George Somers Tempest". During their time on the islands, the crew and passengers built a church and houses, the start of the Bermuda colony. Somers and Sir Thomas Gates oversaw the construction of two small ships, the "Deliverance" and the "Patience." They were built from local timber (Bermuda Cedar) and the salvaged spars and rigging of the wrecked "Sea Venture." In May 1610 the ships set sail for Jamestown, with the surviving 142 castaways on board taking food from the island. When they reached the settlement, they found it nearly destroyed by the famine and disease of what has been called the
Phoenix Islands group is uninhabited except for a few families on Kanton. The United States unincorporated territories of Baker Island and Howland Island are often considered northerly outliers of the group, in the geographical sense. Howland and Baker are statistically grouped with the United States Minor Outlying Islands, however. The United States previously claimed all the Phoenix Islands under the Guano Islands Act. The Treaty of Tarawa released all US claims to the Phoenix Islands, excluding Baker and Howland. At various times, the islands were considered part of the Gilbert group (once also known as "Kingsmill"). The name "Phoenix" for this group