satisfactory quality accompanied the development of Virginia right up
to George Washington's time.
Despite all attempts to the contrary, reliance on salt fish from the
North kept gaining. The General Assembly that had met in 1619 censured
a Captain Warde for establishing a plantation in Virginia without
asking anybody's permission. But when it was brought out that he had
conveyed quantities of salt fish to the Colony from Canada on his ship
he was forgiven. This captain was an important link between the Colony
and the North. John Rolfe wrote to Sir Edwin Sandys in 1619:
Captain Warde in his ship went to Monhegan [island, Maine] in the
Northern Colony in May and returned the latter end of July with
fish which he caught there. He brought but a small quantity by
reason he had but little salt. There were some Plymouth ships where
he harbored, who made great store of fish which is far larger than
Newland [Newfoundland] fish.
The Maine waters were far busier than those of Virginia. For more than
a century vessels from half-a-dozen European nations had thronged
there, even to Greenland, attracted by the fishing, and the furs
available on the mainland. When some of the early experiments at
colonization failed, fishing became all the more emphasized. There was
usually excellent demand for the catches whether landed in Plymouth
(England) or Plymouth (Massachusetts), Portugal, Holland, the West
Indies or Virginia. These bold adventurers made use of the land in the
New World only for drying, salting and barreling their fish. If
conditions permitted, they transported them fresh, in a cargo commonly
known as "corfish." Oil made from whale and cod was a profitable
commodity.
Fishermen were the pioneers and explorers of America's first days just
as the miners, trappers and traders were those of a later period.
The importance of fish was thus underlined. In addition, conceding the
value to the untrained whites of Indians as fishermen, the 1619
Assembly agreed to a proposal that Indians to the limit of six be
permitted to live in white settlements if they engaged in fishing for
the benefit of the settlement. Indian methods were first described by
Hariot of the Roanoke island colony:
They have likewise a notable way to catch fish in their rivers, for
whereas they lack both iron and steel, they fasten unto their
reeds, or long rods, the hollow tail of a certain fish like to a
sea crab instead of a point, wherewith by night or day they strike
fishes, and take them up into their boats. They also know how to
use the prickles, and pricks of other fishes. They also make weirs,
with setting up reeds or twigs in the water, which they so plant
one with another, that they grow still narrower, and narrower.
There was never seen among us so cunning a way to take fish withal,
whereof sundry sorts as they found in their rivers unlike ours,
which are also of a very good taste. Doubtless it is a pleasant
sight to see the people, sometimes wading, and going sometimes
sailing in those rivers, which are shallow and not deep, free from
all care of heaping up riches for their posterity, content with
their state, and living friendly together of those things which God
of His bounty hath given unto them, yet without giving Him any
thanks according to His deserts.
The most vivid and comprehensive description of Indian fishing was
given by historian Robert Beverley. Though his work was not published
until 1705, he dealt with an earlier period:
Before the arrival of the English there, the Indians had fish in
such vast plenty that the boys and girls would take a pointed stick
and strike the lesser sort as they swam upon the flats. The larger
fish that kept in deeper water, they were put to a little more
difficulty to take. But for these they made weirs, that is, a hedge
of small rived sticks or reeds of the thickness of a man's finger.
These they wove together in a row with straps of green oak or other
tough wood, so close that the small fish could not pass through.
Upon high water mark they pitched one end of this hedge and the
other they extended into the river to the depth of eight or ten
foot, fastening it with stakes, making cods out from the hedge on
one side, almost at the end, and leaving a gap for the fish to go
into them. These were contrived so that the fish could easily find
their passage into those cods when they were at the gap, but not
see their way out again when they were in. Thus if they offered to
pass through, they were taken.
Sometimes they made such a hedge as this quite across a creek at
high water and at low would go into the run, so contracted into a
narrow stream, and take out what fish they pleased.
At the falls of the rivers where the water is shallow and the
current strong, the Indians use another kind of weir thus made.
