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At the beginning of the 17th century, the increasing insecurity on the Kornati on one hand (frequent corsair attacks on the flocks, kidnapping of the shepherds for galley rowers), and an increasingly developed and profitable fishing on the other hand, the Kornati became greatly depopulated.

At the beginning of the 17th century, the increasing insecurity on the Kornati on one hand (frequent corsair attacks on the flocks, kidnapping of the shepherds for galley rowers), and an increasingly developed and profitable fishing on the other hand, the Kornati became greatly depopulated. The serfs who had worked for the owners of the islands (the nobility of Zadar) turned to new activities and new locations. The vacuum was filled by the villagers from Murter, Betina and Zaglav, who – as hired colonists for the Zadar nobility – were looking for a new living space. (The Murterini, people from the island of Murter or the village of Murter, were first mentioned on the Kornati in 1627.) The island of Murter became overpopulated because of the refugees before the Turks on the mainland and couldn't feed that number of people. Economically speaking, there were two kinds of residents on the Kornati at the time: 1) peasants and shepherds from Murter, and 2) fishermen from Sali.

kucaFrom the arrival of the new colonists to the end of the 19th century, almost nothing changed in the situation on the Kornati. The documents about the life on the Kornati are very scarce. During that period the first peasant and shepherd dwellings (stanovi) were built – small rural complexes located along the field edges on the Kornati. The cadastral maps from 1824-30 show 187 colonists with their domicile in the village of Murter. The records are mainly for the interior of the islands (not on the shore). However, it's important to note that documents already mention in 1682 that the Murterini, the residents of Pašman Island as well as those from the adjacent mainland "bother" the fishermen from Sali. The conflict about the fishing rights in the Kornati only grew since then.

Murterini as owners

At the end of the 19th century, the Zadar nobility as the owners of the islands in the Kornati – and because of the new agrarian policies in Dalmatia – were not able to pay the taxes and duties anymore and they sold all the islands. The Murterini bought the island of Žut in 1885, and, together with the people of Betina and Zaglav, the island of Kornat with all the associated islands in 1896. The residents of Murter Island so became the owners of more than 90% of the land in the Kornati. The people from Sali still paid attention only to the sea because of their traditional and written fishing rights they held throughout the history of the islands.

 

 

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, economy and life on the Kornati acquired an increased significance. That was the time of the greatest agrarian activities. What had been almost exclusively pastures, passed through a great transformation, turning into arable land (the size of the cleared land grew ten times). That was also the time when the complex mosaic of dry stone walls mushroomed, today one of the most interesting cultural attractions in the Park. The life started moving from the interior of the islands to the shores. The ports, settlements in more accessible bays, acquired their full significance only in the 20th century. The last clearings were recorded (enlargements of arable land) in the Twenties of the 20th century. That's when the stagnation of the traditional land management began, and during the last several decades, tourism became dominant. Unfortunately, one of the consequences was that the number of houses built in the last 50 years was equal to the number of houses built through all the previous history of the islands.