{{jct|province=NL|NL|100}}
\n{{jct|province=NL|NL|102}}"},"website":{"wt":"[http://www.placentia.ca Town of Placentia]"}},"i":0}}]}" id="mwBw">Town in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
Placentia Pleasure Plaisance | |
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Town | |
Coordinates: 47°14′45″N53°57′40″W / 47.24583°N 53.96111°W | |
Country | Canada |
Province | Newfoundland and Labrador |
Settled | early 15th century |
Government | |
• Mayor | Keith Pearson |
Population (2021) | |
• Total | 3,289 |
Time zone | UTC-3:30 (NST) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-2:30 (NDT) |
Area code | 709 |
Highways | Route 91 Route 100 Route 102 |
Website | Town of Placentia |
Placentia is a town located in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It consists of the amalgamated communities of Placentia ("Townside"), Southeast Placentia, Freshwater, Dunville and Jerseyside and also includes the Argentia Industrial Park.
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There is considerable evidence that Placentia Bay was intermittently occupied by Little Passage people. [1] Their descendants, the Beothuk, continued to settle there until the 17th century. Remnants of Beothuk occupation from the surrounding area has been carbon dated back to as far as 1500 CE. [1] Whether the Beothuk had come to permanently settle or just to fish has proved difficult to ascertain. [1] By the late 17th century, the English and French settlers and fishermen had claimed the bays of Placentia. [2] This effectively cut the natives off from valuable salmon, seal, and other valuable coastal resources. [2] This is one of several reasons attributed as to why the Beothuk eventually disappeared from Placentia, as well as several other areas of Newfoundland.
It is unclear when Placentia terrain was first settled by Europeans, but Spaniards from Biscay fishermen were fishing in the area as early as the beginning of the 16th century, using Placentia as a seasonal centre of operations. The last will of a Basque region seaman has been discovered in an archive in Spain in which Domingo de Luca asks in 1563, “that my body be buried in this port of Plazençia in the place where those who die here are usually buried.” It is believed to be the oldest original civil document written in Canada. [3] [4]
Contemporary scholars think that the land called Vinland extending from Nova Scotia to L'Anse aux Meadows consisted of at least a few settlements; [5] probably on the Avalon Peninsula too. "Placentia" may be derived from the similarly named village of Placencia de las Armas (Basque: Soraluze), which is located in the Gipuzkoa province of the Basque Country.
Placentia may also be derived from the Latin placentia ("smooth"), a name also probably given by the Basques. [6] Placentia's large, rocky beach meant that fish could be salted and dried on the beach rocks rather than on a constructed wooden fishing stage, saving both time and effort.[ citation needed ]
In 1655, the French, who controlled more than half of the island of Newfoundland, and most of Atlantic Canada, made Placentia (French: Plaisance) their capital. They built Fort Plaisance in 1662, which was followed by Fort Royal in 1687, and Fort Saint Louis in 1691. The establishment of a fort with a garrison allowed fishermen to pursue their activities with greater safety in neighbouring harbours. The French garrisons at Plaisance were small, but despite that fact, the soldiers and French privateers managed to hold their own in the face of numerous English attacks during the two major conflicts of the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession, which marked the colony's history. Recollect (Franciscan) friars from New France built a friary here in 1689, which lasted until the expulsion of the French in 1714. In 1692, Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce de Lahontan, Baron de Lahontan defended the French port. [7] [8]
In 1711, the British Rear-Admiral Hovenden Walker considered attacking the French at Placentia with a Royal Navy fleet containing fifteen ships, armed with a total of nine hundred cannons, and transporting 4,000 soldiers. However, he decided that doing so was not a viable option. [9]
In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht forced the French to abandon their Placentia Bay settlements and migrate to Louisbourg, and Placentia became a British possession. Many of the French fishermen who had to abandon the fisheries in Placentia ended up at the fisheries in Isle Royale, otherwise known as Cape Breton Island. [10] In the spring of 1714, the governor of Plaisance began organizing the emigration. [11] Three royal ships accompanied by merchant vessels took the French residents of Placentia to the future site of Louisbourg. [10] The group consisted of 116 men, 10 women and 23 children. [10] The Miꞌkmaq who had resided there also abandoned Placentia following the Treaty of Utrecht. [12] William Taverner suggested that the Miꞌkmaq left because they had been deprived of their French trading partners. [12]
For a time in the 18th century, it still rivalled St. John's in size and importance, as evidenced by the future King William IV's summering at Placentia in 1786 and using it as his base of operations when acting as surrogate judge in Newfoundland. [13] The town was described by the then-Prince as "a more decent settlement than any we have yet seen in Newfoundland" and was reported as having a population between 1,500 and 2,000 people. [13]
Considering that the population of Newfoundland was reported as 8,000 11 years earlier, in 1775, Placentia's relative size and importance becomes apparent.
