The custom of the country, justice and the colonial state in eighteenth-century Newfoundland

grantor: University of TorontoThis thesis examines governance in Newfoundland from 1699 to 1832. It explores the formation of a colonial state--from the rule of the fishing admirals to the establishment of representative government--and focuses primarily on the customary legal institutions that arose in Anglo-Irish fishing communities during the eighteenth century. Three topics are covered in detail: naval government in St. John's; surrogate courts in the outport districts; and patterns in the administration of law. The analysis places the use of punishment in the context of the social relations in the fishery, in particular the reliance of capital upon wage labour supplied by indentured servants. Eighteenth-century courts played an active role in disciplining servants and enforcing sectarian regulations. Challenging an historiography which views early Newfoundland as politically backward and legally anarchic, this thesis argues that an effective colonial state emerged to meet the needs of those in power. The royal navy was the engine of law and authority, supplying the necessary infrastructure for the island's judiciary. Naval governors relied principally on their junior officers, the justices of the peace, and the fish merchants, who became actively involved in government whenever propertied interests were threatened. While the structure of this system differed markedly from that found in most British colonies, its function remained basically the same: power and authority flowed through institutions designed to uphold the established social order. Defined in the thesis as a "naval state," this regime dominated Newfoundland for nearly a century. In the 1820s the emergence of a bourgeois public sphere spawned a political reform movement that undermined the legitimacy of the island's legal system. The case of eighteenth-century Newfoundland demonstrates the malleability of the common law tradition in the face of an environment that demanded significant adaptation to local conditions. Government was essentially reactive, limited by available resources, and shaped by individual initiative. The legal system comprised an amalgam of common law, statute law, prerogative writ, and local customs. The large gap that existed between imperial policy and colonial practice formed a distinguishing characteristic of governance prior to 1832.Ph.D