BERMUDA AND CANADA

The historic Azorean emigration went to large countries on the American continent, such as Brazil, the United States, and Canada. Still, it is curious to note that it also passed from island to island – the island of São Luís do Maranhão, the island of Santa Catarina, the islands of Hawaii, or the Bermuda islands.
In Bermuda, the first Portuguese families officially emigrated in 1849, especially to boost wine production. Since then, thousands of Azoreans have emigrated to those (other) islands, mostly from São Miguel.
Thanks to the Azoreans, agriculture became a lucrative activity in the archipelago in the second half of the 19th century.
Official records show that 8,722 Azoreans emigrated to Bermuda from 1960 to 2020, a period of 60 years. The annual figures vary greatly, from a high of 519 in 1962 to a low of zero in 1993.
Since the 1980s, the Azores and Bermuda governments have agreed to allow Azoreans with employment contracts to emigrate. This employment relationship associated with the migratory act allows for an up-to-date record of departures to Bermuda, unlike the United States and Canada.
As a result, the Regional Directorate for Communities was the intermediary for 3,463 emigration cases in the first 20 years of this century – more in the first decade (2,741) than in the second (722).
Today, around 25% of Bermuda’s population is estimated to be made up of emigrants and descendants from Portugal, the Azores, and the islands.
In 2024, we will celebrate 175 years of Azorean emigration to Bermuda.
In 2023, we celebrated the 70th anniversary of official emigration from the Azores to Canada.
This is the most recent destination for large-scale Azorean emigration, after Brazil and the United States, but it has quickly become one of the most important.
In truth, the Azores’ connection to the future territory of Canada dates back to the 15th century, with the voyages of the Corte-Real navigators, continues in the 16th to 18th centuries, with tuna fishing in the seas of Newfoundland, and reaches the 19th century, with the “Portuguese Joe” from Pico, who would be the first European to acquire citizenship in British Columbia.
But in the 20th century, on May 13, 1953, the 18 Azorean pioneers from the island of São Miguel disembarked from the ship Satúrnia in the port of Halifax.
In 1954, 56, and 59, increasing numbers of emigrants from different Azorean islands followed, initially to meet local needs in the exploitation of agricultural fields and the construction of railways.
By the end of the 20th century, almost half a million Portuguese had emigrated to Canada, 65% from the Azores.
According to the 2021 Canadian census, 1.2% of Canada’s population comprises 450,000 Portuguese. There are 300,000 in the province of Ontario, mainly in the cities of Toronto, Brampton, and Mississauga; 65,000 in Quebec, especially in Montreal and Laval; 40,000 in British Columbia, mainly in Vancouver and Kitimat; 20,000 in Alberta, namely in Calgary and Edmonton; and 13,000 in Manitoba, concentrated in the provincial capital, Winnipeg.
In short, Brazil, the United States, Canada, Uruguay, Bermuda, and Hawaii are the successive historical destinations of the tremendous Azorean emigration.
The result is a geographical and chronological dispersion that affirms the Azores in America. Or, as the writer Vitorino Nemésio would say, “Azoreanity” projects itself and dignifies us on the other side of the “Atlantic River”, a saying from Professor Onésimo Almeida.

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Regional Director for Communities in the XIII Government of the Autonomous Region of the Azores.
This text was taken from his book Transatlântico – Açorianidade & Interculturalidade (2024)