The Militia of the British Dominions, Self-Governing Colonies, and Crown Colonies were the principal military forces of the Dominions, Self-governing colonies (those with elected local legislatures) and Crown Colonies (those without elected local legislatures, and ruled directly by the Imperial Government via its appointed Governors and Councils) of the British Empire.
Background
The English had raised militia forces in their colonies in the New World immediately upon establishing them in the first decade of the 17th century. Whereas militias in England remained little used, outside the period of the English Civil Wars, during the following century, those in the North American colonies were to play significant roles. In many actions fought with Native Americans and European rivals, the militia were the primary English force in the field, as professional full-time military forces were usually far away. Even when the English colonies around the world became the British Empire, and regular forces began to become available for garrison duty, militias were still a vital part of Great Britain's military power in the Americas, and British victory over Spain and France during the Seven Years' War, and its resulting hegemony in North America, could not have been realised without the colonial militias and their Native allies. It was the presence of their militia that allowed the thirteen American colonies to launch the secessionist American War of Independence.
Australasia
The colonies of Australia did not have militia, nor officially did New Zealand.
In 1843 a local militia that had been formed in Wellington without official sanction was immediately disbanded.
Bermuda
In the Somers Isles, or Bermuda (originally named Virgineola), a self-governed (rather than Crown) colony settled in 1609 (as a result of the shipwreck of the Sea Venture, the flagship of the Virginia Company of London, and originally considered part of the Virginia Colony), with no native population, the Militia followed a trajectory more like that in Britain, finally becoming moribund after the War of 1812, by when the build-up of regular forces had removed the demand for the militia. Nevertheless, during the first century of its settlement, Bermuda's militia had remained the colony's sole defence, manning its fortifications and coastal batteries and calling up all available manpower in times of war.
Large numbers of Irish prisoners of war and civilians were transported to Bermuda after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, where they were highly antagonistic to the English population. In 1661, the Bermudan government alleged that a plot was being hatched by a conspiratorial alliance of Blacks and Irish to kill all the English populace on the island. The Irish were perceived as the chief instigators of this plot by the Bermudan government. Governor William Sayle tried to prevent such an occurrence from taking place by issuing three edicts: the first was that a nightly watch would be raised throughout the colony; second, that all slaves and indentured servants in Bermuda be disarmed of their weapons; and third, that any gathering of two or more slaves or indentured servants be dispersed by whipping (a ban was also placed on the further transportation of Irish prisoners of war and civilians to Bermuda).
Enslaved Bermudians continued to serve in the colonial militia, however, which was to lead a unique judgment on their rights as British subjects. By the 18th century, virtually all Bermudian men were engaged in the maritime trades, including building and crewing ships. The colony's dependence on its seamen was such that the Royal Navy excluded them from impressment, to which all other seamen in the British Empire were liable. Perennially short of manpower, the crews of Bermuda's merchant fleet (most of which turned to privateering whenever war broke out) were required, by local law, to contain a percentage of black sailors, most of whom were enslaved. British law at the time required that all crewmen of British vessels be British subjects, although the status of the enslaved Bermudan population remained unclear. Following the arrest of a Bermudian vessel by a Royal Navy warship due to its enslaved crewmembers, Bermudian ship owners protested to the courts that their service in the militia meant that Bermuda's slaves should be considered British subjects, and this view was upheld by the courts.