By the 19th century, it was more fully eclipsed by St. John's and Harbour Grace, Placentia continued to be an important town, regional centre to the southern Avalon Peninsula and the eastern Burin Peninsula.
From the mid-18th century through to the 1830s, numerous Irish immigrants from Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny and Cork settled in Placentia, so that the population of the modern town is largely of a mixture of West Country English and south-eastern Irish background. In the 18th century there were also a large number of settlers from the Channel Islands, from which Jerseyside, a prominent section of the town, derives its name. Some time after 1810 General George Garth was appointed as Lieutenant Governor of Placentia, a post he held until his death in 1817.
In 1940, via an agreement between the British and American governments (Newfoundland not joining Canada until 1949), a large American military base was constructed at nearby Argentia (which is now within the town of Placentia's boundaries). For a time, this was the largest American military base outside of the United States, and it played an integral role in World War II, earning the nickname "the Gibraltar of the Atlantic."
This huge development revolutionized the Placentia area both economically and culturally. Essentially, the American base introduced a widespread cash-based economy. Suddenly, people who had fished all of their lives (engaging in a type of barter called the truck system) had access to good-paying jobs on the American base. American technology enriched the living standards of Placentia residents, while the local culture was influenced strongly by the American presence. Similarly, it prompted a huge population boom, growing from 1,900 people in 1935 [14] to well over 8,000 in the 1960s (note: these figures account for the current boundaries of Placentia, which at the time consisted of four separate towns: Placentia, Dunville, Jerseyside, and Freshwater).
The post office was established in 1851. The first postmistress in 1863 was Mary Morris.
On September 16, 1870, it became the seat of the Catholic pre-diocesan Apostolic Prefecture of Placentia, but instead of becoming a diocese it was suppressed in 1891, its territory being merged into the Diocese of St. John's, Newfoundland. [15]
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Placentia had a population of 3,289 living in 1,543 of its 1,827 total private dwellings, a change of
In the 2016 census, Placentia's population was reported as 3,496, [17] down significantly from the 2001 figure of 4,426. [18] This population decline has been ongoing since the early 1990s; in the 1996 census, Placentia was, proportionately, the 2nd fastest shrinking town in Canada, [19] dropping from 5,515 to 5,013 between 1991 and 1996.
