Bacalhau and Jangadas: a History of Fisheries Development and Eating Habits

Abundant Fish in the North Atlantic

The greatest and most productive fishing region in the world lay off the northeast coast of North America. One of the poorest was off the northeast coast of Brazil.

The Banks are part of the North American continental shelf, with a depth of about two hundred feet, southeast of Newfoundland. The Grand Bank, over forty thousand square miles in area includes submarine plateaus that extend to Georges Bank, about ten thousand square miles in area. The cold Labrador Current and the warm Gulf Stream meet over the banks to create ideal conditions for cod, herring, mackerel, and haddock.

Off the coast of northeast Brazil the narrow continental shelf varies in width from seven to twenty miles. It has a rugged and jagged bottom traversed by the warm south-flowing Brazil current. The mean annual water surface isotherm of 75 degrees is carried as far south as the Tropic of Capricorn. The environment is decidedly unfavorable for fishery development.

Europeans exploited the Great Fishery long before they made permanent settlements on the American mainland. The Portuguese fished for cod on the Newfoundland banks as early as 1453.(1) They were soon joined by fishermen from Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Spain. Cod fishing became one of Europe's most important business enterprises.

The flesh of the cod is rich and gelatinous and is cured by salting and drying in the sun on platforms called flakes. Because of its high protein content the cod was called "the beef of the sea." Dried cod provided the essential protein that made possible the long voyages of the Age of Discovery and subsequent sailings bringing commerce, slaves, and settlers to the New World.

European wars in the latter part of the sixteenth century almost eliminated the Spanish and Portuguese from the Banks. Ships of the Royal Navy and English pirates attacked boats of the Iberian fishing fleets. With the restoration of peace in 1604 the English began supplying the Spanish and Portuguese markets with fish. The long period of warfare, heavy taxation, and impressment of fishermen to serve as sailors on voyages to India almost destroyed the Portuguese fishing industry. Portugal, the pioneer of North Atlantic cod fishing, was reduced to purchasing fish from Britain and New England.

Banks fishing became a virtual monopoly of the British. New England fishermen had as much right to exploit the Great Fishery as did those from Great Britain. The New Englanders, confronted with soil ill-suited for productive agriculture, made fishing the cornerstone of their economy. At its peak, about ten thousand New Englanders found employment in the fishing industry. Provincetown on Cape Cod was typical of many small fishing ports. The "Provincetown Advocate" reported in 1869 that most fishermen were Americans or Portuguese who made up about one-third of the town's six thousand inhabitants. (2)

Dried cod became New England's most important export staple. There were three grades. The best was exported to Portugal, Spain, and the Wine Islands. The average grade was sold throughout the mainland British colonies. The lowest grade was the most important product traded in West Indian commerce. This "refuse cod" was "sun burnt" or "salt burnt." It was used as slave food on Caribbean plantations.

The fishing industry had strong economic linkages with local economies, creating thousands of jobs, ashore and at sea. It provided the staple for a flourishing export trade and created demand for ships, provisions, and supplies for the shipbuilding industry. The fishing industry gave elasticity, variety, stability, and continuity to the economic organization of New England. (3)

Each year New Englanders exported more than ten million pounds of cured fish. "They outdid the mother country in the quantity and quality of the catch.”(4) New England's fish was not welcome in England because mercantilism decreed the domestic market reserved for fishermen from the British Isles. Forcing colonists to seek other markets for their fish was a boon to New England economic development.

In 1784 a wooden codfish was hung in the Massachusetts House of Representatives "as a memorial of the importance of the Cod-Fishery to the welfare of this Commonwealth." The Sacred Cod still hangs today opposite the Speaker’s chair.(5)

Scant Fish Resources Off Brazil's Extensive Coastline

In spite of an extensive coastline few fish resources are found in Brazilian waters. During the colonial and Empire periods some fishing was done between the states of Maranhão and Bahia on "jangadas," sailing rafts of balsa logs. "Jangadeiros" (raft fishermen) went far from land for a pitifully small catch with little to insure a safe return except superb seamanship.(6)

At the beginning of the twentieth century Brazil still did not have a true fishing industry. There were many commercial ports but no fishing port. Indigenous canoes and jangadas differed little from the 27,945 canoes and 3,501 jangadas that as late as 1966 constituted 80 percent of the Brazilian fishing fleet. Fishing was not a source of enrichment. Little is heard about a Brazilian fishing industry during the Imperial and Republican periods.(7)

