Conquest for Commerce: American Policymakers, Bermuda, and the War for Independence, 1775–83

This article explores American policymakers' efforts to annex the British colony of Bermuda during the U.S. War for Independence (1775–83). From Silas Deane to James Madison, Patriot leaders and diplomats idealized Bermuda as a valuable commercial outpost in the Atlantic world, viewing the colony as essential to their new nation's trade. This article considers the failed proposals, quixotic diplomatic demands, and unrealized military plans to acquire Bermuda to illustrate how conquest and commerce were inextricably linked in the minds of early America's policymakers. By exploring American interest in Bermuda, this article also contends that Patriot leaders' demands for other British territories—Canada, Nova Scotia, the Floridas, the Bahamas, and the trans-Appalachian West—were intended not as a blueprint for a continental empire. Rather, American leaders sought British territories such as Bermuda and the trans-Appalachian West to protect, expand, and promote the republic's Atlantic-based commerce.