A History of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic to 1818

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Ryan, Shannon, 1941-

A history of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic to 1818 [electronic resource] / Shannon Ryan.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Electronic monograph.

Issued also in print format.

ISBN 978-1-77117-017-8 (EPUB).--ISBN 978-1-77117-018-5 (Kindle).--

ISBN 978-1-77117-019-2 (PDF)

1. Newfoundland and Labrador--History--To 1763. 2. Newfoundland and Labrador--History--1763-1855. I. Title.

FC2171. R92 2012            971.8’01            C2012-905770-3

© 2012 by Shannon Ryan

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As happens in these cases, I owe thanks to many people and institutions for assistance with this manuscript. Chris Youé, then Head, History Department; Reeta Tremblay, then Dean of Arts; and the administration of Memorial University allowed me office space and office assistance so that I could write.

The following individuals helped me in various ways: Leslie Harris, President Emeritus, MUN, gave general advice and introduced me to Newfoundland history when he was an assistant professor and I a student in 1963 (Dr. Harris passed away 26 August 2008); the late Keith Matthews, History Department, MUN, supervised my MA thesis, and his D. Phil. thesis brought Newfoundland historical studies to new levels and is mentioned frequently in this work. The following read the manuscript and offered advice: Glyndwr Williams (D. Litt., MUN), Professor Emeritus, London, who supervised my PhD thesis; John Widdowson (D. Litt., MUN), former professor, Folklore Department, MUN, and former professor, University of Sheffield; Rex Brown, retired teacher and historian; Larry Small, retired folklorist, MUN; and Patrick O’Flaherty (D. Litt., MUN), historian and author, Professor Emeritus, MUN. Mekaela Mahoney, PhD student, MUN, and my assistant, was an enormous help on this manuscript and also did the Index. Sarah Palmer, Professor of Maritime History, University of Greenwich, and an old friend, was always available for advice. Former students and colleagues Willeen Keough, PhD, (now at the History Department, Simon Fraser University); Maudie Whelan, PhD, academic and journalist; Carla Wheaton, PhD, Parks Canada; Assist. Prof. Terry Bishop-Stirling, History Department, MUN; Professor Sean Cadigan, present head, History Department, MUN; Jeff Webb, PhD, History Department, MUN; Prof. Lewis R. Fischer, History Department, MUN, D. Litt., U of Bergen; and Melvin Baker, PhD, Historian and University Archivist, MUN, were quite helpful. The staffs of the Maritime History Archives, Folklore and Language Archives, and Centre for Newfoundland Studies—all at MUN; the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador; and the Newfoundland Collections at the St. John’s Public Library were also quite helpful.

My contacts and friends in London were part of this book in various ways: Robert Parker, British Library, now retired; and Sandra Tuppen, also British Library, both helped with accessing sources at the old and new British Library, as did other staff there. I also received assistance from the staffs of the Institute of Historical Research and of the neighbouring Senate House Library, including the Goldsmith Library (both under the University of London). And colleagues from my graduate studies in London, including Bob Holland, Commonwealth Studies, London (now retired) and Judith Rowbotham (now History Department, Nottingham Trent University), were helpful and encouraging.

Finally I must thank all who helped with the production of the final manuscript: Fran Warren, administrative officer, History Department, and Beverly Evans-Hong, Renee Clowe, and Betty Anne Lewis, secretaries in the History Department, MUN. And of course, the staff of Flanker Press, my publisher, especially their very able editor Iona Bulgin.

PREFACE

The story of English Newfoundland up to 1818 encompasses two themes. First, there is the experience of a region in the North American world that lacked a suitable agricultural base but had a major supply of codfish that was in great demand. Unlike the fur trade, the other major early commercial activity in what is now Canada, the production of codfish did not require year-round residence but did need numerous men, young and old, for the fishing season each summer and early fall. The second theme involves the evolution of this successful migratory fishery (Newfoundland) from that of a fishing ship anchored on the Grand Banks in the North Atlantic to that of a Colony by 1818—an evolutionary phenomenon that occurred quickly over the two decades preceding 1818.

