ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 65 



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 four 

 or five thousand 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, and their absence on the 

 other fishing vessels of New England is no less noteworthy. There 

 is, however, a considerable sprinkling of negroes among the crews 

 of the whaling vessels of Provinceton and New Bedford, the latter 

 alone reporting over 200. These men are, for the most part, na- 

 tives of the West India Islands, such as Jamaica and St. Croix, 

 where the American whalers engaging in the Atlantic fishery are 

 accustomed to make harbor for recruiting and enrolling their crews. 

 As a counterpart of the solitary Chinaman engaged in the Atlantic 

 fisheries we hear of a solitary negro on the Pacific coast, a lone 

 fisherman, who sits on the wharf at New Tacoma, Washington Ter- 

 ritory, and fishes to supply the local market. 



The number of foreign fishermen in the United States, excluding 

 5,000 negroes, and 8,000 Indians and Esquimaux, who are consid- 

 ered to be native-born citizens, probably does not exceed 10 to 12 

 per cent, of the total number, as is indicated by the figures which 

 have already been given. Considerably more than one-half of the 

 fishing population of the United States belongs to the Atlantic 

 coast north of the capes of Delaware ; of this number at least four- 

 fifths are of English descent. They are by far the most interesting 

 of our fishermen, since to their number belong the 20,000 or more 

 men who may properly be designated the "sailor fishermen" of 

 the United States, — the crews of the trim and enterprising vessels 

 of the sea-going fishing fleet which ought to be the chief pride of 

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