Battle Harbour in Transition

The early 1930s witnessed the deterioration of truck relationships between fishermen and merchants in Battle Harbour, a Newfoundland fishing community located on the coast of Labrador. By taking advantage of changes in the fishery, more prosperous fishermen began to deal with other firms, undercutting Baine, Johnston's domination of Battle Harbour. As Baine, Johnston withdrew winter credit, poorer fishermen threatened the firm with direct, violent action which neither the merchant nor the state were able to deal with except by granting relief. Such actions by Battle Harbour fishermen indicate that they were able to step outside the supposed limits of the culture of their kin-based villages, and confront directly the exploitation of merchant capital in the cod fishery. Resume Situee sur la cote du labrador, la communaute terre-neuvienne de Battle Harbour vit la deterioration du systeme de troc et de credit transformer les rapports entre pecheurs et marchands au debut des annees 1930. Profitant d'un changement dans les pecheries, les producteurs les plus prosperes entreprirent de miner l'emprise de la maison Baine et Johnston en traitant avec d'autres firmes. Moins fortunes, les autres pecheurs se souleverent directement et violemment contre Baine et Johnston lorsqu'on leur retira leurs avances de credit hivernal, laissant le marchand et l'Etat sans autre recours que l'octroi de secours publics. Cette confrontation signale que les pecheurs de Battle Harbour pouvaient franchir les soi-disant limites d'une culture villageoise axee sur les groupes familiaux afin de faire face a l'exploitation du capital marchand dans la peche a la morue

Ancient history · Archaeology · Battle · Biology · Geography · Harbour · Political science · State (computer science · Transition (genetics · Canadian Identity and History · Computer Science · History

• Academic populists, the informal economy and those benevolent merchants

  James Overton•The Journal of Peasant Studies•2000

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