This present study draws upon my lectures to students at Memorial University of Newfoundland over a period of thirty-plus years. I always lectured on Newfoundland in the context of the Atlantic colonial world and the European world because Newfoundland’s development was affected in major ways by what occurred on both sides of the Atlantic: thus the digressions and asides. It will also become evident that this introductory history is limited in its geographical scope. I have concentrated on the east coast of the island, touching only briefly on the west and south coasts, the northern peninsula, and the Labrador coast. Only in recent years have historians, such as Ronald Rompkey, done much original work on the French Shore, for example, while much of recent scholarship on the Codroy Valley concentrates on the origins of European and Mi’kmaq settlement in the early 1800s.

This is intended to be a general history suitable as an introduction to early Newfoundland history for students and, I hope, the general reader. In an article in the Newsletter: Royal Historical Society (Spring/Summer 2006), Dr. Munch-Petersen, University College, London, made some interesting points regarding popular history versus the scholarly monograph. Although he does not condemn scholarly books and articles, Munch-Petersen believes they are not enough; he summarizes his conclusion in two sentences:

Yes, we need to continue to labour at the archival coalface or wherever and to publish the findings in scholarly journals [and monographs]. But we also need to learn how to write accessible history books—books which can be read by the layman.

I have laboured at the archival coalface and it is with great pleasure that I approach this book with the intention of distributing the coal I have mined to a larger public.

Consequently, in addition to my own researches, this book depends on secondary works such as those by Sean Cadigan, Gillian Cell, Gordon Handcock, C. Grant Head, Keith Matthews, Patrick O’Flaherty, Peter Pope, Daniel W. Prowse, and others.

In the spring semester of 1969, before beginning my Master of Arts degree on the internal developments of the nineteenth-century cod fishery in Newfoundland, I was hired by MUN’s History Department to examine the Colonial Office 194 Series and extract from this collection statistical information on the production and exports of fish and other lesser commodities produced in Newfoundland as well as figures for population and shipping. These statistics are in typescript form in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, MUN, and readily available. In this present work I refer to this Typescript as Abstract, short for An Abstract of the C. O. 194 Statistics. This collection of tables was never given an official title, and some refer to it as the Consolidated C. O. 194 Statistics (CO/194 is usually used now). This Abstract covers the period from c.1700 to c.1830. (See the selected bibliography for further information on sources.) I do not use traditional footnotes or endnotes in this work; references are few and inserted in the text, and explanatory notes are part of the text and include, as I say above, digressions and asides.

I must point out that my approach to the study of history is a traditional one. My training and writings and inclinations indicate that I study sources and then identify questions, questions that deal with economic, social, military, and political issues. What is here is an overview of my interests in early Newfoundland history and a summary of these interests as expressed in my lectures at MUN.

Before I begin my Introduction, which will concentrate on the beginning of the European presence in Newfoundland, I must deal briefly with the overall geography of Newfoundland and introduce its first inhabitants.

Newfoundland and Labrador—as the province is presently known—comprises that part on the North American mainland, Labrador, which consists of over 294,000 square kilometres (as defined by the Privy Council in 1927), and the Island of Newfoundland, with 111,000 square kilometres, or 113,000 and 43,000 square miles respectively. Labrador is part of the Canadian Shield, which covers about half of Canada, and the Island of Newfoundland is part of the Appalachian Region, which extends along the eastern side of North America from Newfoundland to Alabama. The Labrador Current flows south (often bringing icebergs) and, when this Current mingles with the Gulf Current flowing north from the Gulf of Mexico, fogs occur. These currents create an inviting environment for fish on the extensive fishing banks that extend east and south of the Island of Newfoundland (and Labrador).

