TODAY, the word colonialism is usually used in a derogatory sense, denoting that a powerful nation has taken over or infiltrated a weaker nation exploiting their backward people and natural resources.Such exploitation in no way whatsoever applies to Bermuda and its situation as a British colony.

When Bermuda was discovered in the early 16th century the island was found to be absolutely uninhabited. This situation was unchanged until July 1609 when the Sea Venture, on its way to the newly-settled colony of Virginia, went aground on Bermuda's south-east rocks. All 150 people aboard were ferried safely ashore.

By May of the following year these sojourners had built two small vessels and proceeded to Jamestown, their original destination. All, that is except two very troublesome men, Carter and Waters, who, expecting to receive some severe punishment, had deserted to the main island and hid in the woods.

On arrival in Virginia the remaining settlers at Jamestown were found to be starving.

Sir George Somers and a crew manned the Patience and sailed back to Bermuda for supplies. While on this mission Somers died. Instead of obeying orders to return to Virginia, Matthew Somers, captain of the little ship and nephew of Sir George, sailed for England. At this time a third man, Chard, Sir George's servant, joined the two previous deserters and remained in Bermuda. Thus the island has had some human habitation since 1609.

Stories of the excellence of Bermuda soon circulated around London and the Virginia Company became interested in adding this island to its holdings. To effect this, in the summer of 1612 the Company dispatched, entirely at its own expense, a small ship, The Plough, with 50 English settlers, under Richard Moore as Governor to take possession of this additional land.

Arriving on July 11, 1612 these were the first settlers. In addition to the problems of clearing land, finding water and erecting sheltering, Spain was always a threat. Moore made the building of 11 forts for their protection his first priority.

These sites have all been located, those on Castle Island being some of the oldest are in fairly good condition; they have been archaeologically examined. These Bermuda forts are the oldest English fortifications extant in North America and there are some who believe they should be declared "World Heritage Sites".

Settlers continued to be sent to the island. By mid-century, as a consequence of the English Civil War, some Irish and Scots were sent out as bound servants. These immigrants finished their time and many became first-class settlers. John Stowe, for instance, was a leading boat owner and came to own all of Point Shares.

Bermuda is Britain's oldest colony. On arrival, the colonists pledged their loyalty to the sovereign, to live as Christian and law-abiding inhabitants and faithful tenants to the shareholders who had sent them.

In 1617 Richard Norwood finished his survey of the islands, establishing individual shares and parish boundaries. These continue to be our parishes and should not be tampered with. The parishes were named after the principal shareholders of the Bermuda Company and today we use the coats of arms of these merchant adventurers as our parish coat of arms.

After the arrival of Nathaniel Butler as Governor in 1619 the very important stipulation of the Bermuda Company was put in hand; the introduction of representative government. The first Parliament with elected representatives from each parish (or "tribe" as was the term at that time) met in St. Peter's Church on August 1, 1620. An elected assembly has been the core of our Government ever since.

In this same year Butler began to build the State House in St. George's, a building that served as both the meeting place of the Assembly and the Court House. Restored in 1970/1 through the interest of Sir John Cox and Hinson Cooper, today it is one of our architectural treasures.

Bermuda law is an amalgam of English common law and Bermuda statuary law. Our highest court of appeal is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

A law, which Bermuda has inherited, is that a person charged with a crime is presumed to be innocent until either he pleads guilty, or is convicted by a jury of his peers. Also inherited is the important 1679 Act of habeas corpus, which guarantees that a person may not be held, unlawfully, in prison or anywhere else.

In 1684 the Bermuda Company had its charter revoked and Bermuda elected to be under the Crown. (From that date the colony came under the guidance of a Committee of the Privy Council: in due course called the Council of Trade and Plantations). But Bermuda continued to have its own elected Assembly. It continues today to be a self-governing colony.

