The Fisherman's Cause: Atlantic Commerce and Maritime Dimensions of the American Revolution
Cambridge University Press, 4/6/2009
EAN 9780521518383, ISBN10: 0521518385
Hardcover, 254 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
Language: English
This book examines the connections between the commercial fishing industry in colonial America and the American Revolution, Christopher P. Magra places the origins and progress of this formative event in a wider Atlantic context. The Fisherman's Cause utilizes extensive research from archives in the United States, Canada, and the UK in order to take this Atlantic approach. Dried, salted cod represented the most lucrative export in New England. The fishing industry connected colonial producers to transatlantic markets in the Iberian Peninsula and the West Indies. Parliament's coercive regulation of this branch of colonial maritime commerce contributed to colonists' willingness to engage in a variety of revolutionary activities. Colonists then used the sea to resist British authority. Fish merchants converted transatlantic trade routes into military supply lines, and they transformed fishing vessels into warships. Fishermen armed and manned the first American Navy, served in the first coast guard units, and fought on privateers. These maritime activities helped secure American independence.
Introduction
Part I. The Rise of the Colonial Cod Fisheries
1. Fish
2. Fish merchants
3. Fishermen
Part II. Atlantic Origins of the American Revolutionary War
4. Cod and the Atlantic economy
5. Atlantic business competition and the political economy of cod
part one
6. Atlantic business competition and the political economy of cod
part two
7. The New England trade and fisheries act
Part III. The Military Mobilization of the Fishing Industry
8. From trade routes to supply lines
9. The first American navy
10. Starving the enemy and feeding the troops
11. From fishermen to fighting men
Conclusion.