70 THEISLAND ACADIANS

As for Cascumpec, Hill noted that the Acadians were not involved in fishing but rather in cutting timber and in farming*®. In Tignish they devoted themselves exclusively to farming for which they were praised by Mr. Hill. He deemed their position to be better than that of their compatriots in Rustico and Cascumpec®.

In Egmont Bay, Mont Carmel and Miscouche, agriculture consti- tuted the chief occupation at the beginning of the century. There was some fishing but it was essentially for home consumption. In 1825, Célestin Robichaud, an Acadian from St. Mary’s Bay in Nova Scotia, noted that herring, trout and mackerel were caught in Egmont Bay but codfish did not frequent the waters off that shore®®.

Distressed by the American control of the fisheries, around 1830 the Island government decided that it was time to stimulate the industry. As an incentive, the Legislature passed an act which awarded a bounty on fishing vessels and on codfish exported from the Island.

While the Acadians around Tignish and Cascumpec were not very involved in fishing during the early decades of the nineteenth century, the situation was to change considerably in the ensuing years. It was there, in fact, that the recovery of the Island fisheries was to take place. Although John Hill and his sons founded an establishment in Alberton at the beginning of the century, no Acadians appear to have been involved.

The industry began expanding in the Tignish area with the arrival in 1845 of merchants like Frank Arsenault and Thomas J. Caie who traded farm and fish products for imported goods. In 1850 the Amer- ican W.B. Dean and Captain Hubbard from Charlottetown founded an important fishing and commercial establishment near the present village of Tignish®’ —the first large-scale one in the colony. The impact of this business soon became apparent because in 1852 Tignish was exporting more fish products than any other port on the Island: 244 barrels of gaspereaux, 2113 quintals of cod, 115 barrels of herring and 21 barrels of fish oil. The entire amount was shipped to the other British colonies in North America and to foreign countries”.

During the 1850s the fishing industry played an increasingly important role in the Island economy. Expansion took place after the signing of the Reciprocity Treaty between Britain and the United States in 1854. The treaty, which remained in effect until 1866, eliminated customs tariffs on certain raw materials and gave the Americans the