Portuguese Newfoundland, Labrador, and Maritimes?

exactly what it says on the tin. i was looking into the colonization of the Americas recently and saw that, for a time from about 1500, Portugal apparently claimed and loosely settled Newfoundland and Labrador, and twenty years later tried the same in Nova Scotia

so, supposing that their claims are recognized, where would it go from there? Portuguese instead of French *Canada, perhaps?
 
Assuming Portugal can hold onto the area, it will eventually expand into the St. Lawrence valley, with colonists caming to farm and/or trade.
 
Ifseasonal fisheries and fisherman housings can be called "settlements".

While the portuguese claims were more or less acknowledged IOTL (at least in a first time), it didn't provoked a real demographical or economical boom : Africa and Asias were much, much more profitable and gained all the focus, and later Brazil.

You'd need a PoD in the XVIIth century, probably both a French and Dutch screw (maybe British as well), allowing Portuguese to create secondary colonies on the region, and you shouldn't expect a *Canada out of this but rather something akin to Portuguese holdings in Africa and Indian Sea : coastal control and more or less enforced suzerainty on the hinterland.

A Portuguese-screw big enough to remove Asian/African/Brazilian focus would probably remove the possibility of launching a new wave of colonisation in a totally different way.
 
Ifseasonal fisheries and fisherman housings can be called "settlements".

While the portuguese claims were more or less acknowledged IOTL (at least in a first time), it didn't provoked a real demographical or economical boom : Africa and Asias were much, much more profitable and gained all the focus, and later Brazil.

You'd need a PoD in the XVIIth century, probably both a French and Dutch screw (maybe British as well), allowing Portuguese to create secondary colonies on the region, and you shouldn't expect a *Canada out of this but rather something akin to Portuguese holdings in Africa and Indian Sea : coastal control and more or less enforced suzerainty on the hinterland.

A Portuguese-screw big enough to remove Asian/African/Brazilian focus would probably remove the possibility of launching a new wave of colonisation in a totally different way.

One thing you're overlooking is that the holdings in India and Africa received thousands of settlers early on, but with mortality rates very high in those regions. Until 1600, more Portuguese emigrated to Africa and Asia than to Brazil. However, records at the hospital in Goa show that within 2 years around half of the arrivals perished of tropical diseases (malaria, typhoid, diarrhea due to contaminated water, etc). This was the same in Batavia, the Dutch East Indies for instance. Luanda was founded with five times as many people as Plymouth Colony, and here too their numbers dwindled due to the disease ridden region. The descendants of the fewer than 100 men and women and children who arrived on the Mayflower in 1621 numbered 80,000 by 1920.

The harsh winter of North America north of the Chesapeake Bay was actually helpful to European settlement in the region, as these winters tended to kill parasites. This led to New England (New Netherlands too) having much higher rates of natural growth than Europe, and even than Virginia or Maryland (where the marshy lowlands hosted parasites and mosquitoes). Assisting the much higher growth rates in North America than Europe was the lack of large scale warfare, abundant land, few famines famines, and the spatial settlement of settlers on large homesteads rather than clustered villages.

All of this this made the population of New France, Acadia and New England grow much faster during the 1600-1800 period. Not surprisingly once large towns appeared such as Boston, their population growth rates were similar to those of towns in Europe (due to the lack of hygiene and prevalence of communicable diseases). However, since only a very small minority of inhabitants lived in dense towns (4% of the total), this was a mere blip in the demographic growth of New England, New York and New France.

In addition, in the new world settlements, men and especially women tended to marry younger than in Europe and therefore have far more children. The average in New France was 8 per woman, in Acadia it was 10, in New England around 7. The reasons being that the abundant supply of land made dowries unnecessary for women to be marriageable. This led to women in North America getting married around 8 years earlier than in Europe during the 17th century. Also, unlike Europe where many poorer girls in Catholic Europe joined the religious orders, in New France there was always a shortage of girls for the convents. As for men, in Europe, the average marrying age until the 18th century was in the late twenties (the 19th century would lower it). This was often due to the need to save up some money to buy land or learn a trade to become attractive as a prospective spouse. In New France, New England, New Netherlands, these things were no longer were a concern, because once an area was fully settled new lands were opened up to settlement further inland and further west.

If Portugal were to settle this region around 1520, with the same numbers they did in Luanda at its inception (around 1,200 or so during the first two years), you'd get a population of between 1.2 million to 1.9 million by 1800. That is after 278 years with not a single immigrant ever arriving. While that may seem incredible, I'd like to point out that in similar circumstances, the most of the world's 3.5 million Afrikaners today can trace their ancestors to around 1,000 individuals. The downside is that certain genetic defects become more common in a population that largely inbreeds amongst itself with few new immigrants being added.

