The North Atlantic Fisheries, 1100-1976 - University of Hull

Basques fished in the Atlantic and salted their catches on board. With the
discovery of the rich fishing banks of Labrador and Newfoundland, 57
and the fact that salt had become cheaper, other nations became seriously
interested in cod fishing. When it was unloaded, the split salted cod was
cleaned and then dried in the sun. From about 1750 the production of this
dried salt cod grew in importance along the coasts of the North Atlantic,
e.g. in Newfoundland, Norway and Shetland. It was a standard product,
which was made in more or less the same way everywhere. The Danish
merchant, Niels Ryberg, endeavoured to introduce deep-sea fishing and
the production of dried salt cod to the Faroes in 1772, but the attempt
failed. 58 There was no place in the basic structure of Faroese society for
this kind of capitalistic commercial experiment, which was flatly
rejected. It should be noted that this was just at the time when the
so-called “servant fishery”, introduced by English merchants, was at its
height in Newfoundland. 59 It would be 60 years before the production of
dried salt cod became common in the Faroes, largely because the
agrarian structure of society was still strong enough to hold it together on
its own premise.
Interest in a commercial fishing industry first arose in the first half of
the nineteenth century. There were several reasons for this. One is that
the continually increasing population required greater employment
opportunities. But changes in mentality can also be detected, which were
due in part to the close contact with the Shetlanders who fished around
the Faroes and in part to official interest in developing a Faroese fishing
industry. 60
57 See Coull 1972.
58 See Rasch 1964.
59 Sider 1986, Ommer 1989.
60 Joensen 1985:14pp. See also Manson 1978.
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