Prior to European colonization, the lands encompassing present-day Newfoundland and Labrador were inhabited for millennia by different groups of Indigenous peoples. The first brief European contact with Newfoundland and Labrador came around 1000 AD when the Vikings briefly settled in L'Anse aux Meadows. In 1497, European explorers and fishermen from England, Portugal, Spain (mainly Basques), France and Holland began exploration. Fishing expeditions came seasonally; the first small permanent settlements appeared around 1630. Catholic-Protestant religious tensions were high but mellowed after 1860. The British colony voted against joining Canada in 1869 and became an independent dominion in 1907. After the economy collapsed in the 1930s, responsible government was suspended in 1934, and Newfoundland was governed through the Commission of Government. Prosperity and self-confidence returned during the Second World War, and after intense debate, the people voted to join Canada in 1948. Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949.
Poverty and emigration have remained significant themes in Newfoundland history, despite efforts to modernize since entering Confederation. Over the second half of the 20th century, the historic cultural and political tensions between British Protestants and Irish Catholics faded, and a new spirit of a unified Newfoundland identity has recently emerged through songs and popular culture. During the 1990s, the province was severely impacted by the sudden collapse of the Atlantic cod fishing industry. The 2000s brought a renewed interest in the oil sector, which helped to revitalize the economy of the province.
Early history
Human habitation in Newfoundland and Labrador can be traced back about 9000 years to the Maritime Archaic people. They were gradually displaced by people of the Dorset Culture—Thule and finally by the Innu and Inuit in Labrador and the Beothuks on Newfoundland.
European exploration
The first European contact with North America was that of the medieval Norse settlers arriving via Greenland. For several years after AD 1000 they lived in a village on the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula at L'Anse aux Meadows.See "L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site of Canada: History" and David Quinn, "Review Essay – Norse America: Reports and Reassessments," Journal of American Studies 22:2 (1988): 269–273. For a summary of scholarship see Olaf U. Janzen, "Discovery and Early Exploration, ca. 1000 – 1550" Remnants and artifacts of the occupation is present at L'Anse aux Meadows, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The island was inhabited by the Beothuks (known as the Skræling in Greenlandic Norse) and later by the Mi'kmaq.
From the mid-to-late 15th Century, European explorers like Diogo de Teive, John Cabot, João Fernandes Lavrador, Gaspar Corte-Real, Jacques Cartier, and others began exploration.José Saramango (2006)
European fishing expeditions
Fishing vessels with Basque, English, Portuguese, French, Dutch and Spanish crews started to make seasonal expeditions. Basque vessels had been fishing cod shoals off Newfoundland's coasts since the beginning of the 16th century, and their crews used the natural harbour at Placentia. French fishermen also began to use the area.
In 1578 Anthony Parkhurst provided a survey of the European fishery to the elder Richard Hakluyt, based on his observations of the fishery and Newfoundland's resources over the previous four years. Parkhurst claimed that, at that time, the English fleet consisted of 50 vessels (up from 30 vessels in just four years), the Spanish 100 vessels, the Portuguese 50 vessels, and the French / Bretons 150 (but mostly small). In addition, the Basques had 20-30 vessels solely engaged in whaling to obtain whale oil.
Colony of Newfoundland
John Cabot (1450–1499), commissioned by King Henry VII of England, landed on the northeast coast of North America in 1497. The exact location of his landing is unknown but the 500th anniversary of his landing was commemorated in Bonavista. The 1497 voyage has generated much debate among historians, with various points in Newfoundland, and Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, most often identified as the likely landing place.
The first Englishman to provide a detailed survey of the island and to advocate its settlement was Anthony Parkhurst, in 1577-8. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, provided with letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I, landed in St John's in August 1583, and formally took possession of the island.Brian Cuthbertson, "John Cabot and His Historians: years of Controversy." Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society 1998 1: 16–35. .See Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages (1971)
17th and 18th centuries In 1610 John Guy of Bristol founded the London and Bristol Company for the Plantation of Newfoundland. He established a settlement at Cuper's Cove, being appointed governor. Excavation of the site since 1995 has revealed that it was occupied continuously from that point. Other settlements were Bristol's Hope, Renews, New Cambriol, South Falkland and Avalon which became a province in 1623. The first governor given jurisdiction over all of Newfoundland was Sir David Kirke in 1638.