Since the 16th century "bacalhau" (dried cod) has been the Portuguese national dish. Cod remained the favorite fish of Portugal and Brazil even when Portuguese fishermen ceased supplying the national and Brazilian markets. British and American ships brought cod to Lisbon for domestic consumption and re-export to Brazil. During the 1770s Portugal imported from New England almost fifteen million pounds.(8)

Bacalhau, today imported from Norway at high cost, remains the traditional Brazilian dish served during Easter Week and Christmas by all families that can afford it. Visitors to Rio de Janeiro may enjoy bacalhau at many restaurants. The best in the author's opinion is A Lisboeta, a typical no frills Portuguese restaurant on the Rua Frei Caneca near the Praça da Republica in the heart of Old Rio far from tourist haunts. Go for lunch, Tuesday through Friday. To savor "bacalhau a moda da casa" (codfish, chef's style) at A Lisboeta is to understand why to this day cariocas continue their love affair with the cod of the cold and forbidding North Atlantic.

Courageous Fishermen: Gloucestermen And Jangadeiros

Gloucestermen of Massachusetts and jangadeiros of northeast Brazil are among the finest fishermen in the world. Gloucestermen worked rich fishing grounds while jangadeiros fished an almost barren sea.

Gloucestermen: Captains Courageous

Gloucester, thirty miles northeast of Boston, was incorporated as a town in 1642 and has been a maritime and fishing center ever since. After 1850 the cod fishery was carried on almost exclusively from this port. In 1879, there were 152 vessels engaged in the Georges Bank fishery, landing over twenty-three million pounds of cod.(9)

Georges Bank, scene of the movie "The Perfect Storm," is an oval shoal that lies between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia, about ten thousand square miles in area. The turbulence of winds, tides, currents, and waves makes a high-energy environment that creates an exceptionally rich, and very dangerous, fishing grounds. Rudyard Kipling described Georges as "a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with dark fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the tracks of the reckless liners and dotted with the sails of the fishing fleet.”(10) The title of Kipling's novel, "Captains Courageous," accurately describes the Gloucestermen who brave the dangers of Georges Bank. "Her sons worked for such wages as the seas gave; and they all knew that neither Georges nor the Banks were cow pastures.”(11) Gloucester's Fisherman's Memorial honors the more than 10,000 fishermen who have been lost at sea.

The crew of a Georges boat consisted of from eight to twelve men. In 1860 about 1,200 were engaged in the fishery. One-third were Americans, one-third were British nationals, and the remaining third was about equally divided between Swedes and Portuguese. In his 1887 two volume work on the United States fishing industry George Goode wrote that the dangers and hardships of the Georges fishery are so great that only the most daring and hardy of fishermen participate. Crewmen are required "in whose natures is combined hardihood, doggedness of purpose, and bravery. Owing to the fact that each man's success depends in great part on his own individual efforts, the Portuguese and Irish have a special fondness for this fishery.”(12)

Jangadeiros: Their Valor Consecrated by Poets

For centuries jangadeiros of northeast Brazil were the main suppliers of fish caught in Brazilian waters for the domestic market. The classic jangada is a raft consisting of from three to six logs. The craft measures fifteen to twenty-four feet in length and up to six in width. It uses a centerboard and triangular sail, and is manned by a crew of one, two, or three. The jangadeiros go well beyond the sight of land to the edge of the continental shelf. Sailing without nautical instruments, they rely on "seaman's eye" to return home safely.(13)

In 1837 Richard Henry Dana, Jr. recorded his observations of jangadas off the coast of Pernambuco in his classic "Two Years Before the Mast." "They are composed of three or four logs lashed together upon the water, have one large sail, are quite fast, and, strange as it may seem, are trusted as good sea boats. We saw several, with from one to three men in each, boldly putting out to sea, after it had become almost dark.”(14)

The fame of jangadeiros is included in the history of every seaport of northeast Brazil. They are heroes known for their daring and bravery. Possessed of moral and physical courage, jangadeiros were active in the abolition movement, ferrying fleeing slaves to freedom and barring slave imports to Ceará where slavery was first abolished in Brazil in 1884. "This audacious "caboclo" (mixed race Brazilian), unfazed by danger, has his valor consecrated in the verses sung by poets.”(15)

Gloucestermen and jangadeiros are courageous mariners and hardworking fishermen. Gloucestermen worked one of the world's most productive fishing grounds and were important agents of development. Jangadeiros worked barren seas for a meager catch and a subsistence livelihood.

The material in this article was adapted from the author's book "Early Globalization and the Economic Development of the United States and Brazil" (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002).

Notes