Newfoundland: The Amphibious Province, 1610-1697

A colony built on cod: We follow how the massive seasonal fishing industry of the 1500s, with its intense competition among Spanish, English, French, Basque, & Portuguese mariners in the frigid North Atlantic waters off of Newfoundland, eventually went ashore and began to construct year-round “plantations” around coves on the rugged shoreline, usually without state involvement or approval. We observe how planters, migratory fishermen, and aristocratic proprietors vied for control of the makeshift colonies in Newfoundland, leading to the emergence of a free-wheeling and hard-drinking colonial society, and ultimtately, to a cataclysmic war between France and England for control of the world’s richest fishing grounds. Please sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures, including “The Successful Failure” on Jamestown and the founding of Virginia: https://www.patreon.com/u5530632 Our previous lecture on “The Elizabethan Dream: How England Became a Sea Power” -- https://historiansplaining.com/episodes/the-elizabethan-dream-how-england-became-a-sea-power/ Image: Scene of a Newfoundland cove with fishing ship & “stage,” from a French woodcut, via Heritage Newfoundland & Labrador, “The French Newfoundland Fishery in the 17th Century” Sources: Pope, “Fish Into Wine: The Newfoundland Plantation in the Seventeenth Century”