The Bounty of the Chesapeake Part 3

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 a.s.sembly 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 p.r.i.c.kles, and p.r.i.c.ks 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ces or trunnels for the water to pa.s.s 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 c.o.c.karouse, or brave fellow, that would not let go till with swimming, wading and diving, he had tired the sturgeon and brought it ash.o.r.e. 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 b.u.t.t 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 pa.s.sing 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 30 sterling."

Jamestown had by 1624 begun to sp.a.w.n 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 acc.u.mulated 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. G.o.d 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]

3, 10s. and the wet 5, 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 600.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The ugly-looking but delicious-tasting sturgeon was the fish that princ.i.p.ally 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)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Haul-seining or dragging fish ash.o.r.e 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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The toothsome Chesapeake Bay hard crab was, and is still to a great extent today, taken by baits s.p.a.ced along lines sunk to the bottom and then raised and the tenacious crabs removed.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Vast quant.i.ties of river herring were taken in haul-seines in the spring throughout Tidewater Virginia. A crew dragged the fish ash.o.r.e to a force of women cutters waiting to prepare them for salting down.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.