Chapter 7 Left on Shore: Iron and Fish in the North Atlantic
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Abstract
Beginning around 1500, ships would leave France, Spain, Portugal and England for the coast of Newfoundland. There, crews would spend the summer catching and drying fish (mostly cod) for sale in Europe. The scale of this enterprise made it one of the largest industries in the early modern world. By the end of the sixteenth-century about 200,000 metric tons a year was caught and processed. The best harbors were claimed on a first-come basis, as each year the infrastructure for the enterprise needed to be rebuilt. The fierce winter weather on Newfoundland did some of the damage to the fishing stages and flakes (the cabins and platforms used for gutting and drying) but most of the destruction was from the indigenous people, the Beothuk. Like most native peoples, they valued the technology of the Europeans that they did not have, and in particular the metal from nails, saws, fish-hooks and other iron objects brought from Europe. Once the Europeans left the shores of Newfoundland, the Beothuk would scavenge the site, collecting abandoned metal and taking apart the wooden structures for the nails that could be fashioned into better spears and scrapers than what they could make with bone or stone. Other groups like the Mi’kmaq trapped to collect skins that could then be traded for metal. However, the Beothuk avoided contact with outsiders. This pattern of building, harvesting the metal, and then rebuilding continued until English investors saw an opportunity to claim territory to the best sites (such as Ferryland and Cupids) by building permanently in local stone, as well as brick and flint brought in ships as ballast. Denied easy access to the shore during their hunting season, the Beothuk lost their food source and the last member of the group died in the early nineteenth-century.