At the end of our road trip in Newfoundland, before we took the ferry back to the continent, we made one final stop in Placentia to discover more about this fortress, Castle Hill.
Castle Hills overlooks Plaisance, Newfoundland’s original French capital, now known as Placentia. This 17th-century French fortification predates the Fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia and predicates the role Louisbourg would later play as the French gateway to Canada and navel base for the French fishery in North America.
Where is Castle Hill located?
Castle Hill is located in 1 Old Castle Hill Road in Placentia, NL.
What about the history of Castle Hill?
The Placentia area attracted Basque fishermen as early as the 16th century. Large quantities of codfish, highly prized in Europe, brought fishermen in droves. The French government founded the colony in 1662.
During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, French and British forces fought sporadically for control of Newfoundland, though the island’s fate was still heavily influenced by events in Europe.
Determined to ensure access to the Newfoundland fishery, the French chose Plaisance for its excellent harbor and proximity to the Grand Banks and as a check to English expansion. Here, they hoped to build a colony that would solidify their claim to a portion of the fishing rights around the island of Newfoundland.
In late 1696 and early 1697, under the leadership of New France’s most famous soldier, Pierre le Moyne d’Iberville, the French marched overland from Plaisance to the Southern Shore, up towards St.John’s, and on into Conception Bay. D’Iberville was successful, quickly taking all but one of his targets. His men destroyed 36 settlements and captured more than 500 fishing boats, 200,000quintals of cod, and 700 prisoners in four months.
In France, sending d’Iberville to Hudson Bay may have saved the British from being driven out of Newfoundland.
Placentia proved to be a poor choice for the French colonists. Despite successful fortifications at Castle Hill, which allowed the French to fend off British attacks, Plaisance had severe problems:
- The British were able to blockade Placentia Bay reasonably quickly.
- The French colonists had limited access to essential supplies.
- The land itself needed to be better for farming and yielded little way of crops of livestock.
With no supporting infrastructure and rivalries between residents and seasonal fishermen on the rise, the colony was destined to fail.
Today, the remains of France’s 17th-century fortifications at Castle Hill are all that exists of the French presence here. Events in Europe sealed Placentia’s fate when Britain gained sovereignty over Newfoundland by the Treaty of Utrecht, leaving France with fishing rights along the northeast and west coast of the island.
The French colonists and soldiers from Placentia moved on to build the Fortress of Louisbourg (now a National Historic Site) in Nova Scotia. Castle Hill was briefly occupied and fortified by the British during the Seven Years’ War, but Placentia was soon overshadowed by the island’s burgeoning economic and political capital, St.John’s.
Castle Hill was the last thing we visited just before leaving Newfoundland, and it was great to learn more about the history of this place.
