There had always been friction with the French in North America, and Newfoundland was no exception. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) was designed to resolve some of these problems, which internationally it probably did, but unfortunately it simultaneously confirmed the process which restricted Newfoundland's development for the next 200 years. Under its terms the British maintained control of Newfoundland, but the French were accorded inshore fishing rights on a section of coastline from Bonavista northwards through the Straits of Belle Isle and southwards along the west coast to Point Riche near Port aux Choix. This was roughly half the Island's coastline on which English settlers (Newfoundlanders) would not be permitted to live.
A second treaty, Paris, followed in 1763, in which the islands of St-Pierre-et-Miquelon were acceded to France, while the rest of North America went to Britain. However this situation did not last for long, as the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 ended British rule in what became the USA. At this time the population of all of Newfoundland was estimated to be about 10,000, with 1,100 in St John's, while the Bay of Islands had no known settlers. Some fishing and trapping was being done on the Humber River at this time.
In 1783 another treaty, Versailles, changed the terms again and acceded to France the entire West Coast of the Island, from Cape John to Cape Ray. Known as 'The French Shore', it included the Bay of Islands within the French inshore fishery limits. This situation remained until 1904, at which time France relinquished all rights in Newfoundland. In North America she retained only St-Pierre-et-Miquelon which she has to this day, and accepted, in exchange for her claims to Newfoundland, some territory in west Africa.
Settlement of the Outer Bay of Islands had begun in earnest around the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Fishing families established themselves in the small coves and bays, just as they had done generations earlier on the east coast of the Island. But until 1904 such settlement on the French Shore contravened the Treaty of Utrecht, was jealously oppsed by the French, and was consistently discouraged by the British and even by the Newfoundland Government, established in limited form in 1832. For this reason most of the West Coast settlement was in the secluded inner reaches of the bays.
In 1835 Archdeacon Wix made his famous voyage described in his Six Months of a Newfoundland Missionary's Journal, 1835, and reported some very rough and ready conditions in the inner reaches of the Bay of Islands, near the mouth of the Humber River.
Saturday, 23 [May 1835].--I found that this bay had been visited by the Reverend William Bullock, in company with his Excellency, Sir Thomas Cochrane [Governor of Newfoundland] in 1829. He was the first clergyman, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, who had visited the place.
Sunday, 24.-- Held two full services, and baptized fourteen children.
Of his leaving, Wix says:
Thursday, 28.--The hills white with snow, by which the rain had been followed. The cliffs here are exceedingly high. One was pointed out to me from which a Frenchman, who had killed his brother, was condemned to leap into the sea, a height of more than 300 feet, quite perpendicular! It was offered to him to choose this alternative, or to be shot. Such was the decision of the captain...
A letter of 1887 from the captain of the Royal Navy ship HMS Bullfrog to a Mr Shearer, the operator of a lobster factory at Port Saunders on the Northern Peninsula, threatens that
This kind of event elicited in 1900 a letter to The Western Star of Corner Brook from a Mr Robert Joyce of Lark Harbour, saying that he had had four visits by warships, two British and two French, and also a letter "threatening and accusing me of packing lobsters". Little wonder that the economy of the Bay of Islands was slow to develop in those conditions. The church was the only institution to take any interest in this neglected part of Newfoundland until the 1880s, which may partly explain the loyalty even today of many people to their church. In 1882 two electoral districts, St George and St Barbe were established. The 1884 Census of Newfoundland reported 77 residents at Lark Harbour; that of 1891 reported 135.
Both the fishing industry and the copper mine at York Harbour, which operated from the mid 1890s until 1913, suffered from French harassment and lack of support from the British.
When the burden of the Treaty of Utrecht was lifted in 1904 and Newfoundlanders on the West Coast were finally able to lead normal free lives in their own country, it must have been a huge relief. But it takes a very long time to recover from the effects of centuries of neglect and oppression.
