La pêche à Terre-Neuve et le commerce international : deux activités complémentaires au XVIe siècle
This paper studies fishing in Newfoundland during the second half of the sixteenth century. It analyses 415 maritime insurance contracts, all of which were registered at the Burgos Consulate, which was then one of the major insurance centres in Spain. We analyse the main characteristics of the journ...
| Published in: | Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l'Ouest |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | French |
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Presses universitaires de Rennes
2014
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.4000/abpo.2622 http://journals.openedition.org/abpo/2622 |
| Summary: | This paper studies fishing in Newfoundland during the second half of the sixteenth century. It analyses 415 maritime insurance contracts, all of which were registered at the Burgos Consulate, which was then one of the major insurance centres in Spain. We analyse the main characteristics of the journeys undertaken: price, danger, function, routes, origin of ships and sailors, etc. Furthermore, the surviving documentation (10,397 contracts) also allows us to reconstruct 4,372 maritime expeditions between 1565 and 1619. These data have allowed us to observe that the masters, owners and sailors who undertook fishing expeditions to Newfoundland also engaged in international trade. Fishing and trade were complementary activities and ships did not specialise in one or the other. In the sixteenth century, the Spanish, Portuguese and French fleets were very versatile and sought to diversify their activities and, thereby, reduce risk. L’article étudie la pêche à Terre-Neuve dans la seconde moitié du xvie siècle à partir de 415 polices d’assurance enregistrées devant le Consulat de Burgos, un des principaux centres d’assurance en Europe à cette époque. Ces documents détaillent d’une part les caractéristiques desdits voyages : prix, dangers encourus, participants, destination, routes, provenance des bateaux et des marins, etc. Ils sont à replacer parmi les 10 397 polices d’assurance conservées qui permettent de reconstituer au total 4743 expéditions entre 1565 et 1619. On constate que les maîtres, les propriétaires et les équipages des navires combinaient la pêche à Terre-Neuve avec le commerce international qui formaient deux activités complémentaires, sans qu’il y ait spécialisation entre les différentes activités. Les flottes espagnoles, portugaises et françaises développaient un pluriactivité, moyen de diversifier les affaires et par voie de conséquence de répartir les risques. |
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