Oysters?

Early on in Edward Bartlett Rugemer's very-good-so-far The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War I encountered the following startling item:

The sloop Mary Ann, for example, owned by the Browns of Providence, Rhode Island, sailed to Surinam in 1766 with a cargo that included tobacco, candles, staves, hoops, bricks, horses, pigs, onions, axes, empty hogsheads, barrels of pork and beef, ship bread, flour, butter, oars, tar, and oysters. Such a cargo would have taken months to assemble . . ..

Oysters? After a couple of weeks to a couple of months on the dock, then, say, a month at sea? I think I'll pass.