They make a dam of loose stone, whereof there is plenty at hand,
quite across the river, leaving one, two, or more spaces or
trunnels for the water to pass through. At the mouth they set a pot
of reeds, wove in form of a cone, whose base is about three foot
[wide] and ten [foot] perpendicular, into which the swiftness of
the current carries the fish and wedges them so fast that they
cannot possibly return.
The Indian way of catching sturgeon, when they came into the narrow
part of the rivers, was by a man's clapping a noose over their
tails and by keeping fast his hold. Thus a fish, finding itself
entangled, would flounce and often pull him under water. Then that
man was counted a cockarouse, or brave fellow, that would not let
go till with swimming, wading and diving, he had tired the sturgeon
and brought it ashore. These sturgeon would also leap into their
canoes in crossing the river, as many of them do still every year
into the boats of the English.
They have also another way of fishing like those on the Euxine Sea,
by the help of a blazing fire by night. They make a hearth in the
middle of their canoe, raising it within two inches of the edge.
Upon this they lay their burning lightwood, split into small
shivers, each splinter whereof will blaze and burn end for end like
a candle. 'Tis one man's work to tend this fire and keep it
flaming. At each end of the canoe stands an Indian with a gig or
point spear, setting the canoe forward with the butt end of the
spear as gently as he can, by that means stealing upon the fish
without any noise or disturbing of the water. Then they with great
dexterity dart these spears into the fish and so take them. Now
there is a double convenience in the blaze of this fire, for it not
only dazzles the eyes of the fish, which will lie still glaring
upon it, but likewise discovers the bottom of the river clearly to
the fisherman, which the daylight does not.
Under Governor George Yeardley in 1616, there were 400 people at
Jamestown and one old frigate, one old shallop and one boat belonging
to the community. There were two boats privately owned. The boats best
suited to local fishing, and the most easily available, were the Indian
dugout canoes. Such was the size of the trees that it was possible to
make them comparatively roomy, as Strachey noted.
Every passing year brought home to the steadily growing Colony the need
of improving its fishing practices. Most nets had to be bought in
England. Here is a London item from a 1623 _List of Subscribers and
Subscriptions for Relief of the Colony_: "Richard Tatem will adventure
[speculate] in cheese and fishing nets the sum of L30 sterling."
Jamestown had by 1624 begun to spawn little Jamestowns throughout the
countryside. A census was ordered of all settlements. In January, 1625,
there were 1209 white persons, and 23 negroes. This first American
census listed, among general provisions, the stocks of salt fish. On
hand at thirteen settlements was 58,380 pounds. James City had the
largest supply, 24,880 pounds. Elizabeth City was next with 10,550
pounds. A community listed only as "Neck of Land" adjacent to
Jamestown, consisting of perhaps ten dwellings and plantations, had
4,050 pounds. The smallest store, 450 pounds, was credited to another
"Neck of Land" in Charles City. From the accumulated evidences of
disorganized home fishing, coupled with the deficiency of salt, it is
to be concluded that most of this supply had come from the Northern
fishing grounds.
There were 40 boats of various sizes and uses listed in this census.
For example, at Jamestown a "barque of 40 tons, a shallop of 4 tons and
one skiff" were among the ten there.
A token of the stress resulting from inadequate fisheries even after 16
years of active colonization is this letter preserved in the records of
the Virginia Company. A Virginia citizen named Arundle in 1623 wrote to
his friend, Mr. Caning, in London:
The most evident hope from altogether starving is oysters, and for
the easier getting of them I have agreed for a canoe which will
cost me 6 livres sterling.
Emigrants had been advised not to leave for Virginia without some
fishing equipment. In his _Travels_, John Smith had included the
warning: "A particular of such necessaries as either private
families or single persons shall have cause to provide to go to
Virginia ... nets, hooks and lines must be added."
Records of the Virginia Company in London throw light on the
extensiveness of the fish trade. Robert Bennett wrote from Virginia to
Edward Bennett in London in 1623:
My last letter I wrote you was in the _Adam_ from Newfoundland,
which I hope you shall receive before this. God send her back in
safety and this from Canada. I hope the fish will come to a good
reckoning for victuals is very scarce in the country. Your
Newfoundland fish is worth 30s. per hundred, your dry Canada [fish]
L3, 10s. and the wet L5, 10s. per hundred. I do not know nor hear
of any that is coming hither with fish but only the _Tiger_ which
went in company with the _Adam_ from this place and I know the
country will carry away all this forthwith.
