The Coming Of The Europeans
The first recorded contact between Europeans and the native peoples of North America occurred in around 1000 AD, when a Norse expedition sailing from Greenland landed somewhere on the Atlantic seaboard, probably in Newfoundland . It was a fairly short-lived stay - according to the Icelandic sagas, the Norse were forced to withdraw from the area they called Vinland due to the hostility of the natives. In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain were finally persuaded to underwrite Christopher Columbus 's expedition in search of the westward route to Asia. Columbus bumped into the West Indies instead, but his "discovery" of islands that were presumed to lie off India encouraged other European monarchs to sponsor expeditions of their own. In 1497 John Cabot , supported by the English king Henry VII, sailed west and sighted Newfoundland and Cape Breton. On his return, Cabot reported seeing multitudes of cod off Newfoundland, and his much-publicized comments effectively started the Newfoundland cod fishery. In less than sixty years, up to four hundred fishing vessels from Britain, France and Spain were making annual voyages to the Grand Banks fishing grounds around the island. Soon some of the fishermen established shore bases to cure their catch in the sun, and then they started to over-winter here - which was how settlement of the island began. By the end of the sixteenth century the cod trade was largely controlled by the British and French, and Newfoundland became an early cockpit of English-French rivalries, a colonial conflict that continued until England secured control of the island in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht
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