Masters of Our Own Domain: Oral Tradition Among African American Farmers, Fishermen, and Landowners

ABSTRACT Melody Hunter-Pillion: Masters of Our Own Domain: Oral Tradition Among African American Farmers, Fishermen, and Landowners(Under the direction of Blair L.M. Kelley and Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt) African Americans gained intimate knowledge of coastal North Carolina environments as early as the pre-colonial period. Many generations of rural Black families, with expertise in the nation’s first industries of farming, fishing, and naval stores, stay rooted in a dynamic natural environment while also facing social, political, and economic challenges. Through the oppression of slavery, devastation of hurricanes, violence and discrimination of Jim Crow, and today’s sea level rise, African American men and women in eastern North Carolina have used oral tradition as a powerful tool to survive, adjust to change, and readjust repeatedly. Black farming and fishing cultures, as early pioneering developments in America, created local ecological knowledge. Black farmers and watermen are pragmatists who use practical solutions and oral tradition to survive and thrive in place. In the long struggle from slavery to freedom, Black people connected the idea of land to citizenship and liberty. The struggle for land and freedom, plus readjusting to each ecological and social challenge, produced valuable knowledge. The lives and stories of land-owning Black families in eastern North Carolina is where we need to look to understand American history. We can all learn from their deep well of knowledge, which has been historically undervalued and ignored. This dissertation examines the intergenerational narratives Black families use as tools to stay rooted in rural spaces. It explores the flexible and creative nature of Black culture and community survival through oral tradition in four North Carolina counties: Bladen, Brunswick, Carteret, and Craven. Stories help us to adapt, which allows culture to survive and move forward to create a stronger future. In the current period of global warming, we should consider whether sea level rise and climate change will outpace oral tradition as a culturally adaptive response. Black culture is once again pushed to readjust, and its past and future success may provide a model for society at large.