COMMERCIAL FISHING

Fishing had not yet developed to become an important economic activity at beginning of the 19^th century. There were several rea-sons for that. The Royal Trade Monopoly had merely concentrated on the production of woollen goods for sale at artifi cially high prices, which had limited other economic in-itiatives (Joensen 1987: 31). The society was dominated by its farmers and people were tied to the farms as a labour force. There was no room for extensive experimentation in the sphere of fi sheries because of the con-centration on wool production, which was in any case a safer source of livelihood for the landless people than fi shing. Trading jour-neys to Tórshavn took a long time and much effort, and good fi shing weather was often wasted. Also, the Faroese fi shing equipment and curing methods were primitive, and the boat-tie hindered the development of fi sher-ies because it allowed farmers to man their boats for spring fi shing with men from the villages, which left the landless people less able to fi sh on their own (West 1972: 54).

The situation was gradually changing, however. The increasing population re-quired new economic opportunities and they came into contact with Shetlanders who were fi shing in Faroese waters. The new economic activities also evoked the in-terest of the authorities (Joensen 1992: 10-11). There was enough fi sh to create a basis for export products in markets outside the Faroe Islands at that time (Joensen 1985b:

11), and the market demand for fi sh was in-creasing.

The commercial Faroese fi sheries that developed in the 19^th century can be divid-ed into two main categories: inshore fi sher-ies, útróðúr in Faroese, which was the main branch and culminated at the time of the First World War, and deep-sea fi sheries, which started in 1872 and developed slowly, although the number of ships had increased greatly by the turn of the century. This lat-ter became the dominant economic activ-ity up to the Second World War (Joensen 1987: 85).

Inshore fishing was practised from open rowing boats manned by 8, 6 or 4 men, referred to in Faroese as 8-manna-far, 6-manna8-manna-far, and 4-manna8-manna-far, respec-tively. 8-mannafar boats were used during the winter time, and 6-mannafar boats were also used in many villages in winter, while the 4-mannafar boats were used for summer fi shing. Winter fi shing was of the greatest importance, as the fi sh were then dried and sold to the Royal Trade Monopoly (Joensen 1985b: 22-23).

Fishing from rowing boats became in-creasingly important and was encouraged by the new government offi cials and the Mo-nopoly directors (West 1972: 73-74; Wylie 1987: 87). Among the governors it was espe-cially Christian Tillisch (1825-30), his broth-er Fredbroth-erik Tillisch (1830-37) and Christian Pløyen (1837-48) who supported the devel-oping of fi sheries. After 1843 the Monopoly itself started to buy fresh cod, which was processed to klip fi sh (Joensen 1975: 20).

Despite the attempts of Niels Ryberg in the latter part of the 18^th century, the Faroese had not learnt to manufacture klip fi sh. Governor Pløyen therefore took three Faroese men with him to the Shetland Is-lands, Orkney Islands and Scotland in the 1830s to study closely the processing of klip

DEPARTMENT OF GEOSCIENCES AND GEOGRAPHY A

fi sh (Pløyen 1840: 10, 42-43). They learnt to use the long line technique and eventu-ally took it into use in the Faroe Islands.

This helped the fi shermen to increase catch-es (Høgncatch-esen 1968: 59-60). The Monopoly began to buy small cod in 1834, klip fi sh in 1837, fl atfi sh and ling in 1838, liver, blub-ber and train oil in 1846, and fresh fi sh for processing in 1845. Fish and fi sh products already made up nearly 40% of Faroese ex-ports in the period 1841-1850 (Degn 1929:

23; Høgnesen 1968: 59; Wylie 1987: 117).

Even though the value of fi shing prod-ucts increased and the value of woollen goods stagnated around the middle of the century (Joensen 1975: 20), almost all the Faroese people still had some connection with farming. In a census conducted in 1850 the group which had fi shing as their main occupation was the largest, accounting for over 40% of the population, while agricul-ture was the main occupation for just be-low 40% (Høgnesen 1968: 60). The rapidly growing importance of fi sheries can be seen in Figure 3.3, which illustrates the numbers of inhabitants employed in fi sheries and

ag-riculture over the period of 1801-1911. The graph shows stable growth in the proportion of the population employed in fi sheries from the beginning of the 19^th century onwards, with more rapid growth beginning around 1855 and continuing throughout the latter part of the century. This is accompanied by a corresponding decline in the numbers of people employed in agriculture.

It may be maintained that the econom-ic transition towards a fi shing society also affected the development of the settlement pattern. Tórshavn had been the only trading town until the 1830s, when three Monop-oly branches were established: at Tvøroyri (1836), Klaksvík (1838) and Vestmanna (1839) (Degn 1929: 18; Joensen 1985b: 26-28). This made it easier for the Monopoly to buy fresh fi sh, even from Suðuroy (Degn 1929: 18), and gradually the population started to concentrate in these fi shing towns.

The type of boats that were used were also related to the changes in settlement pat-tern. Joensen (1992: 13) suggests that when rowing boats were used, most the fi sh catch-es were often landed in the villagcatch-es

locat-Figure 3.3 Population of the Faroe Islands employed in fi shing and agriculture in the period of 1801-1911 (based on Wylie 1987: 126).

ed geographically closest to the best fi shing grounds in the north. Thus the most impor-tant fi shing villages were the most northerly

ones, as seen in the settlement pattern for 1850 (Figure 3.4).

Figure 3.4 Settlement pattern of the Faroe Islands in 1850, with a population of 8,137 (based on Madsen 1995).

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3.7.4. ABOLITION OF THE ROYAL