Canada / Parte of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

Title

Canada / Parte of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

Description

2 maps on one sheet shows the river St. Lawrence and New Scottland at the Fundy bay.

ca. 1820

Artist

Hughes

Historical Description

Newfoundland is the site of the only authenticated Norse settlement in North America. The first European visitors to Newfoundland were Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and English migratory fishermen and whalers. The island was visited by the Genoese navigator John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), working under contract to King Henry VII of England on his expedition from Bristol in 1497. In 1501, Portuguese explorers Gaspar Corte-Real and his brother Miguel Corte-Real charted part of the coast of Newfoundland in a failed attempt to find the Northwest Passage. After European settlement, colonists first called the island Terra Nova, from "New Land" in Portuguese and Latin. The name Newfoundland in popular discourse came from people discussing the "New founde land" in the new world. On August 5, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The indigenous people on the island at the time of European settlement were the Beothuk, who spoke an Amerindian language of the same name. Later immigrants developed a variety of dialects associated with settlement on the island: Newfoundland English, Newfoundland French.