Down North on the Labrador Circuit: The Court of Civil Jurisdiction 1826 to 1833
by Nina Jane Goudie


The Legal System in Labrador


it was the most outrageous case that had ever come before him... [H]ad the defendant been in England the least punishment would have been [a sentence] for life and in all probability he would have been more severely punished — perhaps even death.92 [presumably for piracy]

Two serious cases in 1831 concerned murder. The victims were John Elbert of Partridge Bay and Edmund Cleary of Camp Islands. Neither of the accused, Joseph Score and John Gulliver respectively, had previously appeared before the court. In an execution order ending with “herein fail you not,” Sheriff Bryan Robinson was instructed by Paterson to ensure the safe and secure passage of both prisoners to St. John's on the Court's schooner Belinda.

Grady Harbour, Labrador
A drawing of Grady Harbour by George E. Gladwin, ca. 1877.

From Charles de Volpi, Newfoundland: a Pictorial Record (Sherbrooke, Quebec: Longman Canada Limited, ©1972) 143.
Larger Version with more information (102 kb).
A drawing of Grady Harbour by George E. Gladwin, ca. 1877

Overall, the Labrador Court heard an average of 15 cases per year; the number of cases peaked in 1828 at 27; the lowest number of cases heard in one year was nine. The total number over the period was 120. (see Table 2) In the same eight–year period, the Circuit Court for the Northern District of Newfoundland, home to over fifty percent of the island's population, heard 412 cases. As in Labrador, the majority of cases concerned debt. At first glance it can be seen that the Labrador Court's caseload was approximately 30% of that of the Northern Circuit Court. If the number of litigations per person were proportionate with that of the northeast coast, one would expect the population of coastal Labrador to have been about 7,500. Even though population figures for Labrador are sketchy, this was impossible. So, the proportion of litigation appears high even though the actual numbers for each year are small. On a per capita basis, disputes may have been more frequent there. However, in sparsely populated areas disagreements may simply have been more obvious, lending themselves more readily to litigation. This whole question awaits further research.94








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