Part Eight
Did We Learn Anything from Markland?

Today, the land settlement at Markland seems like nothing more than a strange story from Newfoundland's past. In other places, New Brunswick for example, land settlement worked better. The land at Markland was hard to clear and farm. Newfoundland does not have a good climate or good soil for farming.

Markland showed that people need to have some control over their own lives. The trustees who ran Markland meant well, but they tried to decide many things for the settlers that adults expect to decide for themselves. Today we feel that decisions about the education of our children, about freedom of movement, and freedom of association (who we invite to visit our homes, for example) are basic rights. People in Markland could, and did, lose their homes and jobs for doing things we take for granted. If the people in Markland had been allowed to help decide how the project was run, more of them might have stayed. Markland might have been less expensive and more successful.

Markland was supposed to help people get off relief. It did not do that because people could not support themselves by farming on that land. In the Depression, many people thought it was wrong to give relief because people might never want to work again. Although Markland did not succeed, it showed that people who had been on relief would work very hard to support their families when they were given the chance.