And again from the records of the Company, this extract from _An
Account of Sums Subscribed and Supplies Sent Since April_, dated July
23, 1623:
... We have received advice that from Canada there departed this
last month a ship called Furtherance with above forty thousand of
that fish which is little inferior to ling for the supply of the
Colony in Virginia and that fish is worth not less than L600.
[Illustration: _The broyling of their fish over the flame of fire._
Library of Congress Photo
The first settlers did not have to learn from the Indians how to cook
fish, but this method was perhaps as appetizing as any they knew.]
[Illustration: _The manner of their fishing._
Library of Congress Photo
The first colonists saw the Indians engaged in fishing practices that
included spearing, luring with firelight, and entrapping in staked-off
enclosures.]
[Illustration: The sheepshead was one of the favorite seafoods of
Tidewater Virginians from the beginning. It was fairly abundant,
according to their records, and remained so until the twentieth
century, when it became almost extinct in Chesapeake waters.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Photos]
[Illustration: The ugly-looking but delicious-tasting sturgeon was the
fish that principally engaged the attention of the first colonists.
They were impressed by its abundance and were busy for a time in
shipping its roe to England for [1]caviar.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Photos]
[1] (we cannot be certain that much actual caviar was produced at
Jamestown. The chances are that the roe was merely salted down
and that the final processing took place in England)
[Illustration: Haul-seining or dragging fish ashore by enclosing them
in a long net, is a form of fishing that has thrived almost unchanged
through the ages. Its practice at Jamestown was limited by the lack of
nets.]
[Illustration: The toothsome Chesapeake Bay hard crab was, and is still
to a great extent today, taken by baits spaced along lines sunk to the
bottom and then raised and the tenacious crabs removed.]
[Illustration: Vast quantities of river herring were taken in
haul-seines in the spring throughout Tidewater Virginia. A crew dragged
the fish ashore to a force of women cutters waiting to prepare them for
salting down.]
[Illustration: Great living oyster mounds, built up by nature through
the ages, impeded ships in the lower James river. At high tide they
were hidden so that unwary pilots struck them; at low they could be
picked over by hand. They remained a threat to navigation until they
disappeared under three centuries of harvesting.
Original drawing by Esther Derieux]
[Illustration: Fishing implements excavated at Jamestown. The large
fish-hook was for ocean cod fishing or possibly for snagging sturgeon
in the river. The spear, attached to a wooden handle, was for stalking
big fish in shallow water, or for capturing those that could be
attracted to a light in a boat at night. The lead weights were suitable
for (right) a handline, (left) a net.
National Park Service]
[Illustration: Early salt-evaporating houses were located close by the
sea, from which the water was channeled in by slow stages to take
advantage of natural evaporation before wood fires finished the job.
When the crystals formed they were shoveled into conical baskets and
drained.]
[Illustration: Courtesy Mariners Museum
An 18th century plan of a solar-evaporating works. Sea water is
channeled into the primary reservoir (DD), from which it is conducted
to (FFF) and (KKK) by progressive stages to the final basins where it
crystallizes.]
The kernel of the situation was reflected by the Dutch traveler,
David De Vries, who made voyages to America from 1632 to
1644:
In going down to Jamestown on board of a sloop, a sturgeon sprang
out of the river, into the sloop. We killed it, and it was eight
feet long. This river is full of sturgeon, as also are the two
rivers of New Netherland. When the English first began to plant
their Colony here, there came an English ship from England for the
purpose of fishing for sturgeon; but they found that this fishery
would not answer, because it is so hot in summer, which is the best
time for fishing, that the salt or pickle would not keep them as in
Muscovy whence the English obtain many sturgeon and where the
climate is colder than in the Virginias.
