An overview of how Bermuda’s early colonial government drew up the legislative basis for enslavement on the island has been published in a leading scholarly journal.

The work, by historian, lawyer and academic Cheryl Packwood, explored how Bermuda, shortly after its formal settlement by the English in 1612, set a unique precedent by codifying the basis for chattel slavery.

Enslavement, and the elaborate rules for dehumanising captive people into commodities without the rights enjoyed by White people, required legislation, proclamations and judicial decisions that the new colony put into law beginning in 1623 — well ahead of its counterparts on the North American mainland.

Ms Packwood told The Royal Gazette: “What I’m saying is that Bermuda came first in the British Empire in the institution of slavery through the creation of this framework.”

She said: “This started with my thesis when I graduated from Harvard Law School under Justice A. Leon Higginbotham, a justice on the Third Circuit of the United States.”

Mr Higginbotham, who was a former University of Pennsylvania trustee and adjunct professor, “insisted that it must be published” after its completion, a note in the piece explained.

Out of Ms Packwood’s thesis came the latest article, published electronically in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law and soon to appear in print.

It is entitled A Forgotten Colonial Past: Institutionalisation of Slavery in Bermuda — A New Addition to Colonial American History.

Ms Packwood, the former director of the Government’s Washington office, also served as the island’s overseas representative in Asia, and has practised law in Cote d’Ivoire and New York City.

Exploring the island’s embrace of slavery and the way the institution shaped race relations is a family affair for Ms Packwood, whose late father, the historian Cyril Packwood, published the classic Chained on the Rock in 1976.

However, for her laborious research, which included delving into eye-watering volumes of archival handwritten legislation, correspondence, orders and other materials from the 17th and 18th century, Ms Packwood had some extra help as a visiting assistant professor at Albany Law School from January 2023 through June 2024 in international law.

“At Albany Law School, I was able to get research funds and a research assistant,” she said.

“You can look for four or five hours before you finally find the two lines you were looking for.”

Ms Packwood was helped extensively by staff at the Bermuda Archives to sift through documents in archaic English that, in many cases, were barely possible to read.

Poring through colonial records was also required for the journal to review and verify the sources cited.

David Johnson, editor-in-chief at the Journal for volume 46, said the revelations proved eye-opening.

“We’re thankful Professor Packwood decided to publish her scholarship with us,” he said. “My idea of Bermuda definitely changed.”

The article lifted the lid on the early history of a place most people overseas think of as a holiday destination or a business jurisdiction.

Mr Johnson said it also showed the extent of Bermuda’s “influence on the United States” when it came to enslavement.

Reviewing her sources took the University of Pennsylvania months.

“It was great, even though tough at times,” Mr Johnson said. “But because of the nature of the piece, I think we were really able to challenge ourselves to put our best foot forward.”

He called it “a very cool experience that I will cherish for the rest of my life”.

Ms Packwood’s article explores the swiftness with which early legislators, in 1623, used the House of Assembly to draw up “the first law passed concerning Black persons in the British Empire”.

In doing so, they “completed what took the Virginia legislature almost 60 years to do: formulate a comprehensive system of Black codes subjugating and dehumanising a people based on their skin colour”.

The article said: “Only seven years after the arrival or first mention of a Black person in the Colonial Records, and 11 years after the birth of the settlement, the English colonists in Bermuda codified their racial hatred and prejudice — establishing the first institution of slavery in North America.”

It explored a series of subsequent legal efforts to deny rights to Black people and other people of colour, including the rights to marry and raise their children, carry a weapon or walk freely after dark.

Ms Packwood’s article also looked at how Bermuda’s legal processes became “a precursor to the undertakings in the American colonies on the mainland to subjugate and dehumanise the populations of colour”.

It would not end until emancipation in 1834, with Black and White Bermudians left until the present day to contend with the legacy of slavery on race relations.

Bermuda’s version of the institution of slavery differed from elsewhere. The island could not support plantations, and did not prove lucrative as a colony.

Ms Packwood said: “Slavery evolved. Slaves initially were brought over to dive for pearls. Ambergris was thought to be fortune-making. Over time it evolved into maritime industries.”

Throughout, she said, “slavery doesn’t just exist — it’s the men who legislated it who created that institution”.

Fearing rebellions by people who were enslaved, the White colonists took further steps to suppress the enslaved from mingling, talking and potentially plotting their overthrow.

Ms Packwood emphasised the enduring value of the scholarship.

“Everywhere in the world, whether you’re talking about the Holocaust, slavery, segregation or ethnic cleansing, people say forget about it, get over it,” she said.

“There’s a wish to say that it doesn’t matter, that it happened a long time ago, we’re not responsible.”

She added: “Mary Prince talks about it. You’re a slave ‒ that’s what the laws show. They show the brutality of slavery, regardless of where you are.

“The fact that slaves didn’t drop dead in plantation fields like they did in South Carolina or Georgia doesn’t mean the brutality didn’t exist.”

Published online in December 2024, the article is to come into print “shortly”, with copies to be sent to the archives as well as the National Museum of Bermuda.