1 - Fish
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 July 2009
Summary
In 1784 the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a resolution: “to hang up the representation of a cod fish in the room where the House sits, as a memorial to the importance of the cod fishery to the welfare of this Commonwealth.”
Cured fish of different varieties were widely traded and consumed during the eighteenth century. While visiting Boston in 1744, a wealthy Maryland traveler and physician, Alexander Hamilton, feasted upon a local favorite. “I was invited to dine with Captain Irvin,” Hamilton wrote, “upon salt codfish, which here is a common Saturday dinner, being elegantly dressed with a sauce of butter and eggs.” At Quebec in 1776, Scottish mariner John Nicol observed that local Native Americans caught salmon on the St. Lawrence River. They then smoked the fish and used it in trade. “The Indians come alongside [moored British merchant vessels] every day with them,” Nicol wrote, “either smoked or fresh, which they exchange for biscuit or pork.” Nine years later, Nicol sailed a trade vessel bound from London to Canton. The crew stopped along the northwest coast of North America to catch and smoke salmon of their own for the Pacific crossing. Then, while on the way back to England from Canton, Nicol fished for Albacore tuna off the coast of St. Helena. Sailors “split and hung them in the rigging to dry.” From gentlemen to maritime laborers, and from Europeans to Native Americans, just about everyone had a use for cured fish of different types.
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- The Fisherman's CauseAtlantic Commerce and Maritime Dimensions of the American Revolution, pp. 19 - 25Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009