The effects of the Virginians' favoring tobacco-growing above fishing
were also noted by De Vries on a visit to Canada:
Besides my vessel [at Newfoundland] there was a small boat of fifty
or sixty lasts [110 tons], with six guns, which had come out of the
Virginias with tobacco, in order to exchange the tobacco for fish.
A rather aggrieved reaction to the tales of abundant natural resources
in Virginia is contained in this letter from one Tho. Niccolls to Sir
Jo. Worstenholme in London in 1623:
If the Company would allow to each man a pound of butter and a
portion of cheese weekly, they would find more comfort therein then
by all the deer, fish, and fowl [that] is so talked of in England,
of which, I can assure you, your poor servants have not had so much
as the scent since their coming into the country.
To prevent profiteering in Canadian fish the Virginia authorities had
set the selling prices:
January 3, 1625-6: Proclamation by the Governor and Council of
Virginia renewing a former proclamation of August 31, 1623,
restraining the excessive rates of commodities--commanding that no
person in Virginia, either adventurer or planter, shall vend,
utter, barter, or sell any of the commodities following above the
prices hereafter mentioned, viz: New Foundland fish, the hundred
... 10 pounds of tobacco; Canada dry fish, the hundred ... 24
pounds of tobacco; Canada wet fish, the hundred.... 30 pounds of
tobacco.
In one proposed deal of fish for tobacco the owner of the fish got
scared off, as recorded in the Minutes of the Council and General
Court, 1622-29:
Luke Edan, sworn and examined, says that there were sixteen
thousand fish offered him by one Corbin at Canada which afterward
the said Corbin refused to sell him for it was told him his tobacco
was not good, and as the examiner heard, it was Henry Hewat that
told him so.
A case of special concession for the sale of fish was shown in a ruling
of the Virginia Council in 1626:
It is ordered that whereas Mr. Weston came up to James City, he
shall sell 3,000 of his fish there, which he has promised to sell
at reasonable rates. Therefore, in regard the proclamations are not
published for the choosing of merchants and factors, it is
permitted that such as are desirous to buy any of the said fish he
may have leave to deal with Mr. Weston, notwithstanding orders to
the contrary.
Another dissuading factor in the unsubstantial fishing in Virginia was
the threat of Indian attack. The Assembly in 1626 ruled:
It is ordered, according to the act of the late General Assembly,
that no man go or send abroad either upon fowling, fishing, or
otherwise whatsoever without a sufficient plenty of men, well armed
and provided of munition, upon penalty of undergoing severe censure
of punishment by the Governor and Council.
It was characteristic of Virginia's fisheries that the pessimists
occupied the stage for a while, then the optimists. An example of the
whipping-up of enthusiasm is this discourse of Edward Williams writing
on Virginia at mid-century. China was a fabulous country, therefore he
compared Virginia with it. Ideas ran riot as he contemplated the
resources crying to be developed:
... What multitudes of fish to satisfy the most voluptuous of
wishes, can China glory in which Virginia may not in justice boast
of?... Let her publish a precedent so worthy of admiration (and
which will not admit belief in those bosoms where the eye cannot be
witness of the action) of five thousand fish taken at one draught
near Cape Charles, at the entry into Chesapeake bay, and which
swells the wonder greater, not one fish under the measure of two
feet in length. What fleets come yearly upon the coasts of
Newfoundland and New England for fish, with an incredible return?
Yet it is a most assured truth that if they would make experiment
upon the south of Cape Cod, and from thence to the coast of this
happy country, they would find fish of greater delicacy, and as
full handed plenty, which though foreigners know not, yet if our
own planters would make use of it, would yield them a revenue which
cannot admit of any diminution while there are ebbs and floods,
rivers feed and receive the ocean, or nature fails in (the
elemental original of all things) waters.
There wants nothing but industrious spirits and encouragement to
make a rich staple of this commodity; and would the Virginians but
make salt pits, in which they have a greater convenience of tides
(that part of the universe by reason of a full influence of the
moon upon the almost limitless Atlantic causing the most spacious
fluxes and refluxes, that any shore of the other divisions in the
world is sensible of) to leave their pits full of salt-water, and
more friendly and warm sunbeams to concoct it into salt, than
Rochel, or any parts of Europe. Yet notwithstanding these
advantages which prefer Virginia before Rochel, the French king
raises a large proportion of his revenues out of that staple
yearly, with which he supplies a great part of Christendom.
