“A Spirit of Encroachment”: Trees, Cod, and the Political Ecology of Empire in the Newfoundland Fisheries, 1763–1783 (2023)
This article considers the political ecology of dried salt cod production in eighteenth-century Newfoundland fisheries to explore the relationship between resource extraction, law, and imperial rivalry. When France recognized Newfoundland as a British possession in 1713, by treaty French subjects retained the right to operate seasonal cod fisheries along a segment of the island’s shores. The fisheries were valuable not only economically, but strategically as a source of naval recruits. In the aftermath of French defeat in the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), a contingent of British officials was dismayed that the peace treaty reaffirmed French fishing rights. Realizing that cod production required a nearby source for wood, they began insisting that French fishermen had rights to extract cod from Newfoundland’s shores but not wood from its forests. Manipulating the extraction nexus of wood and cod became a strategy of empire. French fishermen responded by deepening their ties with the Mi’kmaq, who challenged British dominance in Newfoundland, and by developing smuggling networks with New England merchants. Thus, the British attempt to make French fishing rights meaningless had unintended consequences. The Franco–New England ties proved especially important in the American Revolutionary War. Bringing together environmental and legal history, this article exposes how a resource—in this case wood—could have a value beyond a straightforward economic one in the context of imperial rivalry. In doing so, it argues that the relationship between nature and legal strategies of imperial claims-making was not merely discursive but was rooted in the material conditions of resource extraction and production.
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