Terra Nova: Food, Water, and Work in an Early Atlantic World

A bottom-up story of the fishworkers, whalers, First Nations, merchantwomen, oceans, and animals who together made a new colonial world in the early Atlantic

In the early decades of the sixteenth century, mariners from across Europe forged a vast seasonal fishery along the coasts of the northwest Atlantic. Long before there was Newfoundland or Canada, Europeans called this floating colony Terra Nova, and they laid the foundation for a history of extracting food and fuel that extended into the twentieth century. Once one of the largest European colonies in the Atlantic basin, Terra Nova has never before been considered in its historical entirety or in a wider Atlantic context.

Historian Jack Bouchard tells the story of Terra Nova, showing that its early development was shaped by colonial histories across the Atlantic world. He demonstrates that when we put food production, ocean environments, and maritime labor at the center of the story, we can see the overlooked lives and voices of those who made change in these early years. The result is a new history of the Atlantic world: one where humans migrate in the wake of ice and fish, where Indigenous American and Arctic trade routes are joined to transatlantic exchange, where colonies exist without settlement or empire, and where food production, labor, and maritime landscapes are at the center of our shared history.

Jack Bouchard is assistant professor of environmental history at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He has published widely on the histories of fishing, islands, and foodways. He lives in Highland Park, NJ.