Another place to make a comparison, in 1763 France settled 12,000 French in Cayenne, French Guiana, over 8,000 of them perished the first year. The Saint Lawrence valley received fewer immigrants during the entire period of French rule, yet today their descendants number upwards of 10 million.
 
I fail to the see the relevance, to be honest : the point wasn't that you didn't have enough men for settling these areas, but not enough interest doing so (or motivating them) in face of more interesting regions.

Portuguese colonialism (or other colonialisms, critically on this period) weren't exactly "grow and multiply, it would look cool on a map in some centuries" but about trade profits (it's why the region was overlooked by Valois on their time, for example).
 
I fail to the see the relevance, to be honest : the point wasn't that you didn't have enough men for settling these areas, but not enough interest doing so (or motivating them) in face of more interesting regions.

Portuguese colonialism (or other colonialisms, critically on this period) weren't exactly "grow and multiply, it would look cool on a map in some centuries" but about trade profits (it's why the region was overlooked by Valois on their time, for example).

Whilst, the grow and multiply was never a raison d'être for any of these colonies, moreso a byproduct of the settlement, as people before the 19th century had little concept of diseases.

Also, I have to disagree about not wanting settler colonies. Early Portuguese colonialism (pre-1460) was all about establishing settlements. The Azores and Madeira were settler colonies. The Azores, Madeira and Cape Verde were uninhabited, so trade couldn't have possibly been a motivation for settlement. The Azores and Cape Verde in particular showed little economic benefit, but the former was settled with peasants brought over from Portugal and settled on feudal captaincies, whilst the latter with a mix of New Christians and Africans. In the 15th century too, the Moroccan forts were conquered and the motivation according to the writers of the period was to eventually conquer North Africa and produce grain and wool.

Later on there are other cases of the Portuguese settling remote areas, albeit with little success. In the 17th century they sent around 600 Azoreans to Mozambique to found an agricultural colony (it was not a success), they tried the same in the next century with an agricultural colony in southern Angola with the same results. Even the settlement of Maranhão and Pará by large numbers of colonists mostly from the Azores during the 17th century really had no economic justification other than to keep other powers out (even in the 18th century this area remained remote and largely unproductive).

Brazil like North America is another region that at its inception offered little opportunity for trade, yet Portugal claimed it and in 1534 the King of Portugal divided this unsettled land into captaincies (just as the Azores had been a century earlier) and gave nobles the task of settling the area. The settlement began a few years later, but the colony wouldn't really be that productive until later in the century when its sugarcane became a major export.

In 1521, King Manuel I did give rights of lordship (much in the same way he did in Brazil) over what is now Newfoundland and Nova Scotia João Álvares Fagundes. The issue seems to be that they chose the incorrect spot to settle. However, to his credit Fagundes did attempt to build a permanent settlement, and it is due to him that later Europeans found abundant livestock in the region. Had he chosen a better locale than Sable Island, the colony could have grown, and history would obviously be different. Even if it had mostly been cod fisherman, one has to remember that the price of salted cod began rising in the early 1520s and by the 1540s was 2.5 times of what it had been in the early part of the century. By the 1550s, the price of cod once gain doubled before going back to its 1540s level. This alone would have brought some prosperity to any permanent settlement.

Also, unlike the French in 1534, Portugal was in a period of relative prosperity and peace for the Portuguese crown. France seemed to be consistently preoccupied with European wars, whereas being on the periphery of Europe allowed the kingdom to focus on overseas growth instead. As for the motivation to settle, one has to remember that Portugal already had issues with poverty by the 15th century due to a largely dry country and being isolate from the core of Europe. Often settlers were petty criminals, orphans and New Christians for whom anywhere was better than Portugal.
 
I strongly disagree when it comes for settlements in Atlantic not being related to trade : not only it offered convenient relays for African coastal trade roads (existing or planned), but it allowed the continuation of the semi-industrial plantation profit that existed in southern Portugal and Spain, especially on the much profitable sugar.

Given the climate of Newfoundland and Labrador, it's a given that such production wouldn't be the motive for an active policy of settlement.

I also fail to see where I'm supposed to have said that "Portuguese didn't wanted settlement colonies".
What I said :
Portuguese colonialism (or other colonialisms on this period) weren't exactly "grow and multiply, it would look cool on a map in some centuries" but about trade profits
Settlements colonies for the sake of settlement colonies, especially when it comes to a relativly remote place, far from political and economical focus, wasn't something Portugal practiced much.