Year | Number of inhabitants | Year | Number of inhabitants |
---|---|---|---|
1671 | 74 | 1673 | 71 |
1685 | 153 | 1687 | 119 |
1691 | 107 | 1693 | 108 |
1698 | 208 | 1704 | 158 |
1705 | 192 | 1706 | 205 |
1710 | 248 | 1711 | 189 |
EconomyFrom the outset, it was fish that brought the Europeans to Newfoundland, as well as their patterns of settlement. [22] While Placentia was considered a military base, it was also a colony with an economy based on the cod fishery and cod trade. Fishing was a consistently shared activity between French ships and resident boatkeepers. The fisheries of Placentia played a large role in ultimately securing Newfoundland as the world's largest exporter of salt codfish. [22] After the war of 1689 had set back the colonial fishing industry, Placentia quickly renewed its seasonal fisheries, and in 1698 had sent more than 3,916 tonnes of cod to France. [23] Following the Treaty of Utrecht, Placentia's residential fisheries met their ultimate demise. [24] The American base at Argentia was scaled back in the 1970s, and closed totally in 1994. This, along with the collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery and the moratorium introduced by the Canadian government a few years earlier, left the town of Placentia without an economic base for some time, although recent developments by Vale Inco are beginning to stabilize the town's rocky economic situation. EducationPlacentia is home to one primary education school: St. Anne's Academy, a K-6 school in Dunville. There currently exists one high school, Laval High School, which educates students from grades 7 to 12. The original Laval High School was demolished in 2010, with a new state of the art facility replacing it in September 2010. All schools are home to many extracurriculars, including student council, sports, drama and music, and volunteer organizations. Placentia is also home to a post-secondary institution; a campus of the College of the North Atlantic, offering programs in heavy duty equipment mechanics, heavy equipment operation, welding, machinist, and industrial machinery. Tourism and culture
Placentia has many features that make it a popular tourist attraction in Newfoundland and Labrador. It has a unique lift-bridge named the Sir Ambrose Shea Lift Bridge that spans the tumultuous tides of 'the gut' (the narrow opening to the harbour). [25] [26] [27] Around Placentia, countless buildings and sites reflect the deep history of the area. In 1893, Harry Verran who was a mining engineer from Cornwall, England, worked for Cyrus Field. He built a historic house that now operates as a bed and breakfast called Rosedale Manor. [28] There are many archaeological sites (some partially re-constructed), several excellent examples of late-19th century Newfoundland architecture, two museums (O'Reilly House and Castle Hill), and one of the two Marine Atlantic ferry links from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia (via Argentia). The local historical society owns both the O'Reilly House and St. Luke's Cultural Heritage Centre (formerly St. Luke's Anglican Church) which is used to host workshops, presentations, performances, and even an escape room. [29] It is 130 km (81 mi) from the capital city, St. John's, and is within easy distance of the scenic Cape Shore (including the Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve), and St. Mary's Bay, Conception Bay, and the inner reaches of Placentia Bay. In 2009, Placentia celebrated the opening of the Placentia Bay Cultural Arts Centre with a month of artistic events, including drama productions, art exhibitions (three shows recognizing art from elementary students, high school students, and adults), and musical performances. The town has an established summer stock theatre troupe, Placentia Area Theatre D'Heritage (PATH), [30] which performs historical plays of significance in the Placentia area. The primary production is Faces of Fort Royale, performed at Castle Hill National Historic Site, depicting the lives of the early inhabitants of Placentia under the leadership of Governor De Broullion. They also perform a dinner theatre cabaret set in the 1950s during the Argentia Base heyday, and a ghost walk. The troupe generally consists of post-secondary students under the direction of the province's finest theatre producers. Placentia in literatureNotable people
See alsoRelated Research ArticlesQueen Anne's War (1702–1713) was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought in North America involving the colonial empires of Great Britain, France, and Spain; it took place during the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain. In the United States, it is regarded as a standalone conflict under this name. Elsewhere it is usually viewed as the American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession. It is also known as the Third Indian War. In France it was known as the Second Intercolonial War. Placentia Bay is a body of water on the southeast coast of Newfoundland, Canada. It is formed by Burin Peninsula on the west and Avalon Peninsula on the east. Fishing grounds in the bay were used by native people long before the first European fishermen arrived in the 16th century. For a time, the French controlled the bay. They built their capital at Placentia on the east coast. The British gained Placentia during the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The town and nearby Castle Hill are national historic sites. English settlement followed in the bay and today the main communities are Burin, Marystown, and Placentia. Placentia—St. Mary's is a provincial electoral district for the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. As of 2011, there were 7,361 eligible voters living within