Newfoundland and Labrador

D

Judicial

The judiciary consists of a Supreme Court, which is split between a Trial Division and an Appeals Division, seven district courts, 18 provincial courts, a family court, a juvenile court, and a traffic court. The Supreme Court hears appeals from lower courts, and it may decide to hear any civil or criminal case. Minor offenses are handled by magistrates located in small communities. The Trial Division of the Supreme Court goes on circuit during the summer months.

VIII

History

A

Indigenous Peoples

Nomadic indigenous peoples of the Subarctic culture area had been living in Labrador and Newfoundland for thousands of years when Europeans first began their explorations. The inhabitants of Labrador included a small number of Inuit along the northeastern coast, and two closely related Algonquian groups, the Naskapi and the Montagnais, who were dispersed throughout the rest of the land.

European explorers in the 16th century found only the Beothuk people on Newfoundland. Little is known about the Beothuk culture. Their relations with the fishers who frequented the island were peaceful, and they later lived peaceably with the Mi’kmaq who migrated from Nova Scotia. However, in the late 18th century the Mi’kmaq, incited by the French, began a destructive war against the Beothuk. Some Beothuk survived on Newfoundland while others fled to Labrador. However, the Beothuk continued to suffer from European encroachment and European diseases, and in 1829 the last known surviving Beothuk died of tuberculosis in St. John’s.

B

Viking Settlement

In ad 986 a Viking sailor from Europe, Bjarni Herjólfsson, coasted along the shores of Labrador and Newfoundland. Perhaps because of his voyage, the Vikings founded a settlement near present-day L’Anse aux Meadows on Newfoundland’s northeastern coast. In 1963 a team of Norwegian archaeologists reported finding the remains of this colony. There were foundations of nine buildings, all typical of known Viking structures. The largest building was the great hall, measuring 18 m by 14 m (60 ft by 45 ft) and containing the traditional central hearth. Ruins of a metal workers’ shop and an anvil were littered with hundreds of bits of slag and iron. The ore had been extracted from nearby iron bog deposits by an unknown process.

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The L’Anse aux Meadows site corresponds to the descriptions of Vinland by Viking explorer Leif Eriksson. Eriksson sailed to North America at the end of the 10th century and is believed to have called Newfoundland Vinland because of the grapes growing there. Although it is still uncertain whether this village actually was the famous Vinland, it was definitely Viking, and scientific tests have fixed the time of its existence as around ad 1000.

C

Rediscovery

For nearly 500 years after the Vikings deserted their settlement, there were no recorded European voyages to Newfoundland. Then, toward the end of the 15th century, European nations began their quest for the Northwest Passage, a water route to Asia through or around North America, and expeditions repeatedly touched on Newfoundland. As early as 1474 João Vaz Corte Real, a Portuguese nobleman, was given the title of “discoverer of the land of the codfish” for his explorations in the Atlantic. This may mean that he visited the Grand Banks and possibly even saw Newfoundland. However, Portugal was slow to follow up this voyage, and the island was neglected until 1497. In that year, John Cabot, an Italian explorer, sailed from England on the first of two voyages to Newfoundland. On his return, he reported that the codfish on the Grand Banks were so thick that he could scoop them up in baskets from the sides of the ship.

The report was all the encouragement that fishers in England’s western ports needed, for there was a valuable European market for fish. Within a short time, Spain, Portugal, and France also had ships on the Grand Banks. While the fishers began their operations, explorers continued to reach the rocky Newfoundland and Labrador coasts. Among them were: Gaspar Corte-Real in 1500 and 1501; João Fernandes, who held a patent as a llabrador, or small squire, in 1501; Sebastian Cabot in 1509; João Alvares Fagundes in 1520; John Rut in 1527; Jacques Cartier in 1534; and John Davis in 1586.

D

English Control

Although Spain claimed most of the Americas, including Newfoundland, it concentrated on its possessions farther south and did not interfere with non-Spanish ships coming to the Grand Banks. In spite of the Spanish claim, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, an English sailor and soldier, sailed into St. John’s harbor in 1583 and formally claimed the island for England. However, he could not make the claim stick because a majority of the fishing vessels around the island belonged to Spain. Two years later, Sir Bernard Drake firmly established English control by destroying the Spanish fishing fleet at Newfoundland. Thereafter, only English and French ships were at Newfoundland, with the French fishing vessels concentrated on the south coast of the island and on the mainland.

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