6 FISHERMEN OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The majority of our fishermen are native-born citizens of the Uuited States, although in certain 

 localities there are extensive communities of foreigners, clinging to the traditions of their father- 

 lands, and conspicuous in the regions where they dwell by reason of their peculiar customs and 

 physiognomies. Most numerous of these are the natives of the British Provinces, of whom there 

 arc at least 4,000 employed in the fisheries of New England, Gloucester reporting 1,600, Province- 

 town 800, New Bedford 800, and smaller numbers in other minor ports of this region. 



There are probably not less than 2,000 Portuguese, chiefly natives of the Azores and the Cape 

 de Verde Islands. In the New Bedford whaling fleet there are about S00 of these men; at Prov- 

 incetowu 400, many of them on the whaling vessels; in Gloucester 250, and on the coast of Cali- 

 fornia, 200. Most of the Portuguese have brought their families with them and have built up 

 extensive communities in the towns whence they sail upon their fishing voyages. 



There are also about 1,000 Scandinavians, 1,000 or more of Irish and English birth, a considerable 

 number of French, Italian, Austrians, Minorcans, Sclavs, Greeks, Spaniards, and Germans. In the 

 whaling fleet may be found Lascars, Malays, and a larger number of Kanakas, or natives of the 

 various South Sea Islands. In the whale fishery of Southern New England a considerable number 

 of men of partial Indian descent may be found, and in the fisheries of the Great Lakes, especially 

 those of Lake Superior and the vicinity of Mackinaw, Indians and Indian half-breeds are employed. 



The salmon and other fisheries of Puget Sound are prosecuted chiefly by the aid of Indian 

 fishermen. In Alaska, where the population depends almost entirely upon the fisheries for sup- 

 port, the head of every family is a professional fisherman. Though upon a very low estimate one- 

 fourth of the inhabitants of Alaska should be considered as fishermen, few of them catch fish for 

 the use of others than their own immediate dependents. 



Only one Chinaman has as yet enrolled himself among the fishermen of the Atlantic coast, 

 but in California and Oregon there are about 4,000 of these men, all of whom, excepting about 300, 

 are employed as factory bauds in the salmon canneries of the Sacramento and Columbia basins. 

 The 300 who have the right to be classed among the actual fishermen live, for the most part, in 

 California, and the product of their industry is, to a very great extent, exported to China, although 

 they supply the local demands of their countrymen resident on the Pacific coast. 



The negro element in the fishing population is somewhat extensive. We have no means of 

 ascertaining how many of this lace are included among the native-born Americans returned by the 

 census reporters. The shad fisheries of the South are prosecuted chiefly by the use of negro muscle, 

 and probably not less than 4,000 or 5,000 of these men are employed during the shad and herring 

 season in setting and hauling the seines. The only locality where negroes participate to a large 

 extent in the shore fisheries is Key West, Fla., where the natives of the Bahamas, both negro and 

 white, are considered among the most skillful of the sponge and market fishermen. Negroes are 

 rarely found, however, upon the sea-going fishing vessels of the North. There is not a single negro 

 among the 5,000 fishermen of Gloucester, Mass., and their absence from the fishing vessels of 

 other New England ports is none the less noteworthy. There is, however, a considerable sprink- 

 ling of negroes among the crews of the whaling vessels of Provincetown and New Bedford. New 

 Bedford alone reports over two hundred negroes: these men are, for the most part, natives of 

 Jamaica, St. Croix, and other of the West India islands, and also of the Cape de Verde Islands, 

 where American whaling vessels engaging in the Atlantic fishery are accustomed to make harbor 

 for recruiting and enrolling their crews. 



As a counterpart to the solitary Chinaman engaged in the Atlantic fisheries, we hear of a 

 solitary negro on the Pacific; coast, a lone fisherman, who si/s on the wharf at New Tacoma, 

 Washington Territory, and fishes to supply the local market. 