If you had profit to reach, then you had settlement, often backed by policies.
Giving the lack of non-seasonal profit to be made in Eastern Canada (maybe fur, but even that wasn't that big of a deal IOTL), you'd simply not have the same political motivation to establish settlements.

And cod, in spite of being a good market, was simply not worth the same than plantation economy and Indian trade, and would pass much after these.

At the risk of repeating myself : Portuguese claims were acknowledged IOTL, but weren't really enforced against Western European fishermens and eventually settlers. I agree that Spanish occupation of Portugal really put an end to its possibilty of expansion and reinforcement of Atlantic areas.

But arguing of a possible coastal settlement is wholly different from "Portuguese Canada", political motivation, social motivation (or lack thereof), priorities getting straight to more wealthy points really prevent that.

Also, unlike the French in 1534, Portugal was in a period of relative prosperity and peace for the Portuguese crown. France seemed to be consistently preoccupied with European wars, whereas being on the periphery of Europe allowed the kingdom to focus on overseas growth instead.
You did have an oversea Valois policy, even if it was quite bound to be anecdotical. Eventually, South America was considered much more interesting than North America in this regard, giving the lack of interesting features for XVIth colonialism.
The choice of Antarctique over Nelle Angoulême, for example, was far less dictated by political realities in Europe than search for immediate profit.
 
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I strongly disagree when it comes for settlements in Atlantic not being related to trade : not only it offered convenient relays for African coastal trade roads (existing or planned), but it allowed the continuation of the semi-industrial plantation profit that existed in southern Portugal and Spain, especially on the much profitable sugar.

Given the climate of Newfoundland and Labrador, it's a given that such production wouldn't be the motive for an active policy of settlement.

I also fail to see where I'm supposed to have said that "Portuguese didn't wanted settlement colonies".
What I said in the very post you quote is



If you had profit to reach, then you had settlement, more or less pushed.
Giving the lack of non-seasonal profit to be made in Eastern Canada (maybe fur, but even that wasn't that big of a deal IOTL), you'd simply not have the same political motivation to establish settlements.

And cod, in spite of being a good market, was simply not worth the same than plantation economy and Indian trade, and would pass much after these.

At the risk of repeating myself : Portuguese claims were acknowledged IOTL, but weren't really enforced against Western European fishermens and eventually settlers. I agree that Spanish occupation of Portugal really put an end to its possibilty of expansion and reinforcement of Atlantic areas.

But arguing of a possible coastal settlement is wholly different from "Portuguese Canada", political motivation, social motivation (or lack thereof), priorities getting straight to more wealthy points really prevent that.

Sorry, perhaps I'm misunderstanding some of what you're writing, your sentence structure is a bit confusing at times.

Back to the original question poster though, any settlement of Newfoundland is going to be difficult at best, as the land is not well suited to agriculture, Labrador even less so.

However, if you want a pod let us look at historical facts, and if you're interested in creating a TL, the below is probably your best bet.

Firstly King Manuel I did grant João Álvares Fagundes all jurisdictional and proprietary rights over a region not yet discovered. Seeing that the Portuguese Crown recognized the Corte Reals as having the rights to Newfoundland, Fagundes attempted to establish a colony in what is today Nova Scotia, most likely Sable Island.

It is know that his initial goal was to establish a year-round fishing station sometime between 1521-1525. It is also known that he recruited settlers from Terceira and Viana do Castelo. The site chosen appears to have been Sable Island, a small 13 square mile island that is 109 miles from Nova Scotia's mainland. In 1582, when English explorer Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his men reached the island, they found cattle and pigs that had been introduced to the island by the Portuguese. Importantly, what the English reported finding were large reddish cattle (similar to those from Terceira). Historians tend to agree that the introduction of livestock suggests a colonization attempt of some size and complexity.

In addition, there is written evidence that King Manuel I sought to tax the cod fisheries. To that end, colonies were to be established to establish sovereignty over the region so as to have enough men to enforce this. However, like other colonisation attempts, this was to be granted to a proprietor (donatário) who would collect this tax and pay a portion of it to the crown. During this period, the Portuguese state itself would have little role in any colony of this sort, but a person like Fagundes could get the financial backing of a noble or a religious order.

The only thing I would suggest in such a pod is to have the site of colonisation chosen be somewhere like the Bay of Fundy. There you have a fertile region with good soils and an ice-free harbour from which ships can reach Mainland Portugal and the Azores year round.
 
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