St Johns, Newfoundland and Labrador

History

Considered to be "North Americas Oldest City", St. Johns is one of the oldest settlements in North America, with year-round settlement beginning sometime after 1630 and seasonal habitation long before that. It is not, however, the oldest surviving English settlement in North America or Canada, having been preceded by the Cupers Cove colony at Cupids, founded in 1610, and the Bristols Hope colony at Harbour Grace, founded in 1618. In fact, although English fishermen had begun setting up seasonal camps in Newfoundland in the 16th Century, they were expressly forbidden by the British government, at the urging of the West Country fishing industry, from establishing permanent settlements along the English controlled coast, hence the town of St. Johns was not established as a permanent community until after the 1630s at the earliest. Other permanent English settlements in the Americas that predate St. Johns include: St. Georges, Bermuda (1612) and Jamestown, Virginia (1607), with the September 1565 date for the founding of St. Augustine, Florida establishing it as the oldest continuously inhabited community of European-ethnicity settlement in North America.

Sebastian Cabot declares in a hand written text in Latin in his original 1545 map, that the St. Johns earned its name when he and his father, the Venetian explorer John Cabot became the first Europeans to sail into the harbour, in the morning of 24 June 1494 (against British and French historians stating 1497), the feast day of Saint John the Baptist. However, the exact locations of Cabots landfalls are disputed. A series of expeditions to St. Johns by Portuguese from the Azores took place in the early 16th century, and by 1540 French, Spanish and Portuguese ships crossed the Atlantic annually to fish the waters off the Avalon Peninsula. In the Basque Country, it is a common belief that the name of St. Johns was given by Basque fishermen because the bay of St. Johns is very similar to the Bay of Pasaia in the Basque Country, where one of the fishing towns is also called St. John (in Spanish, San Juan, and in Basque, Donibane).

The earliest record of the location appears as Sao Joao on a Portuguese map by Pedro Reinel in 1519. When John Rut visited St. Johns in 1527 he found Norman, Breton and Portuguese ships in the harbour. On 3 August 1527, Rut wrote a letter to King Henry on the findings of his voyage to North America; this was the first known letter sent from North America. St. Jehan is shown on Nicholas Desliens world map of 1541 and San Joham is found in Joao Freires Atlas of 1546. It was during this time that Water Street was first developed, making it the oldest street in North America.

On 5 August 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed the area as Englands first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. There was no permanent population, however, and Gilbert was lost at sea during his return voyage, thereby ending any immediate plans for settlement. The Newfoundland National War Memorial is located on the waterfront in St. Johns, at the purported site of Gilberts landing and proclamation.

By 1620, the fishermen of Englands West Country controlled most of Newfoundlands east coast. In 1627, William Payne, called St. Johns "the principal prime and chief lot in all the whole country". The population grew slowly in the 17th century and St. Johns was the largest settlement in Newfoundland when English naval officers began to take censuses around 1675. The population would grow in the summers with the arrival of migratory fishermen. In 1680, fishing ships (mostly from South Devon) set up fishing rooms at St. Johns, bringing hundreds of Irish men into the port to operate inshore fishing boats.

The towns first significant defences were likely erected due to commercial interests, following the temporary seizure of St. Johns by the Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter in June 1665. The inhabitants were able to fend off a second Dutch attack in 1673, when this time it was defended by Christopher Martin, an English merchant captain. Martin landed six cannons from his vessel, the Elias Andrews, and constructed an earthen breastwork and battery near chain Rock commanding the Narrows leading into the harbour. With only twenty-three men, the valiant Martin beat off an attack by three Dutch warships. The English government planned to expand these fortifications (Fort William) in around 1689, but actual construction didnt begin until after the French admiral Pierre Le Moyne dIberville captured and destroyed the town in the Avalon Peninsula Campaign (1696). When 1500 English reinforcements arrived in late 1697 they found nothing but rubble where the town and fortifications had stood.