Bermuda and the Bahamas After the American Revolution

Join us to hear Ross Nedervelt, the 2023 Frances E. Malamy Fellow at PEM’s Phillips Library, present the findings of his research project: “Loyalism, Privateering, and American Sovereignty in the Atlantic Border-sea, 1783-1815.”

Between 1783 and 1819, the newly independent United States fought a series of skirmishes with Britain over control of the islands of Bermuda and the Bahamas. American loyalists and British military occupying the islands created a military and cultural bulwark to defend against the nascent United States, thwarting the new country’s endeavors to expand its commercial influence into the colonies of the British Caribbean. In the decades following the American Revolution, the British government remade Bermuda from a commercial hub into the Royal Navy’s staging ground for the assault on Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812.

The Phillips Library Frances E. Malamy Research Fellowship program, funded by the Malamy family, awards $5,500 to one recipient each year to perform independent research for three months at the library located in Rowley, Massachusetts.