the district. St. George's is a Canadian community in the St. George's Bay on the southwest coast of Newfoundland of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Argentia is a Canadian commercial seaport and industrial park located in the Town of Placentia, Newfoundland and Labrador. It is situated on the southwest coast of the Avalon Peninsula and defined by a triangular shaped headland which reaches northward out into Placentia Bay creating a natural harbour 3 km (1.9 mi) in length. Dunville is a neighborhood located in the Town of Placentia, in Canada. it was earlier called Northeast or North East Placentia. The name was formed from "Dunphy's Village" a part of Northeast Placentia. It is a community that makes up the north-eastern section of the Town of Placentia. It stretches approximately 8 km along the northern shore of the North-East Arm of Placentia Bay. Castle Hill is an area containing the remains of both French and British fortifications, overlooking the town of Placentia in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The site was originally established in order to protect the French fishing interests in Terre-Neuve (Newfoundland) and the approaches to the French colony of Canada. Franco-Newfoundlanders, also known as Franco-Terreneuvians in English or Franco-Terreneuviens in French, are francophone and/or French Canadian residents of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The name Franco-Terreneuvian derives from Terre-Neuve, the French name of Newfoundland. Newfoundland is a large island situated off the eastern coast of the North American mainland and the western part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, referred to as Labrador. The Battle of St. John's was the French capture of St. John's, the capital of the British colony of Newfoundland, on 1 January 1709 [O.S. 21 December 1708], during Queen Anne's War. A mixed and motley force of 164 men led by Joseph de Monbeton de Brouillan de Saint-Ovide, king's lieutenant to Philippe Pastour de Costebelle, the French governor of Plaisance, quickly overwhelmed the British garrison at St. John's, and took about 500 prisoners. Fort Royal is a French fort built in 1687 on the island of Newfoundland during the time of New France. The Avalon Peninsula campaign occurred during King William's War when forces of New France, led by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and Governor Jacques-François de Monbeton de Brouillan, destroyed 23 English settlements along the coast of the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland in the span of three months. The campaign began with raiding Ferryland on November 10, 1696, and continued along the coast until they raided the village of Heart's Content. Newfoundland was an English and, later, British colony established in 1610 on the island of Newfoundland, now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. That followed decades of sporadic English settlement on the island, which was at first seasonal, rather than permanent. It was made a Crown colony in 1824 and a Dominion in 1907. Its economy collapsed during the Great Depression and on 16 February 1934, the Newfoundland legislature agreed to the creation of a six-member Commission of Government to govern the country. In 1949, the country voted to join Canada as the province of Newfoundland. Fort Saint Louis was a French fort built in the 17th century on Newfoundland at the time of the New France. Fort Plaisance was a French fort built in the 17th century on the island of Newfoundland at the time of the New France. The Battle of Placentia (1692) was fought between the English and the French at Fort St. Louis in Placentia, Newfoundland and Labrador during King William's War. The battle lasted from 16 September until 21 September 1692. Route 100 is a major highway in Newfoundland and Labrador. The highway begins at its northern terminus at the Trans-Canada Highway in the town of Whitbourne, runs for 108 kilometres (67 mi) until it ends at its southern terminus, the town of Branch, where it transitions into Route 92. Motorists can drive along the coast of Placentia Bay once traveling south of Point Verde. The settlement of Basques in the Americas was the process of Basque emigration and settlement in the New World. Thus, there is a deep cultural and social Basque heritage in some places in the Americas, the most famous of which being Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Central America, Guatemala and Antioquia, Colombia. Little Placentia Sound is an abandoned town in Newfoundland and Labrador that had a peak population of 47 in 1901. It is named after the body of water (sound) that encompasses the former community located within Placentia Bay on the Avalon Peninsula in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. There was once a lead mine called Silver Cliff Mine located within the town. Terre-Neuve ("Newfoundland") was a colony in New France that existed from 1655 to 1713, and which consisted of the southern portion of Newfoundland island. The most -and sometimes only- populated region was Placentia, called "Plaisance" in French. Because of Placentia's geographic position, its main economic activity was fishing, and the settlement could serve as a pit stop for ships traveling to and from France and other New France colonies like Canada or Acadia. Terre-Neuve ceased to exist in 1713, when France evacuated its settlers and transplanted them to Cape Breton. But, France regained the Saint Pierre and Miquelon islands of this colony in 1763, and still has possession over them today. References
External linksWikivoyage has a travel guide for Placentia (Newfoundland) . Wikimedia Commons has media related to Placentia, Newfoundland and Labrador . |