People known as the Maritime Archaic culture were found on the coast of Labrador from about 7000 BC, and they spread south to the Island, where the culture persisted until about 1200 BC. From about 600 BC to 100 BC the Island was home to the Paleo-Eskimo people, who were in turn succeeded by the Dorset Eskimos (AD 100-500). By the time the Europeans arrived, the Island was occupied by a branch of the eastern Algonkian—the Beothuk. Meanwhile, at about the same time Labrador’s interior and southern coast were occupied by other Algonkian, known at first by Europeans as Naskapi and Montagnais, and now known as Innu. At the same time the northern coast of Labrador was populated by Eskimos, now known as Inuit. References to those early people and to the geographical features mentioned will occasionally occur throughout this volume.

This monograph begins with an Introduction: My Newfoundland, which sets the stage; it starts with a description of my birthplace and expands out from there. It lays the groundwork for what follows.

Chapter 1 will cover the beginnings of European interest in overseas exploration: the discovery of Newfoundland and Labrador; the fisheries and warfare of the 1500s; and English colonization, fisheries, and conflicts of the 1610s to 1660. This was a period of irregular activities. Except for the policy of Elizabeth and her court regarding the connection between the fishery and naval growth, there were no other consistent policies. Other developments were ad hoc: colonization and/or settlement; and law and order, including confirmation of the established customs of naval law and local customs. Several chartered colonies were attempted; the West of England cod fisheries struggled to develop a pattern of operation; and a major civil war was followed by Cromwell’s Commonwealth Government. As did Gillian Cell in her monograph, English Enterprise, I too see 1660 as a turning point. Chapter 2 treats the period of 1660-1713, one of confusion and chaos, when security, fishery, and settlement provoked conflict; when Crown and Parliament were once again at odds; when wars with the Dutch and the French took place and one could not really say what would happen. Queen Anne’s War ended in 1713, with the end of official French settlement in Newfoundland.

Chapter 3 covers the period of 1713-1763, and I generally use the term Britain instead of England because of the parliamentary union of England and Scotland in 1707. However, it is still appropriate to use England in certain cases and the Welsh have had to put up with the fact that Wales is often included in the official records as part of England. The defining theme of this period can be summarized in the word reprieve. Newfoundland was able to rest a little from the conflicts and chaos of the previous period, despite the wars that surrounded it and interfered with trade.

Chapter 4 examines 1763-1793, the period when the British fishery was consolidated, despite the American Revolution and its impact on the North Atlantic trade.

Chapter 5 covers 1793-1818, the period which confirmed Newfoundland as a Colony, at last—a totally unexpected development, according to my research, and one that could not be anticipated even as late as 1800.

The Conclusion summarizes my findings. The reader must remain cognizant that this is a study of Newfoundland in the context of the North Atlantic up to 1818.

The major question that this monograph tackles is, why did my ancestors, for example, move away from the coast, away from the beach; why and how did they develop a life without a house, a stage, a flake on the beach, or landwash as we say in Newfoundland? Why were they able to break the mould established in the 1500s and create a different kind of community without the Ocean at their Door (apologies to Ron Pollett)? The answer will become obvious by the end of this study.

INTRODUCTION:

MY NEWFOUNDLAND

Fisherman’s Road! Just why a road in Riverhead, Harbour Grace (or as we say, The River), would be christened so is difficult to understand; fishermen lived everywhere. My great-great-grandfather William Ryan moved in on the road, which would be just a wood path at that time, in 1820-1830?, and laid claim to a large piece of property about 1 kilometre or two-thirds of a mile from The River, really the mouths of three rivers/streams. Edmund Shanahan, my mother’s great-grandfather, established his household in Riverhead, near the mouths of the rivers/streams that gave Riverhead its name. But shortly after William Ryan’s move, Edmund claimed a piece of property just east of Ryan’s on Fisherman’s Road (Shanahan’s son, Nicholas, established his household next to Ryan’s property in the late 1850s). McCarthy, my father’s maternal great-grandfather, laid claim to the piece of land adjoining Ryan’s on the west, with Sheehan claiming the western piece adjoining McCarthy’s. These four families from east to west—Shanahan, Ryan, McCarthy, and Sheehan—thus owned the best parcels of agricultural land on the inside of Fisherman’s Road. However, there were patches of arable land further in the developing road, but they terminated near Fairy Hill, a large rock where fairies were reported to hang out.

