White Bermudians

White Bermudians are Bermudians of total or predominantly European ancestry, most notably the British Isles and Portugal, who stand out for having light skin and self-identify as white. In a more official sense, the Department of Statistics uses the term "white". The 2016 Bermuda census reported that White Bermudians are currently the second-largest group representing 31.0% of the population.

Aside from British and Portuguese settlers, Bermuda has welcomed many people from the European diaspora. The islands have also become a popular home for wealthy Americans.

The first Europeans to discover Bermuda were Spanish explorers. The earliest depiction of the island is the inclusion of "La Bermuda" in the map of Pedro Martyr's 1511 Legatio Babylonica. The earliest description of the island was Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés' account of his 1515 visit with Juan de Bermúdez aboard La Garza'. Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez discovered the island in the early 1500s.

On 2 June 1609, Sir George Somers had set sail from Plymouth, England aboard Sea Venture, the new flagship of the Virginia Company, leading a fleet of nine vessels, loaded with several hundred settlers, food and supplies for the new English colony of Jamestown, in Virginia. Somers had previous experience sailing with both Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh. The fleet was caught in a storm on 24 July, and Sea Venture was separated and began to founder. When the reefs to the East of Bermuda were spotted, the ship was deliberately driven on them to prevent its sinking, thereby saving all aboard, 150 sailors and settlers, and one dog.

Bermuda's first capital, St. George's, was established in 1612. The White population at the time made up the entirety of the Bermuda's population, other than a black and an Indian slave brought in for a very short-lived pearl fishery in 1616, from settlement (which began accidentally in 1609 with the wreck of the Sea Venture) until the middle of the 17th century, and the majority until some point in the 18th century.

The majority of the first European settlers arrived from England as indentured servants or tenant farmers, as most of Bermuda's land was owned by absentee landlords who remained in England as shareholders (adventurers) in the Virginia Company and then its offshoot the Somers Isles Company. Later Irish Gaels were sent to Bermuda after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland that followed the English Civil War. Usually described as 'prisoners-of-war', these Irish men and women were removed from Ireland involuntarily, and sold into indentured servitude on arrival in Bermuda. A small number of Scots were sent to Bermuda in the same way after Cromwell's invasion of Scotland. The Irish were ostracised by the English, and were found so troublesome that their further import was banned. By the middle of the 18th century, they, and the Native American slaves also sent to Bermuda after the conquest of their homelands, had largely merged, with the free and enslaved blacks (most of whom came from Spanish, or formerly Spanish, colonies in the West Indies), with Bermuda's population boiled down to two demographic groups: White and Coloured.

The population of Bermuda on 17 April 1721, was listed as 8,364, composed of: "Totals:—Men on the Muster roll, 1,078; men otherwise, 91; Women, 1,596; boys, 1,072; girls, 1,013. Blacks; Men, 817, women 965; boys 880; girls, 852."

The Population of Bermuda in 1727 included 4,470 whites (910 men; 1,261 boys; 1,168 women; 1,131 girls) and 3,877 coloured (787 men; 1,158 boys; 945 women; 987 girls).