After Newfoundland was discovered, Europeans came to fish for cod on the banks off northeastern North America, where there was an abundance of fish.

wo types of fishery developed: the dry fishery on the coast and the green fishery at sea on Newfoundland's Grand Bank.

Despite many obstacles, fishing stations then colonies gradually emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These early settlements ran counter to the freedom to fish. The presence of fishermen, and later settlers, posed a real threat to the Native people living in coastal areas. The Beothuk nation disappeared in the early nineteenth century.