On outside Fisherman’s Road, Mackay, Sullivan, and Griffin settled closer to Riverhead, or The River, near the sea in the vicinity of Edmund Shanahan’s original homestead; this development would suggest that these families were among the earliest immigrants to the area. From Mackay’s to Shanahan’s (inside) the land was not arable and this piece of rocky shrubbery divided inside from outside Fisherman’s Road. Given that all these settlers and the other thousands living in eastern Newfoundland were fishermen, why a road could be singled out to be named after fishermen or a fisherman raises an interesting question—which must remain unanswered. (There is a Fishermans Road on the Southern Shore, south of St. John’s, and another Fisherman’s Road in Victoria, inland of Carbonear. Also, s and ’s are used indiscriminately in Newfoundland place names.)

More satisfactorily answered, is why the late-arriving Irish families (c.1800) would find available land in Riverhead with wood and fresh water so conveniently located and vacant after about 300 years of nearly constant contact between England and Ireland on the one hand, and Harbour Grace on the other. These Irish newcomers included, in addition to the Shanahans and others already mentioned: Keough (Kehoe), Guildfoyle (Kilfoy), Cleary, Walsh, and Fahey. The explanation is obvious. The earliest European inhabitants in Riverhead were single men who left their employers in the fall because they had nothing at home to return to and their numbers were supplemented by subsequent deserters. With the firmly established settlement of Harbour Grace, which also included the colony of Bristol’s Hope after 1617-18, there were periods when extra labour was needed among the fishing establishments there. One could say that there was a pool of unemployed labour within the Harbour Grace region, 2-3 miles west of the harbour. After the Irish arrived with their families c.1800, the English West Country men living in Riverhead became incorporated into these new arrivals through intermarriage. Families such as Hibbs, Thistle, Northcott (Norcott or Northcote), and possibly St. John (usually pronounced Singeon in early Newfoundland and still pronounced so in England) became assimilated into the Catholic Irish families over time. It is obvious that Catholic women who married Protestant men took their husbands’ surnames, while their husbands adopted their wives’ religion. (This subject of assimilation of the earlier English by later Irish has been thoroughly studied by Willeen Keough in her work on the Southern Shore.)

According to Prowse, in 1755 the fishing admiral of Harbour Grace complained in a letter signed by Webber, Parsons, Snow, Martin, Sheppard, etc., all recognizable West Country names, that people living in huts in Riverhead were destroying sheep and cattle belonging to Harbour Grace inhabitants and that they were loose and bad characters harbouring numbers of idle persons (294). Thus, the earlier people had built huts in Riverhead by the 1750s and had taken up residence there. This would likely be the case in other harbours as well. (Harold Horwood, a St. John’s columnist, wrote in a Newfoundland Quarterly article (November 1966) describing The Masterless Men of the Butter Pot Barrens, on the Southern Shore. Although Horwood exaggerates by comparing them to Robin Hood and his Merry Men, there is a kernel of truth to his conclusions.) It is easy to see the attraction for the poorest of the menservants. Riverhead possessed plenty of firewood and fresh water and the streams, brooks, and nearby ponds contained trout, as well as salmon in season. In addition, they had access to rabbits/hares, other small game, and mussels as well as numerous berries. I strongly suspect that the numbers of these masterless men were never recorded by the naval governors and that they were never molested by the French and Indian raiders in 1696-1713; they were obviously too poor to be bothered with and they could flee inland. In any case, they had no legal titles and thus the best land was still available to the Irish during 1810-15. We will return to the settlement of Riverhead and related matters involving the inhabitant fishery in the final chapter.