Derived from The Forgotten Bay, a historical survey of the Settlement of Lark Harbour and York Harbour in the Outer Bay of Islands, Newfoundland, by Stuart L. Harvey.
I sailed in her [the Brig Hope] for the Bay of Islands ... which I did not reach through adverse winds, until
Wix also commented on the immoderate behaviour of some of the people:
The arrival of a trading schooner among the people, affords an invariable occasion for all parties (with only one or two exceptions, and those, I regret to say, not among the females!) to get into a helpless state of intoxication. Women, and among them positively girls of fourteen, may be seen, under the plea of its helping them in their work, habitually taking their "morning" of raw spirits before breakfast. The same, the girls among the rest, are also smoking tobacco in short pipes, blackened with constant use... There are other instances in this bay of adulterous and incestuous connections with which I am unwilling to pollute my journal...
Distressing as it was, the behaviour Wix describes here is little different from what he might have observed at that time in any major city of Europe or North America.As no more eligible opportunity offered of leaving Bay of Islands, I started at six A.M., in a drenching rain in an open boat, with Michael James, a temporary resident in this bay, who was kind enough to assist in rowing me in an American marble-head whaling boat. He took me twenty-four miles to Little Harbour, where, as well as at Batteau Cove [Bottle Cove], I was very kindly treated by the French, who were fishing there. Here they had six French brigs moored, one a vessel of 350 tons... I slept on the floor at Little Harbour, at the house of a sister of Michael James, and proceeded at five, A.M., of
Real settlement had begun in the Outer Bay of Islands by 1859 when Edward Feild, Bishop of Newfoundland, on visitation, recorded the following in his Journal of a Voyage of Visitation, in the "Hawk", 1859:Seventh Sunday after Trinity, August 7th. At sea, and in Lark Harbour, Bay of Islands.--The wind continued to blow, and the sea to rage and swell all night; and the rolling and dashing of the waves against the side of the vessel were so incessant and violent that I could hardly remain in my berth. At two o'clock the vessel was put about, when I heard such a banging and thumping of the rudder, that I ran on deck to ascertain the cause. I found the wheel deserted, there being only two men on deck, and both engaged in hauling round the yards. I took the wheel, in night-shirt and night-cap only, without shoe or slipper, till the yards were round; fortunately not a long operation. I turned in again till six o'clock, when I found we had just weathered the southern entrance of the Bay of Islands; and as there was no change in the direction or force of the wind, I was very thankful to have the prospect of a harbour, and of ministering to the poor sheep in this bay, who have not seen a shepherd for four years. We beat into Lark Harbour, against a violent head-wind, and did not get to anchor till ten o'clock. The people on shore seemed to be employed in turning their fish, and other daily labour; but on sending to them, they expressed their readiness and desire to profit by the services. We could not begin our morning service till twelve o'clock, when the people had all come on board. Three children were conditionally baptized. Evening service at half-past four o'clock, after which three couples were married; one of these (couples) had brought two children to be baptized at my first visit, ten years ago; but it was nearly ten o'clock P.M., and just as my vessel was leaving the bay. The father, I remember, had gone a great many miles to fetch his children, and showed great desire to have them duly baptized, and was now equally anxious about his own marriage. I had a good deal of conversation with some of the men, who seemed to entertain a lively and grateful recollection of my former visit and services.
Meanwhile, troubles with the French continued. Captain R M Lloyd of HMS Bulfinch, a British naval patrol vessel, reported in 1876 a complaint by a Lark Harbour fisherman named George Sheppard. Sheppard informed Captain Lloyd that a French warship had come into the harbour and told the settlers... they must stop fishing there and take down their buildings, and if this was not done when they came round again they would do it for them.
... you will continue working your factory next year at great risk, for on any reasonable complaint on the part of the French of your operations interfering with the full enjoyment of their fishing rights, your factory will be suppressed.
In June and July of 1889 hundreds of lobster traps belonging to Newfoundland fishermen near Port Saunders were deliberately destroyed by crews of French warships, with the tacit support of the Royal Navy.
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