Norfish 16 Portuguese Newfoundland Cod Fishery 1500-1790

As is the case for the Spanish and Basque Newfoundland Fishery, the Portuguese data for fishing in Newfoundland in this time period are remarkably minimal. While there are some references to Portuguese fishing voyages during the 16th century, these are qualitative rather than quantitative and do not provide details of the actual size of the fishing fleet, the catches they took or the overall scale of the effort; quantitative data are all but non-existent in surviving sources and existing literature. Generating a complete dataset of annual values for the Portuguese cod fishery must comprise of many computed data points in order to provide a reasonable insight into the probable scale of these fishing activities.