Bermuda's had gangs fighting for their 'turf' for 100 years

Bermudians today may wring their hands, wail and gnash their teeth about ‘gang’ problems but the island has always had gangs.

It’s just the nature of gang activity has changed — and radically.

An old ‘coloured’ lady, Mrs. Nellie Musson, in her book Mind The Onion Seed, wrote about a pitched battle between ‘gangs’.

The battle would have been in September/October 1927.

According to her story, the battle caused lots of casualties.

She tells of part of the aftermath: “The next morning the mutilated troops were shipped out (including one or two bodies), the assaults on the women stopped, and the North Hill battleground showed the evidence of victory.”

Infantry

Mrs. Musson was no political firebrand. On the contrary, she might best be described as a ‘Sunday school teacher-type’. Not the sort of person likely to resort to vitriol and hyperbole.

In 1927, and for many years before, Bermuda always had a British Army infantry battalion garrisoned at Prospect, where the police now have their HQ and where CedarBridge Academy now sits.

As Nellie’s story shows, there could be friction between the British soldiery and the nearby local community.

Again, as Nellie tells, this friction could erupt into major confrontations. 

There was nothing abnormal about this. In garrison towns throughout the U.K., there was always friction between the soldiery and the ‘townies’.

All it took was few pints too many in either set of bellies or a wrong word or two from either social set and that friction would erupt into a massive brawl.

All through the U.K., communities have stories — folk histories — of these outbreaks of violence. It’s the same in Bermuda.

Black Bermudian folk history — the passed-down, oral history — is full of stories of brawls between the men of Somerset and elements of the Royal Navy.

St. David’s islanders and St. Georgians can tell stories of bust-ups between ‘Yanks’ or ‘cheeseheads’ and the men of St. David’s.

Families from North Village, Friswell’s Hill and Loyal Hill can tell of many a dust-up between ‘Prospect’ and the rest.

It is likely Bermuda has had definable local ‘gangs’ for more than a hundred years.

Bermudians who can remember the intermittent invasions by the U.S. Navy, when several ships would stop off for ‘liberty runs’, will recall that the first evidence of their presence would usually be the sudden appearance of a group of big, mean-looking sailors in long canvas leggings with even longer wooden batons and seriously scowling faces.

This group was the ‘Shore Patrol’. Their task was to deter or stop any trouble that developed between USN personnel and the local population.

Their Hamilton base is now used by the Police Marine Section. Ask any 60-year-old Bermudian where the Shore Patrol is and he will tell you that.

From there, these USN sailors, wearing their highly prominent SP armbands and swinging their long batons, would stalk Hamilton and its environs.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Hamilton locations such as Reid Street East and Court Street were usually put ‘out of bounds’ to men of the USN. The RN tended to follow suit.

When bust-ups happened, it was for the same reason as in garrison towns all over the U.K — the soldiers, marines, sailors, and, later, airmen, either did something that was unacceptable to local mores or some hothead on either side sparked a fight.

Just as the military men always stuck together in a fight, so did the civilians.

It was a simple case of a uniformed gang warring with a non-uniformed gang.

The non-uniformed gang was often — as Nellie’s story showed — protecting its ‘turf’, its women or both.

Battle

In Nellie’s story, she tells of local gangs that came from either side of the ‘tracks’.

Since Bermuda’s nascent railway was under construction in 1927 — the year of that pitched battle — one gang group came from north side of the ‘tracks’ and the other from the south.

Nellie writes: “The North Shore boys were known for their singing. One of their more rousing songs was ‘If you come again into North Shore, you won’t live to come back no more’.”

Today that north-side group would be the 42nd Street lot. 

The southsiders would be the Parkside lot.

In Nellie’s story, the two groups combined in common cause, to protect something good and held in high value.

Not so today, it seems, but that song has proven to be bone-chillingly prescient.