A Heroic People: Early Settlers of Newfoundland

Discovered by John Cabot in 1497, Newfoundland was Britain’s oldest colony, but it was not until 1610 that the first attempt was made at colonization when John Guy, a merchant and alderman of Bristol established the first settlement at Cupids in Conception Bay. Some six years later after many hardships, Guy returned to England leaving the new colony to sink or swim. Over the next sixty years several more attempts were made to colonize the island but all to no avail. After 1673 settling in the country was forbidden , and those who dared to defy the law and take up their abode on the island were treated as outlaws. The ban was not lifted until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The island was considered merely as a place where there was plenty of fish and gave seasonal employment to thousands of hardy English fisherman. So it was that Newfoundland took three hundred years to arrive at the point where other colonies began because elsewhere settlement was encouraged.

The only people to have an interest in the region were the merchants and ship-owners of the south west of England. From the beginning of the sixteenth century they had conducted a very profitable business by organizing the annual fishing expeditions to Newfoundland. These wealthy businessmen had great influence with the British Government and were opposed to any permanent settlement with its resulting laws and regulations interfering with their authority. It suited them better to send their fleets across the Atlantic each Spring, take possession of the premises which they had abandoned the previous Fall, catch and cure fish there during the Summer, and return to England again in the Autumn.

In spite of the ban however, the resident population gradually increased. These people usually settled in the most out-of-the-way coves and inlets where they stood little chance of being detected, but some settled boldly in St. John’s and other obvious places on the east coast. Since they were considered outlaws, no thought was given to government and each was a law unto himself. There was, as would be expected, many violent scenes and much crime, especially in St. John’s when the population swelled in the Spring. Eventually the British parliament moved to set up some form of Government during the Summer and Fall and the first Governor was appointed in 1729.

For the next 88 years the governors would spend only two or three months in Newfoundland, arriving usually in August and returning to England in October or November. It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that the English merchants began to change their minds about some of the restrictions that they had insisted on for so long. They came to see that it would be advantageous for them to have settlements in Newfoundland, saving them the expense of sending fishermen from England each year. Finally the law forbidding immigration was removed and the first resident Governor was appointed in 1817.

It is however, about the people of the tiny harbours scattered around the coastline that we know the least. Many of these lived and died with little if any knowledge of the outside world. Most had no benefit of doctor, clergy or teacher. Totally dependent on each other, neighbour helped neighbour bringing about a sense of family almost unknown elsewhere. Their food came from the sea and from the berries that grew in abundance on the marshes and hills. It was customary for families to have a vegetable garden, and to raise sheep, goats and sometimes a cow or two. Some of these “outports“, as they came to be known, had as little as three or four families, others twenty or more. We can only guess as to the hardships that these people suffered, or why they were so determined to settle in such a hostile environment in the first place.