Aquaculture and Fisheries Commons^™

The history of the development of oyster aquaculture is reviewed, beginning with pre-colonial shellfishing by the Native American Narragansetts and Wampanoags of Narragansett Bay. Leasing of estuarine waters for aquaculture of oysters began with legislation by the Rhode Island General Assembly before the turn of the 19th Century. Legal developments during the 19th Century led to the expansion of oyster aquaculture to the point that about 21,000 acres of Rhode Island's estuarine and coastal waters were leased for oyster farming by 1910. Industrialization, sewage pollution, siltation, the Hurricane of 1938 and socio-political changes in the 1920s and 1930s led to …