Since 1968 we have had Responsible Government. We are solely responsible for our own affairs with the exception of internal and external security and foreign affairs, which responsibilities are reserved to the Governor. Even in these matters the Governor has the advice of a Council of three Government members. The Governor is the representative of the Queen who is Bermuda's Head of State. Contact with the British Government is maintained through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Bermuda's Constitution is basically a British product, although there was a Constitutional Committee, which met in London and on which there were representatives of both Bermudian political parties. This Constitution guarantees Bermudians, as individuals, the basic freedoms: freedom of worship, freedom of speech and freedom of association.

In the matter of voting we have the ballot box, ensuring confidentiality.

Our postal system was inherited from Britain. We used sterling and other British coins for many years. Our only coins were hog coins issued in 1616 and the first colonial coins to be issued for used anywhere; and the ship penny in 1793, issued to commemorate the incorporation of the Town of Hamilton.

Bermuda's inshore waters were skilfully surveyed by Lieutenant Thomas Hurd, RN, over a period of 14 years (1777-1791). His discovery of Murray's Anchorage, Hurd's Channel, Five Fathom Hole and Grassy Bay was a factor in persuading the Admiralty to make Bermuda the headquarters of the North America and West Indies Squadron; and after the American Revolutionary War to build the Royal Naval Dockyard which was started circa 1808. Until its closure in 1951, HM Dockyard contributed substantially to Bermuda's economy.IN addition, Dockyard (pictured top left)<\p><$>maintained an apprenticeship system, training hundreds of Bermudian boys in all the trades. This was Bermuda's first integrated school. On closure of the yard, those apprentices who were mid-stream in their courses were taken to England to complete their training all at no expense to the colony. Dockyard-trained mechanics were considered the best in the island and some are still around. A number of those taken to England in 1951 returned with English wives.From circa 1778 a garrison was established in St. George's. Other troops were stationed on Boaz Island and at Camp Prospect, the latter becoming headquarters for the Army until 1958.

Many of these troops were Royal Engineers who built the large forts which are for the most part still to be seen today: Forts St. Catherine, Scaur, George, William and Hamilton, among others. The purpose of erecting these fortifications was to protect the ever-so-important Dockyard, the only such facility between Halifax and Antigua. Like Dockyard, the Army establishment provided a great support to Bermuda's economy.

Bermuda also benefited socially and culturally by the presence of these forces. There was considerable intermarriage at every level and between both races. Many of our favourite sports were introduced by the armed forces, among them cricket, football and the sailing of small boats for pleasure. Tennis, introduced by Mr. O.T. Middleton, was popularised by the officers of both Navy and Army. Tennis was introduced to the United States from Bermuda.

Lodges and friendly societies, so much a part of Bermudian life, were introduced from Britain, a Masonic Lodge as early as 1797. The Oddfellows, who have several local branches, enjoy an English history which goes back to the 14th century. In more recent times there have been Girl Guides, Boy Scouts, Cubs and Brownies, Sea Cadets, the St. John Ambulance Brigade, the Bermuda branch of the British Red Cross and the Bermuda Tuberculosis Association. Most of our 19th-century and early 20th-century doctors studied at British universities and further trained at English- and Scottish-renowned teaching hospitals (some continue to do so). When the Cottage Hospital opened in 1894, it was well qualified English nurses who came to Bermuda and trained our first local nurses. This was continued at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital when it opened in 1920.

The Bermuda Welfare Society, formed in the 1920s to provide a district nursing service, continued for some 50 years. The nurses, all specially trained in district nursing including midwifery, came from various places in the United Kingdom and gave first-class and dedicated service in their respective parishes. For many years their only transportation was by bicycle.

The Bermuda Regiment is an outgrowth of the late 19th-century corps of the Bermuda Militia Artillery and the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps which were formed and trained under British military instructors. Voluntary groups, during both World Wars, the men of both corps served overseas with English Army units.

Our splendid Regimental Band, formed in 1965, had as its first Director, Major Laurie Dunn, retired from the band of the corps of the Royal Engineers (Aldershot). It has been brought to perfection by its now Bermudian bandmasters, who themselves have been trained at Kneller Hall, that great school of martial music.

