Bermuda�s history doesn�t quite begin with the Sea Venture. In fact, by 1610 the islands had been known to Europeans for more than a century. Spanish navigator Juan de Bermudez first sighted the island group, which he named �La Bermuda,� in 1505 on his return to Europe from Hispaniola. He attempted to return 10 years later but was unable to land because of the weather and treacherous reefs.
Over the next century, hundreds of mariners would become stranded on Bermuda. Their harrowing experiences, the evidence of cloven hooves on the ground and reports of awful howls at night gave Bermuda the infamous nickname Isles of the Devils. The hooves belonged to wild hogs that were either left behind by previous sailors or swam ashore from shipwrecks; the nightly howls, it is believed, were the cries of the inoffensive cahows, a now-endangered bird species native to Bermuda.
Most who survived the wrecks on these shores would later be rescued, including an unlucky Portuguese party from a sunken slave ship that, during its time here, carved a bold legacy into stone. In 1543, these sailors chiselled what is believed to be �RP� � meaning Rex Portugaliae � into what is now known as Portuguese Rock at Spittal Pond: their claim of the islands in the name of Portugal. Despite this claim, Bermuda would remain unsettled (and avoided) until 1609
