England does have the good fortune, unlike Newfoundland, to have a winter inshore fishing season. So why were the Pilgrims starving in the richest fishing grounds ever recorded?
It seems these religious zealots had not thought to bring much fishing tackleânot that they would have known how to use it. They knew nothing about fishing. Four or five English ships fished in New England in 1616. The year after the Plymouth landing, 1621, while the Pilgrims were nearly starving, ten British ships were profitably fishing cod in New England waters. The following year, thirty-seven ships were sent. By 1624, fifty British fishing ships were working off the coast.
Part of the Pilgrimsâ problem was that settlers kept coming: Thirty-five arrived the second year, and another sixty-seven in 1622. These were people unified by their religious zeal. Not only couldnât they fish, they didnât know how to hunt. They were also bad at farming. In fact, they never had a good harvest until they learned to fish cod and plow the waste in the ground as fertilizer. Their greatest food-gathering skill in the early years seems to have been an ability to find huge food caches hidden away by the native tribesmen.
What made it worse, being English, they did not want to eat unfamiliar food. The native New Englanders were Naumkeag of the Massachusetts nation. Naumkeag, a word meaning âfishing place,â was their name for the region. The Naumkeag made line and nets from vegetable fibers and hooks from bones. In addition to catching cod and other fish that approached the coastline, they harpooned six-foot-long sturgeons in the rivers, caught eels, and delighted in the clams they harvested from the shore. They showed the Pilgrims how to pry open the big hard-shelled quahogs and the smaller thin-shelled ones, their favorites, which today New Englanders call steamers.
âOh dear,â said the Pilgrims with horrified faces. They would not eat such things. The abundant mussels, too, were rejected and continued to be shunned by New Englanders until the 1980s. The waters were so rich in lobsters that they were literally crawling out of the sea and piling up inhospitably on the beaches. But the Pilgrims, and most people until this century, did not want to eat these huge, clacking, speckled sea monsters. Apparently in desperation, they were eventually reduced to eating lobster. In 1622, Bradford reported with shame that conditions were so bad for the settlers that the only âdish they could presente their friends with was a lobster.â
So what exactly did these people, not known for their open-mindedness, want to eat? The Naumkeag nickname for them was kinshon, which means âfish.â The Pilgrims did not have skills, but they had determination. In 1623, they established a fishing station in Gloucester, which failed. They tried again two years later with little more success. But they sent back to England for equipment and advice, and with the help of Englishmen whom they referred to as âmerchant adventurers,â they gradually became fishermen. Fishing stations were established in Salem, Dorchester, Marblehead, and Penobscot Bay. Tidal pools were filled with seawater to make salt for the fishery. They traded chiefly with the Spanish Basque port of Bilbao, and soon they were returning with Spanish salt in their holds. They also started trading with the sugar colonies of the West Indies, and as early as 1638 a ship brought salt from the Tortugas. Through trade, New Englanders were solving the salt problem that the British never had been able to resolve through diplomacy.
In Salem, a Puritan minister, Francis Higgenson, wrote in 1629, âThe aboundance of sea fish are almost beyond believing.â By the end of the century, Salem was to gain more enduring fame for its mass hysteria, but originally it was noted for cod fishing. When the infamous Court of Oyer and Terminer was established in 1692, interrogating
It seems these religious zealots had not thought to bring much fishing tackleânot that they would have known how to use it. They knew nothing about fishing. Four or five English ships fished in New England in 1616. The year after the Plymouth landing, 1621, while the Pilgrims were nearly starving, ten British ships were profitably fishing cod in New England waters. The following year, thirty-seven ships were sent. By 1624, fifty British fishing ships were working off the coast.
Part of the Pilgrimsâ problem was that settlers kept coming: Thirty-five arrived the second year, and another sixty-seven in 1622. These were people unified by their religious zeal. Not only couldnât they fish, they didnât know how to hunt. They were also bad at farming. In fact, they never had a good harvest until they learned to fish cod and plow the waste in the ground as fertilizer. Their greatest food-gathering skill in the early years seems to have been an ability to find huge food caches hidden away by the native tribesmen.
What made it worse, being English, they did not want to eat unfamiliar food. The native New Englanders were Naumkeag of the Massachusetts nation. Naumkeag, a word meaning âfishing place,â was their name for the region. The Naumkeag made line and nets from vegetable fibers and hooks from bones. In addition to catching cod and other fish that approached the coastline, they harpooned six-foot-long sturgeons in the rivers, caught eels, and delighted in the clams they harvested from the shore. They showed the Pilgrims how to pry open the big hard-shelled quahogs and the smaller thin-shelled ones, their favorites, which today New Englanders call steamers.
âOh dear,â said the Pilgrims with horrified faces. They would not eat such things. The abundant mussels, too, were rejected and continued to be shunned by New Englanders until the 1980s. The waters were so rich in lobsters that they were literally crawling out of the sea and piling up inhospitably on the beaches. But the Pilgrims, and most people until this century, did not want to eat these huge, clacking, speckled sea monsters. Apparently in desperation, they were eventually reduced to eating lobster. In 1622, Bradford reported with shame that conditions were so bad for the settlers that the only âdish they could presente their friends with was a lobster.â
So what exactly did these people, not known for their open-mindedness, want to eat? The Naumkeag nickname for them was kinshon, which means âfish.â The Pilgrims did not have skills, but they had determination. In 1623, they established a fishing station in Gloucester, which failed. They tried again two years later with little more success. But they sent back to England for equipment and advice, and with the help of Englishmen whom they referred to as âmerchant adventurers,â they gradually became fishermen. Fishing stations were established in Salem, Dorchester, Marblehead, and Penobscot Bay. Tidal pools were filled with seawater to make salt for the fishery. They traded chiefly with the Spanish Basque port of Bilbao, and soon they were returning with Spanish salt in their holds. They also started trading with the sugar colonies of the West Indies, and as early as 1638 a ship brought salt from the Tortugas. Through trade, New Englanders were solving the salt problem that the British never had been able to resolve through diplomacy.
In Salem, a Puritan minister, Francis Higgenson, wrote in 1629, âThe aboundance of sea fish are almost beyond believing.â By the end of the century, Salem was to gain more enduring fame for its mass hysteria, but originally it was noted for cod fishing. When the infamous Court of Oyer and Terminer was established in 1692, interrogating
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