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Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon,
the French Shore and Red Island
Only
five years after the return of the islands to France, the inhabitants
asked for and obtained fishing rights in Newfoundland waters on
a par with the fishermen of the French mainland. Thus, by the
decree of 1820, Saint-Pierrais and Miquelonnais could fish off
the south coast, more precisely in the "harbours of Codroy, their
two rivers and island in Bay St. George, Red Island and Port au
Port". These areas were exclusively theirs as explained by historian
Charles De La Morandière:
Certainly,
cod-fishermen from metropolitan France had the right to sail in
the gulf but not the right to anchor nor to process their fish
on shore at the places we have listed. If a metropolitan company
obtained a concession in this region it had to hire exclusively
in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.
In
1840, for reasons which are not clear but which doubtless had
much to do with the high productivity of the Red Island fishery
and with the considerable influence of the metropolitan ship-outfitting
industry on the French government, the regulations were modified
and a ship-outfitter of Granville, Champion-Théroude,
obtained concession number 4 for Red Island. He was required to
employ there about fifty fishermen of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.
This is the only exception of the nature to be seen on the west
coast of Newfoundland.
Fishing
was good, returns, excellent, and the group from Granville were
living on Red Island. Campion-Théroude became the Compagnie
générale maritime, and then the Compagnie
générale transatlantique in 1855. Through
the years, the company maintained an important settlement on Red
Island, as is forcefully expressed by Count Arthur de Gobineau
in his work Voyage à Terre-Neuve (See
first person accounts). In 1870, the Compagnie générale
transtlantique employed on Red Island 120 men as well
as a doctor and a surgeon. The following year there were "132
men, all Saint-Pierrais under the direction of one manager".