Placentia Harbor, Newfoundland. Photo overlooking the town and harbor of Placentia. Low hills are in the background, a stone wall and wooden fence in the foreground.
31 March 2021
From a European perspective, Newfoundland is an apt, if rather unoriginal, name. Newfoundland is a large island off the east coast of North America, which along with Labrador forms the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It became the tenth and most recent province of Canada when it joined the confederation on 31 March 1949.
Newfoundland is the site of the only documented Norse settlement in North America, at L'Anse aux Meadows. It was also the first English overseas colony, claimed by Humphrey Gilbert in 1583.
But of course, Europeans were not the first people to inhabit the island, and it wasn’t really “new found.” The inhabitants at the time of English colonization were the Beothuk. The Beothuk were probably an Algonquian people, but not enough of their language survives to determine that with certainty. The Beothuk were gradually driven to extinction through disease and starvation from the loss of hunting territory to European settlers and other indigenous peoples. The last full-blooded Beothuk, a woman named Shanawdithit, died in 1829 of tuberculosis.
The Mi’kmaq name for the island known as Newfoundland is Ktaqmkuk, meaning land across the water.
The first reference to the island as Newfoundland is in the form of a noun phrase, with new-found used as an adjective. It appears in a financial record of payments made to fishermen from Bristol, England. From the Daybooks of King’s Payments (a.k.a. the Household Books) for 1502:
Sept. 25–30 Item to the merchauntes of bristoll that have bene in the newe founde launde xx li
Use as a proper noun dates to at least 1568 when it appears in a translation of André Thevet’s The New Found Worlde. The passage makes reference to the river we now know as the Saint Lawrence and the European search for a Northwest Passage to Asia:
Of the Countrey called New found land.
Cap.82.[...]
This new found land is a region, that is one of the farthest partes of Canada, and in the same land there is found a riuer, the which bicause of his bredth and length séemeth to be almost a Sea, and it is named the riuer of the thrée brethren, being distant from the Ilands of Eßores foure hundreth leagues, and from Fraunce nine hundreth: it separateth the Prouince of Canada from this New found land. Some iudge it to be a narow Sea, like that of Magellan, by the which ye may enter from the West sea, to the South sea. Gemafrigius, although he was expert in Mathematike, hath herein failed & erred, for he maketh vs beleue, that this Riuer of which we speake is a straight, the which is named Septentrionall, and so hath he sette it out in his Mappa Mundi. If that which he hath written be true, in vaine then haue the Portingals bene, and Spanyards to séeke a new straight distant from this, aboue .3000. leagues, for to enter into the South sea, to goe to the Ilands of Moluques, where as the spices are. This Countrey of New found land is inhabited with barbarous men, being clothed in wilde beastes skinnes, as are those of Canada: this people is very frowarde and vntractable, as our men can well testifie that goe thither euery yeare a fishing.
The initial value of Newfoundland to the English can be found in Robert Hitchcock’s 1580 A Pollitique Platt for the Honour of the Prince, which details the value of the Newfoundland fishing industry:
This greate benefite, is no lesse to bee valued, for the profite of this Realme and subiectes: then the benefite of the Herynges. For euery Shippe, beeyng but of the burden of lxx. tunne, if God blesse it with safe retourne, from Newfounde lande, will bryng home to his Port (in August,) twe[n]tie thousande of the beste and middle sort of wette fishe (at the leaste) called blanckfishe, and tenne thousande drie fishe, whiche beyng solde vppon the Shippes retourne, as it maie be at Newhauen in Fraunce but for fourtie shillynges the hundreth of wette fishe, whiche is not fower pence the fishe. And xxshillynges the hundreth of drie fishe, which is not twoo pence the fishe, amounteth to fiue hundreth pound at the least.
The Newfoundland dog breed originated on the island. The earliest known reference to the breed is in the journal of naturalist Joseph Banks, who visited Newfoundland and Labrador in 1766. From his journal for 10 October 1766:
Almost Every Body has heard of the Newfoundland Dogs I myself was desird to Procure some of them & when I set out for the Countrey firmley beleivd that I should meet with a sort of Dogs different from any I had Seen whose Peculiar Excellence was taking the water Freely I was therefore the more surprizd when told that there was here no distinct Breed those I met with were mostly Curs with a Cross of the Mastiff in them Some took the water well others not at all the thing they are valued for here is strenght as they are employd in winter time to Draw in Sledges whatever is wanted from the woods I was told indeed that at trepassy Livd a man who had a distinct breed which he calld the original Newfound land Dogs but I had not an opportunity of Seeing any of them.
Sources:
Banks, Joseph. Journal (10 October 1766). Joseph Banks in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1766. A. M. Lysaght, ed. Berkeley: U of California P, 1971, 149–150. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Everett-Heath, John. Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, sixth ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020. Oxfordreference.com.
Harder, Kelsie B. Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names: United States and Canada. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1976.
Hitchcock, Robert. A Pollitique Platt for the Honour of the Prince. London: Ihon Kyngston, 1580, sig. a4r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2019, s.v. Newfoundland, n.; March 2019, s.v., new-found, adj.
Pearce, Margaret Wickens. Coming Home to Indigenous Place Names in Canada (map). Canadian-American Center, University of Maine, 2017.
Rayburn, Alan. Oxford Dictionary of Canadian Place Names. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford UP Canada, 1999.
Thevet, André. The New Found Worlde. London: Henrie Bynneman for Thomas Hacket, 1568, 133r–v. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Williamson, James A. The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery Under Henry VII. Hakluyt Society, second series 120. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1962, 216. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Photo credit: Michael Rathwell, 2006. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.