Eastern Oyster History: The Chesapeake Bay

When work began to improve the Chesapeake Bay they needed to find the culprits of the bad water quality then get rid of them.

Although the settlements of Chesapeake Bay and New England came from the same mother country their social structure was very different and as a result, affected the prosperity of the new born colonies. The New England colony’s population was very

Although New England and the Chesapeake region were both settled largely by the people of English origin, by 1700 the regions had evolved into two distinct societies. The reasons for this distinct development were mostly based on the type on people from England who chose to settle in the two areas, and on the manner in which the areas were settled.

Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland were settled in the early 17th century. It was a difficult life for the first colonist; they had limited labor and were constantly raided by Native Americans. Colonist tried to use the Native Americans as a source of slavery. Most of the colonist’s farms were by forest areas so Native Americans would just leave in to the woods. Colonists were afraid of pressuring them because they feared getting ambushed by gangs of Native Americans.

European were settling the area before Jamestown. Chesapeake bay was named after Chesapeake. Pocahontas was famous people of Chesapeake, she married English tobacco planter John Rolfe in Jamestown, Virginia. Native people encountered Spanish. Spanish people connected with Powhatan (native people of Virginia) and became powerful 60 villages.

The differences in the two regions are not only seen in their religion, but can also be found in their economies. The Chesapeake Bay, on the other hand, had a good economy. The population of Chesapeake Bay outnumbered New England's population nearly three to one. Their economy was based on the tobacco and slave trading industries. Colonists living in the Chesapeake Bay region led harsh lives, while settlers of the New England area had more favorable conditions. They did indeed suffer from several diseases, leading them to live a short life.

Between 1813 and 1962, steamboats ruled the Chesapeake Bay, reflected in a fascinating and important era, in which trade and travel were made more convenient with steamers that linked parts of Maryland and Virginia, with distant and isolated rural communities along the Eastern Shore, in particular, including Piankatank River and Occohannock Creek in Virginia, Hudson Creek off the Little Choptank River in Maryland, Bushwood, and Rock Point It made possible access to certain goods and services typically unavailable east of the Bay, along with opportunities for leisure and entertainment.

The Chesapeake region was made up of the Virginia and Maryland colonies. The first english settlement in the Chesapeake was Jamestown, founded in 1607, in the Virginia colony. The New England colonies include Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts Bay, and New Hampshire. The first New England colony to be settled was the Massachusetts Bay, or Plymouth colony in 1620. By 1700 the two regions had advanced into two relatively different communities. Although the New England and the Chesapeake region had differences politically and geographically, their main difference in development occurred economically because the Chesapeake region was formed to make money, the Chesapeake region relied heavily on slavery while New England relied on their children for labor, and the population in the Chesapeake region were mainly men while in New England families made up the population.

The Chesapeake Bay is the nation’s largest estuary with six major tributaries, the James, the Potomac, the Susquehanna, the Patuxent, the York, and the Rappahannock Rivers, feeding into the bay from various locations in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia (Chemical Contaminants in the Chesapeake Bay – Workshop Discussion 1). These areas depend on the Bay as both an environmental and an economic resource. Throughout the last 15 years the Chesapeake Bay has suffered from elevated levels of pollution. Nitrogen and phosphorous from wastewater treatment plants, farmland, air pollution, and development all lead to reduced water clarity and lowered oxygen levels, which harm fish, crabs, oysters and

Our watershed, the chesapeake bay stretches more than 64,000 square miles and is home to about 18 million people.The bay provides us with a lot of things like fishes,salt and water for farming etc. But, the bay is starting to get polluted and many organisms in the bay are dying because of sediments, algae blooms etc.

The new england and the chesapeake lived in very different life. Some colonist live a hard life,others live wealthy and healthy. The two groups that was different was the people from england and chesapeake. The new england and the chesapeake have a different life styles the new england lived a very happy and healthy life. This way of living was better because of the part for better farming, a healthier environment, and a bigger rate of production because they have more factories. The people from the chesapeake, on the other hand, lived a harder life compared to the people from the new england. The chesapeake had an unhealthy environment, bad eating diets, and way too much labor. The new england had a different plan for The Chesapeake region.

In The Oyster Question, Christine Keiner utilizes environmental, agricultural, political, and social history perspectives to investigate the Maryland oyster industry and its decline throughout history to answer the question if the oyster industry should be privatized. She offers opposing viewpoints from scientists, politicians and local community members. She has managed to connect scientific history with environmental history with local history to bring together a comprehensive overview of the problems both past and present of the Maryland oyster industry. I think that Christine keener does an excellent job, not without its flaws, of laying bare how science and preservation is necessary to be understood as local phenomena, manipulated by

Determining the effect the Jamestown colony had on the environment and on the Native American cultures of the Chesapeake Bay vicinity is a complex issue that must be examined from the perspective of both the Powhatan people and the English settlers. Prior to the establishment of Jamestown, approximately 15,000 natives inhabited the area around Chesapeake Bay, most of whom were ruled by Chief Powhatan.

The word Chesapeake, although there is some scholarly dispute, likely means “Great Bay of Shells” or “Great Shellfish Bay” in the language of the Algonquian Native Americans (“Oyster History”). This translation is appropriate and accurate to anyone familiar with the Chesapeake Bay and its rich history of oysters. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States with over 150 rivers and streams flow into its basin. It measures roughly 200 miles in length, 3.4 to 35 miles in width and stretches across six states. The bay is home to over 2,700 plant and animal species, making it one of the most complex and productive estuary systems in the world (“Facts and Figures”). However, one species of animal stands out above the rest in its value and legacy to the Chesapeake region: the eastern oyster.

The oyster’s role has change many times throughout history; from the staple food of the Wampanoag Indians to the oyster saloons in New York, moving to the dining rooms of Boston all the way to San Francisco. It moved from a food item of sheer necessity to serendipity and, according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America (2004), during the 1610 Jamestown food shortage, colonists traveled to the James Rivers to sustain themselves on the bounty of oysters. By the 1800s, it is deemed that the demand of oysters was so high that the Atlantic and Gulf coast beds began to deplete (Oxford Encyclopedia, 2004) but, that didn’t slow down their consumption. Oysters were consumed by all classes, at all times of the day and where available, all season long. Charles Mackay, an English traveler, wrote that "the rich consume oysters and Champagne; the poorer classes consume oysters and large bier, and that is one of the principal social differences between the two sections of the community" (Life and Liberty, 1859). No matter the social class or status, oysters were for everyone.