In this discussion, I have mentioned my family in relation to the Napoleonic War period, when major changes occurred. During the years immediately before and following 1800 (i.e., 1793-1815), Britain was engaged in almost constant war with France (and even with the United States, 1812-14), and Newfoundland was transformed. In 1968, Keith Matthews (1938-84), completed his D. Phil. thesis on the West of England-Newfoundland migratory fishery to 1815—the end, approximately, of this fishery. Matthews concluded that the migratory fishermen decided to stop going back to Britain annually and to stay in Newfoundland after the war. (Britain officially became the United Kingdom in 1801 with the dissolution of the Irish Parliament following the suppression of the Irish insurrection of 1798—a civil war that continued for some time.) In 1969, Matthews suggested that I take up the story at that point and study the Newfoundland cod fishery after 1815. I did so and received an MA for my study of the internal developments of the cod fishery in the nineteenth century. I later completed a PhD thesis (London), under the supervision of Glyn Williams on Newfoundland’s saltfish markets in the nineteenth century; several years later I combined the two theses for my monograph, Fish Out of Water: A History of the Newfoundland Saltfish Trade, 1814-1914.

Although Matthews had accepted 1815 as the major turning point or milestone in Newfoundland history, not everyone agrees. O’Flaherty has taken 1843, when Representative Government was suspended, as the ending and beginning of his two well-researched and meticulously documented books. In 1699, a Parliamentary Act was passed allowing inhabitants to dwell in Newfoundland, and in 1832 Representative Government was granted to the Colony of Newfoundland. These, basically, are the milestones Jerry Bannister has chosen with his slightly misleading title, The Rule of the Admirals. (The use of the term Admirals can be confusing in this context, as I will explain later. But Bannister’s monograph itself is a substantial contribution to Newfoundland historiography.)

However, like Matthews I have accepted the Revolutionary (1793-1802) and Napoleonic wars (1803-15) as providing the most important milestone in Newfoundland’s early history. Thus, this study will take the story up to 1818, and the reason for the three extra years will become clear in the final chapter.

CHAPTER 1

ORIGINS OF FISHERY AND SETTLEMENT TO 1660

This chapter introduces the reader to two interrelated developments— the origins of European fishing, on- and off-shore, in Newfoundland waters, and European settlement on the Island. The early history of the local native peoples occupies a pre-eminent place in the history of Newfoundland, but their story is not a focus of this study. In my writings and lectures, these people appear only sporadically. For the latest discoveries of their past one must look to the excellent archeological and anthropological work of the academics in these departments at MUN and in other universities.

We know that the forebears of the human race came out of Africa. One branch turned east and some of those people crossed Asia and onto the American continents, with a few ending up in what is now Newfoundland and Labrador. A second branch turned west out of Africa and spread throughout Europe. Those reached the Atlantic Ocean, where they became comparatively sedentary for many millennia and created an advanced technology that allowed them to cover large distances on the open oceans. Thus, the natives of Europe and those of the present-day Americas were bound to meet at some point. One of these points was our province—but long before it became a Canadian province.

Although a semi-legendary Irish monk, St. Brendan, and a group of his companions are reported to have reached North America—travelling in a curragh (a boat made from hides stretched over a wooden frame)—in the eighth century AD, the first documented contact between Europeans and Newfoundland and Labrador occurred around AD 1000.

Beginning in the seventh century, many Norsemen (Vikings)— present-day Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes—left their homelands in Scandinavia and for the next several hundred years played a major role in the history of Europe. One argument suggests that the climate had warmed and the population had increased in these countries; another proposes that the stocks of herring had moved away from some of the fjords, forcing the people to go abroad in search of wealth. The Swedes explored and traded east and south into Russia, and most probably their leaders—the Rus—became the first monarchs of that nation. The Danes established major settlements in western Europe, occupying Normandy in Western France and establishing settlements in Ireland. Some of these Vikings entered the Mediterranean Sea to trade and explored as far east as the Black Sea, where they met their northern cousins who had travelled south through Russia. The Norwegians colonized Iceland and, later, Greenland, where they established two settlements on that island’s west coast—one to