Humphrey Gilbert Claims Newfoundland
A half-brother of Walter Raleigh cuts a piece of turf on the shore at St. John's and declares the land the Queen's forever
Quick facts
- Region
- Newfoundland
- Commander
- Sir Humphrey Gilbert
- Outcome
- Claim proclaimed; no settlement founded; Gilbert drowned returning to England
What happened
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a Devon-born soldier and half-brother of Walter Raleigh, sailed from England in June 1583 with five ships to find a site for an English colony in North America. His fleet reached St. John's harbour in Newfoundland, already crowded with European fishing vessels. On 5 August 1583 Gilbert formally took possession of Newfoundland and the land 200 leagues to its north and south in the name of Queen Elizabeth I. Merchants and fishermen assembled before his tent while a rod and turf were cut and delivered to him as a token of the soil's transfer, and he proclaimed the land the Queen's in perpetuity, promulgating laws against public religious dissent. Gilbert never established a settlement there. He drowned that September when his small ship, the Squirrel, sank in a storm on the voyage home.
Why it matters
Gilbert's ceremony at St. John's is treated as England's first formal claim to territory in the Americas, made 24 years before Jamestown. It set the legal template, a spoken proclamation and a token transfer of soil, that English colonizers would repeat across the Atlantic world for the next two centuries.
How we know
The fullest account comes from Edward Hayes, a member of Gilbert's expedition, whose narrative survives in the Hakluyt voyage collections and is summarized in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography's sourced entry on Gilbert.
Sources
- David B. Quinn, Dictionary of Canadian Biography. GILBERT (Gylberte, Jilbert), Sir HUMPHREY · General sourcebiographi.ca · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Parks Canada, Directory of Federal Heritage Designations. Gilbert, Sir Humphrey National Historic Person · General sourcepc.gc.ca · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Related timelines
- The Age of Exploration → · England enters the race for territory that Spain and Portugal had run alone for a century