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Thread: Was the oldest continuously inhabited town in Canada Portuguese?

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    Question Was the oldest continuously inhabited town in Canada Portuguese?

    In 1521 Portuguese explorer Joao Alvarez Fagundes with a group of men from the port city of Viana in Portugal, organzed an expedition in order to found a colony on Cape Breton Island. They had two ships including "a caravel and a large ship". First they sailed to the Azores, where they recruited 10 families of settlers (probably around 50 people?). Then the expedition crossed the Atlantic sailing to the Bahamas, and from there they sailed further along the coast in northern direction until reaching Cape Breton Island.

    Cape Breton Island was then inhabited by the Mikmaq Indians.

    They Portuguese established a settlement in the northern part of the island - and called it Santo Pedro.

    =====

    It is controversial when exactly - and if - this settlement ceased to exist (or if it survived continuously):

    In one article I read, that most probably it was abandoned by all settlers already after few years (probably around 1527). According to another source (Jean Alfonse) the settlement was not abandoned, but was destroyed by the Mikmaq Indians, who killed all of the settlers. According to yet another article, the settlement could survive until 1585 when Bernard Drake destroyed Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleets around Newfoundland. Finally, according to Wikipedia, the settlement survived until the early 17th century, when it was captured by the French (in the 1630s). The French changed its name from Santo Pedro to Saint Pierre and populated it with merchants from La Rochelle.

    Question is, which version is true? Could Portuguese fishermen & settlers survive there for over 100 years?

    If the last version is true it would mean that Santo Pedro / Saint Pierre is the oldest continuously inhabited white settlement in Canada (and perhaps in all of North Amercia).

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    Edit: Double post.
    Last edited by Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas; 02-16-2022 at 08:07 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by solarisregvm View Post
    Canada's forgotten Portuguese origin - In Canada, the Portuguese are not immigrants (or how Canada is also a Portuguese country)

    Nations generally choose, with greater or lesser accuracy and greater or lesser symbolism, the dates of their foundation. Portugal has some, and the Portuguese are confused about whether to consider 868, the year of the creation of the County that would later originate the Kingdom, 1139, 1143 or 1179 as the birth of their country. For Canada, the problem is probably more easily resolved. Or 1473, when, apparently, Canada was seen through the eyes of the Portuguese Joăo Vaz Corte-Real, or the beginning of the 16th century, when the first Canadian town was born. This village was founded by Gaspar Corte-Real, son of Joăo Vaz, in land that that navigator was quick to claim as belonging to its King, Dom Manuel of Portugal. It's called Portugal Cove - St Philip's.

    Portugal's interest in what would become Canada was great and spanned many decades. When they arrived there, in the 70s of the 15th century, the Portuguese were amazed by the richness of the surrounding waters. They were fabulously generous on fish, particularly cod. The Corte-Reals, the main sponsors of those fishing trips to America, called the neighboring mainland "Terra Nova do Bacalhau" - the English would later keep the primitive Portuguese name "Newfoundland". In 1506, Dom Manuel already decreed the payment of new taxes to the growing national fishing industry - growing, in large measure, due to the discovery and intense exploration of these previously virgin seas. To facilitate maritime work, the Portuguese sowed a complex network of warehouses along the coast, which, as they expanded, became towns. This one of Portugal Cove - St Philip's is one of the few, if not the only, Canadian land that survives from this remote and insufficiently explored period of the country's construction. But its name says it all: Portugal used to be there.


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