From the 1770s to the late 19th century, Moravian missionaries, Hudson's Bay Company agents, and other pioneer settlers along central Labrador's coastline learned to adapt to its rocky terrain, brutal winters, and its thin soil and scant sunshine. To maintain good health, to avoid the monotony of dried, salted, and tinned foods, and to reduce reliance on expensive imported food, they created gardens and succeeded after much experimentation in growing hardy vegetables and even some fragile crops.Marianne P. Stopp, "Lettuce and Labrador," Beaver, April/May 2001, Vol. 81 Issue 2, pp 27–30
Fishing Explorers soon realized that the waters around Newfoundland had the best fishing in the North Atlantic.Grant C. Head, Eighteenth-Century Newfoundland: A Geographer's Perspective (1976) By 1620, 300 fishing boats worked the Grand Banks, employing some 10,000 sailors; many were French or Basques from Spain. They dried and salted the cod on the coast and sold it to Spain and Portugal. Heavy investment by Sir George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, in the 1620s in wharves, warehouses, and fishing stations failed to pay off. French raids hurt the business, and the weather was terrible, so he redirected his attention to his other colony in Maryland. After Calvert left, small-scale entrepreneurs such as Sir David Kirke made good use of the facilities. Kirke became the first governor in 1639. A triangular trade with New England, the West Indies, and Europe gave Newfoundland an important economic role. By the 1670s there were 1,700 permanent residents and another 4,500 in the summer months.Gordon W. Handcock, "So Longe as There Comes Noe Women": Origins of English Settlement in Newfoundland (1989)
Newfoundland cod formed one leg of a triangular trade that sent cod to Spain and the Mediterranean, and wine, fruit, olive oil, and cork to England. Dutch ships were especially active during the time between 1620–1660 in what was called the "sack trade". A ship of 250 tons could earn 14% profit on the Newfoundland to Spain leg, and about the same on goods it then took from Spain to England. The journey across the Atlantic was stormy and risky; the risk was spread mostly by selling shares.Peter Pope, "Adventures in the Sack Trade: London Merchants in Canada and Newfoundland Trades, 1627–1648," Northern Mariner Jan 1996, Vol. 6 Issue 1, pp 1–19
Before 1700 the "admiral" system provided the government.Jerry Bannister, The Rule of the Admirals: Law, Custom, and Naval Government in Newfoundland, 1699–1832. (2003). The first captain arriving in a particular bay was in charge of allocating suitable shoreline sites for curing fish. The system faded away after 1700. Fishing-boat captains competed to arrive first from Europe in an attempt to become the admiral; soon merchants left crewmen behind at the prime shoreline locations to lay claim to the sites. This led to "bye-boat" fishing: local, small-boat crews fished certain areas in the summer, claimed a strip of land as their own, and sold their catches to the migratory fishermen. Bye-boat fishing thus became dominant, giving the island a semi-permanent population, and proved more profitable than migratory fishing.Kenneth Norrie and Rick Szostak, "Allocating Property Rights over Shoreline: Institutional Change in the Newfoundland Inshore Fishery." Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 2005 20(2): 234–263.
The fishing admirals system ended in 1729 when the Royal Navy sent in its officers to govern during the fishing season.
International disputes In 1655, France appointed a governor at Plaisance, as Placentia was known in French, thus starting the French colonization of Newfoundland. In 1697, during the devastating Avalon Peninsula Campaign, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville almost claimed the English settlements for New France. However, the French failed to defend their conquest of the English portion of the island. The French colonization period lasted until the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713. In the Treaty of Utrecht, France ceded its claims to Newfoundland to the British (as well as its claims to the shores of Hudson Bay). The French possessions in Acadia were also yielded to Britain. Afterward, under the supervision of the last French governor, the French population of Plaisance moved to Île Royale (now Cape Breton Island), part of Acadia which remained then under French control.
In the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), France acknowledged British ownership of the island. However, in the Seven Years' War (1756–63), control of Newfoundland became a major source of conflict between Britain, France and Spain who all pressed for a share in the valuable fishery there. Britain's victories around the globe led William Pitt to insist that no other power might have access to Newfoundland. In 1762, a French force landed in Newfoundland and initially succeeded in occupying eastern portions of the island, including the important port of St. John's. However, French ambitions of conquering the island ended in defeat at the Battle of Signal Hill. In 1796, during the French Revolutionary Wars, a Franco-Spanish expedition succeeded in raiding the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Since the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), French fishermen had had the right to land and cure fish on the western coast of the island, known as the "French Shore". They had a permanent base on nearby St. Pierre and Miquelon islands; the French gave up their rights in 1904. In 1783, the British signed the Treaty of Paris with the United States that gave American fishermen similar rights along the coast. These rights were reaffirmed by treaties in 1818, 1854, and 1871 and confirmed by arbitration in 1910.
19th century Newfoundland received a colonial assembly in 1832, which was and still is referred to as the House of Assembly, after a fight led by reformers William Carson, Patrick Morris and John Kent. Carson (1770–1843), a Scottish physician who had come to the island in 1808, called for the replacement of the system of arbitrary rule by naval commanders, seeking instead to have a resident governor and an elective legislature. His systematic agitation helped win London's recognition of Newfoundland as a colony (1824) and the grant of an elective house (1832). Carson was the reform leader in the House of Assembly (1834–1843, speaker 1837–1841). He served on the Executive Council (1842–1843).Cadigan, Newfoundland and Labrador: A History (2009) pp 87–116