“Rebellious Fish”: Newfoundland Unremembered

Abstract

In 1996, a team of archaeologists working at Jamestown announced the discovery there of the first English fort’s foundations, dated to 1607; the site of the fort had previously been believed to be on land eroded by the James River. The New York Times quoted James Axtell,an eminent historian of the period, on this find: “Any time we get early Colonial artifacts, it’s important… There’s also the symbolic significance here. Jamestown represents the founding of Virginia and of English America, even though other places are better examples of successful colonization.”¹

The cod fishery was the training school for the conquest of the Invincible Armada, a much earlier training ground than the buccaneering and channel roving to which Mr. Froude… attributes our maritime supremacy.

D.W. Prowse, A History of Newfoundland

[EJxploitation of [the Newfoundland fishery] was one of the great economic activities of Europe during the latter sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries… it trained generations of mariners, employed thousands of craftsmen and suppliers, and involved families and friends, syndicates and whole communities in North American activities long before any Pilgrim or Puritan, Norman or Dutch colonist took root in American soil.

D.W. Meinig, The Shaping of America

Wee might have gotten more to have sent them afishinge, I ashure your lordshipp.

Sir Walter Ralegh to Lord Burleigh, 1591