Hog Money of the Sommer Isles by Ian Sizeland

Thanks to Columbus in 1492 with his voyage of exploration and discovery, the world as it was known changed forever.

With the discovery of the Americas it was a race by the European countries to colonize and expand their domains. The main players were the Spanish,
Portuguese, French and English, several of the Nordic countries also vied for a piece of the new world, with Norway, Sweden and Russia competing. 

In 1505 Juan Bermudez of Palos, Castile and Captain of the ship La Garza discovered the islands that bear his name - Bermuda.

Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, an Italian historian at the service of Spain published Legatio Babylonica, in 1511 and lists "La Bermuda" among the Atlantic islands

              Map of Bermuda 1511 legatio babylonica
 

It is supposed that during his second voyage, Bermudez purposely left a dozen pigs and sows on the islands so they would populate and be a source of
food  for any shipwrecks.

Over a century later, in 1609, an English ship the Sea Venture, captained by Admiral Sir George Sommers, left Plymouth, England, with eight other ships
and  towing two Pinnacles of supplies en route to the British settlement of Jamestown, Virginia.

This was an urgent re-supply mission, the third since the establishment of Jamestown in 1606.

On 24th July, as they neared their destination, his ship the Sea Venture was separated from the fleet by a severe storm and although it was the new
flagship of the Virginia Company, it began to sink and was deliberately driven onto reefs off the coast of Bermuda, which were then known by the
English as the Bermoothes or the Hogge Islands.

The crew of 150 remained on the islands for 10 months,  taking it as a English possession, they survived on local produce, coconuts, fish and of cause the wild Hogs.

They constructed two new boats, using local timber and parts of the wrecked Sea Venture and on May 10, 1610, the new boats were completed and the
crew finally departed for Virginia.

On arrival they found the Jamestown settlers close to starvation, about a month later on June 19, 1610, Sir George Sommers, using one of the pinnacles returned
to the islands to help provision the Jamestown settlement, where he died soon after arriving in 1611. The islands were renamed the Sommer Islands by the English
in honour of Sir George Sommers but was rejected by the majority of Mariners, so the name was restored to Bermuda.

Hogge Money – Bermuda, 1616:
Control of Bermuda was vested in the Virginia Company from 1612 and this was replaced by a new company called the Somer Island Company from 29 June 1615.

That company was authorised by James 1 to issue its own coinage for the islands and took immediate steps to take advantage of this. Governor Daniel Tucker was
supplied with the coinage and instruction for its issue in the payment of weekly wages. He arrived in May 1616 with the coins which had been struck in
'brass' with a silver wash. The coins feature a hog (spelled hogge at that time) after the wild boars found on the islands. They were known as  Hogge Money
but were not popular, being of base metal in an era when coins normally contained metal to the value of their denomination. By 1624 their use had ceased.

The coins or Tokens were made in denominations of two, three, six, and twelve pence (1Shilling)

The Obverse showed a hog with the denomination in roman numerals above the animal and the on the six and twelve pence a legend
"SOMMER ISLANDS" within two circles of beads

Hog (Hogge) Money series – Bermuda, 1616:
Summary
Threepence and Twopence. Issued by, Bermuda Somer (Sommer) Islands, 1616, obverse.
 

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