tower and spire at the end of the South transept and the extension East and West then being built’. Keeping to the only road continuous road westward (now Middle Road), the church-hopper would next have alighted from a horse or a carriage at the Warwick Tribe Church, now St. Mary’s, with its later tower designed by S.W. Smith, Clerk of Works at the Bermuda Dockyard and builder of Hog Fish Beacon, among other structures.Once again on the only road to the west, the visitor had to take a short detour to the south coast at Church Bay, where stood the Southampton Tribe Church, or St. Anne’s as we know it today. A building much revised in the 19th century, ‘a new organ made by Wedlake, London, was placed [in] 1888and failed to give satisfaction’: the present level of such enjoyment is not known. Finally, after a long day in a carriage from St. George’s in the late 18th century, our churchgoer, barring losing a wheel or the horse a shoe, came to the westernmost Sandys Tribe Church on the island of Somerset.Unfortunately for history, archaeological research has only take place in small measure at St. James’ at one end of Bermuda and St. Peter’s at the other, with some work on the central St. Mark’s. Only at the latter two has any evidence been found of the Anglican churches that existed before those yet standing today. In due course the Anglican monopoly of ecclesiastical Bermuda was broken with the advent of the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Catholics and other smaller sects.Many churches in Bermuda are now considered part of the built-heritage of the island. While many do not come to worship at the spiritual level, it may be considered a good thing that many come to look at an earthly level at the buildings and monuments that have been created here for the greater glory of God, but with due regard to good architecture in these islands. Despite a decline in religiosity in recent times, it is hoped that the Tribe Churches and the venerable St. Peter’s will continue to serve and enhance the spiritual well-being of Bermudians, as well as adding value to local heritage for the next four centuries.Editor’s note: This is the 300th article by Dr Harris since they first appeared in February 2005, initially in the Mid-Ocean News and subsequently in The Royal Gazette.Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Executive Director of the National Museum of Bermuda, incorporating the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments may be made to director[AT]bmm.bm or 704-5480.