In the latter decades of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century British capital played a significant part in Bermuda's development. Today, Cable & Wireless is still more than 95 per cent Bermudian-staffed. Over the years dozens of Bermudians have been sent for further training with the parent company in England.

Beginning in 1890, when the then-Governor sent greetings to Queen Victoria, Bermuda was put in instant communication with the outside world. The service has continued to grow and this communication system has been a factor in Bermuda's attractiveness as a centre for international business. Cable & Wireless Bermuda Limited, a locally registered company, has been the latest development between this giant company and Bermuda.

Another source of British capital was Furness-Withy. Immediately after World War One, when Bermuda's main economy was the export of farm produce, the Furness Bermuda Line was formed and put a regular weekly service between Hamilton and New York. Furness boosted our tourist trade by building two large and luxurious hotels: the Bermudiana and Castle Harbour, as well as restoring and enlarging the St. George Hotel. In 1928 the company brought on this run the specially designed M.S. Bermuda, the then-largest ship to enter Hamilton Harbour. Two years later was added the Monarch of Bermuda and in 1933 its sister ship the Queen of Bermuda.

These ships were not only beautiful but provided employment for many Bermudians who served aboard them.

From the beginning of colonisation the Bermuda Company was concerned with the spiritual and educational welfare of the settlers. It provided clergy and teachers although never enough at any one time. School lands were provided in Southampton, Warwick and Devonshire. There was Glebe in Southampton, Paget and Pembroke. Warwick Academy is situated on land set aside as school land by Norwood.

Just prior to Emancipation, Bermuda's first Archdeacon, the Hon. Aubrey Spencer, was responsible for the building of some 13 schools, a number on Glebe, to provide a Christian education for these freed people.

These were funded by the SPG (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) and the SPCK (Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge): English missionary societies.

Sadly, it has to be recalled that England, like all other mercantile nations in Europe, participated in the slave trade. However, Bermuda was not involved directly in this trade between Africa and the New World. The slaves who came to Bermuda came in the first instance from the West Indies.

Some came as a result of privateering (1619) and also there was considerable natural increase. However, the lack of cotton and sugar plantations did mean that for the most part the conditions experienced by slaves in Bermuda was very different from those in the West Indian islands and the colonies on the North American mainland. But slavery was very much a part of life in Bermuda.

However unhappy one must be regarding this whole question of slavery, it is well to recall that it was through the liberalising efforts of young Englishmen such as Thomas Clarkson and his friends, a Christian group, that the slave trade was outlawed by the British Parliament in 1807, by way of a bill introduced in Parliament by William Wilberforce. Following this bill becoming law, the ships of the Royal Navy patrolled the oceans and set free many slaves.

William Wilberforce fought on and in 1833 the Emancipation Bill was passed. Ill and failing, unfortunately Wilberforce did not live to see this law implemented throughout the British Empire on August 1, 1834.PERHAPS our greatest inheritance of all, after Christianity, is our language. We do speak the English language, although daily misspelling and mispronunciation are eroding it. Our inheritance of the English language, which the first settlers brought with them, has given us the King James Bible (it was published one year before the granting of the Bermuda Company charter) and the best of the modern translations. It has given us Shakespeare and the best of all the novels and poetry of the past 200 years; a wealth of literature.Some of our Governors have made a considerable contribution: Governor Reid (1839-1846) in promoting agriculture; and Governor Lefroy (1871-1877) in gathering together our earliest records and publishing those two scholarly volumes commonly known as the Memorials of the Bermudas, to name perhaps the best remembered.

In closing, I must remark that it will be easily seen that Britain has in no way exploited Bermuda. Quite the contrary. With the rich experience that is our heritage as a British colony through the centuries of close and beneficial association with Britain which asks of us nothing than that we live together in peace and harmony, I can never understand those among us who would end this profitable association, cutting these ties in the name of Independence.

After giving due consideration to all of the above, I am sure that no one will believe that the emotive phrase which one hears so often, "colonial masters", has any relevance with regard to Bermuda.

This feature previously appeared in this newspaper on February 12, 1999