The theory that Basque whalers and other fishermen from towns on the Cantabrian coast had traveled to Newfoundland (Canada), around the year 1375, long before Christopher Columbus did so, has little historical evidence and only one certainty: the Spanish left a deep footprint in northwestern Canada. Thus, when French navigator Jacques Cartier named Canada and claimed these new territories –the Newfoundland– for the French Crown, he wrote down a surprising finding in his letters: «In those remote waters I found a thousand Basques fishing for cod».
Around the year 1001, ‘The Icelandic Viking Sagas’ locates the expeditions of the explorer Leif Ericson in Helluland, Markland and what he
called Vinland (“Pasture Land”). And archaeological investigations have indeed confirmed the existence of a Norse settlement, ‘L’Anse aux Meadows’, in Newfoundland, which was declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 1978. In any case, this Viking presence in America, which even genetic studies have endorsed, was ephemeral, and in no case were there settlements on the American mainland.
The Viking raids were supposedly succeeded by the Basques. According to the strictest version of the legend, the Basques arrived in Newfoundland around the 14th century and decided to keep it a secret to avoid sharing the area’s prodigious fishing grounds with other fleets. Between myth and reality, it is related that when French explorers came into contact with the natives of Newfoundland, they greeted them with the formula “Better priests!” (“The priests are better!” in Basque), which Basque sailors used as a response if someone asked them about their health.
Like it’s some kind of quest for the holy grailSeveral decades before Columbus, Portuguese navigators also undertook the voyage to Bacalao Island (also called “Bachalaos”), diffusely represented on 16th-century maps in the vicinity of Newfoundland. So the Portuguese Joao Vaz Royal Court would have reached the vicinity of Newfoundland in 1472, and it is even speculated that it bordered the banks of the hudson river and the San Lorenzo.
Throughout the following century, different European fishermen of both whales and cod settled permanently in Newfoundland. According to the doctoral thesis of Caroline Ménard ‘Galician fishing in Newfoundland, XVI-XVIII centuries’ (Santiago de Compostela University, 2006), the beginning of cod fishing among the Basques, Bretons and Normans in this region is usually placed in the year 1504. The French were followed by the Portuguese, and then the Galicians. The first trip to Newfoundland undertaken by a Galician was recorded in 1517, in the town of Pontevedra specifically, and recorded in a rental contract that brought together a merchant from Pontevedra, Fernando de la Torre, with a sailor from Betanzos, Juan de Betanços, so that the latter would serve the former in a campaign to fish for cod, for a salary of about five gold ducats.
From that year on, commercial fishing, cultural and possibly genetic exchanges were very frequent between Galician, Basque (Biscayan and Gipuzkoan) and Basque fishermen. Newfoundland Native Americans. In 1527, an English ship arrived in Newfoundland and encountered some 50 Spanish, French, and Portuguese vessels fishing. The Spanish factories scattered along the coasts of Newfoundland, Labrador and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence gathered up to 9,000 people in some seasons and constituted the first great industry in the history of North America.
Originally a large center for cod, the Island of Newfoundland evolved into a preferred target for whalers. The whaling tradition in the Bay of Biscay It dates back to the Middle Ages and was an important driving force for the coastal towns. The main source of profit was in the fat of the animal, later converted into an oil that they called saín. This product was used for lighting and burned without giving off smoke or smell. Likewise, the bones served as construction material for making furniture. The meat was hardly consumed in Spain, but it was salted and sold to the French.
As a result of the exhaustion in the Catabric of these animals, which came here only during their calving period, it was inevitable that these fishermen would make the leap in search of other fishing grounds. In the decades from 1530 to 1570, the whaling business registered its heyday. The fleet came to be made up of some thirty ships, manned by more than two thousand men, who captured some four hundred whales each year.
The footprint in Newfoundland
The annual itinerary of the fishermen began with their departure from the Iberian Peninsula in the second week of June. The Atlantic crossing took about 60 days, reaching Newfoundland in the second half of August, in time to intercept the whales on their autumn migration from the Arctic Ocean to the South Seas. The hunt lasted until the end of the year, when the arrival of winter covered the waters of the bay with ice and made navigation very complicated. That is why only the boats that had not managed to catch a good catch stayed in North America during the winter season. The return trip was usually shorter, between 30 and 40 days, thanks to favorable currents and winds.
As the 17th century progressed, the decline of both cod fishermen and whalers from the Peninsula accelerated. The entry onto the American scene of French, English, Danish, and Dutch sailors, among others, severely compromised activity in Newfoundland. The King of France It came to prohibit the Spanish from fishing in its waters, refusing to provide them with passports and preventing French sailors from embarking on Spanish ships, a practice that had been carried out because the French were necessary for the work of trenching cod. The Treaty of Utrecht, which marked the passage of Newfoundland from French to English hands, was the final blow to an industry that was no longer as profitable as it used to be.
Without a strong naval presence in the area, Spanish fishermen depended on agreements with the French and English, which made things even more difficult for them. With a great demand for cod in Spain, English fishermen rose in a few years as the most important suppliers of these fish, which entered the Peninsula through Galicia and whose waters did not meet the needs of the country. The last thing the British wanted was for Galicians to go to Newfoundland to buy the merchandise they sold in Spain.
Both Basques and other peninsulars left a deep mark on the inhabitants of the Island of Newfoundland. Many of the current names of cities and other places are of Spanish origin. As an example, the city Port aux Basques it is present on maps of 1612; Port-au-Choix is a distortion of Portuchoa, “little port”; and Ingonachoix (Aingura Charra) translates as “bad anchoring”. Galician references can also be found in the toponymy. The name of Ferrol appears on a map of Newfoundland from 1674 to distinguish the northern tip of the island.