Nor would it be such a long interval (salt being first made)
betwixt the undertaking of this fishing, and the bringing it to
perfection, for if every servant were enjoined to practice rowing,
to be taught to handle sails, and trim a vessel, a work easily
practised, and suddenly learned, the pleasantness of weather in
fishing season, the delicacy of the fish, of which they usually
feed themselves with the best, the encouragement of some share in
the profit, and their understanding what their own benefit may be
when their freedom gives them an equality, will make them willing
and able fishermen and seamen. To add further to this, if we
consider the abundance, largeness, and peculiar excellency of the
sturgeon in that country, it will not fall into the least of
scruples, but that one species will be of an invaluable profit to
the buyer, or if we repeat to our thoughts the singular plenty of
herrings and mackerel, in goodness and greatness much exceeding
whatever of that kind these our seas produce, a very ordinary
understanding may at the first inspection perceive that it will be
no great difficulty to out-labor and out-vie the Hollander in that
his almost only staple.
This flowery author goes on to make ingenious suggestions about raising
fish in captivity, like domesticated animals, by inclosing a creek
against their egress but keeping it sluiced to permit the action of
tides. He even guesses that a nutritious and medicinal oil could be
produced from fish livers. It is worth noting that both these
suggestions have been proved practical but they had to wait until
modern times to be carried out.
In the anonymous _A Perfect Description of Virginia_, published in
1649, the population is given as 15,000 English and 300 negroes. The
count of boats, remembering the shortage of 40 years before, is
impressive: "They have in their Colony pinnaces, barks, great and small
boats many hundreds, for most of their plantations stand upon the river
sides or up little creeks, and but a small way into the land so that
for transportation and fishing they use many boats."
The enmity of the Indians had been a constant irritation, and worse,
ever since the first days. As soon as it became possible to do so,
effort was made to cut them off from the resources of the tidal waters.
It was reasoned, and as it turned out, rightly, that with them unable
to supplement their food supplies with fish and shellfish, especially
oysters, they would be weakened in body and more easily subdued. The
word early went out: Keep the Indians away from the water. This
strategy worked so successfully that by 1662 it was deemed safe to ease
the pressure. Thus another milestone was reached: the first oyster
licensing law, as recorded in Hening's _Statutes_:
Be it further enacted that for the better relief of the poor
Indians whom the seating of the English had forced from their
wonted convenience of oystering, fishing ... that the said Indians
upon address made to two of the justices of that county they desire
to oyster ... they, the said justices, shall grant a license to the
said Indians to oyster ... provided the said justices limit the
time the Indians are to stay, and the Indians bring not with them
any guns, or ammunition or any other offensive weapon but only such
tools or implements as serve for the end of their coming. If any
Englishman shall presume to take from the Indians so coming in any
of their goods, or shall kill, wound, maim any Indian, he shall
suffer as he had done the same to an Englishman and be fined for
his contempt.
This was followed, according to Hening, in 1676 by another cavalier
gesture to the oppressed:
... It is hereby intended that our neighbor Indian friends be not
debarred from fishing and hunting within their own limits and
bounds, using bows and arrows only. Provided also that such
neighbor Indian friends who have occasion for corn to relieve their
lives and it shall and may be lawful for any English to employ in
fishing or deal with fish, canoes, bowls, mats, or baskets, and to
pay the said Indians for the same in Indian corn, but no other
commodities....
Thomas Glover, author of _An Account of Virginia_, addressed to the
Royal Society in London, published in 1676, sides with the optimists.
His catalogue has a familiar sound but it is valuable as substantiating
many of the earlier reports. One impression to be gained from it is
that after more than 60 years of occupancy of the new territory, the
settlers had in no way depleted their fishery resources, had not, in
fact, even scratched the surface: