Abstract Detail

Black Botanical Legacy: Fostering a Community of Equity in Botanical Sciences

Silvera Seamans, Georgia [1].

Making (a) Place Out of Nature.

Despite the absence of plantations in the northern U.S., chattel slavery was a fact of life in cities such as New York, although the City did not acknowledge its involvement in the Atlantic slave trade via physical markers until (1) the African Burial Ground was recovered in 1991 (the space achieved National Monument status in 2007) and (2) the former Slave Market established in 1711 at Wall Street and the East River was marked with a historical plaque in 2015. The labor and experiential relationship between Africans--enslaved and free--and their descendants and the land in New York City spans natural resources like forestry via saw milling; oystering; public works such as canal building; and other forms of agriculture like animal husbandry and maize farming. This presentation is a look at ways in which the African diaspora made place in and from nature in New Amsterdam and early NYC.

1 - 110 Bleecker Street, NY, NY, 10012, United States

Keywords:
Black Botanists Week
African diaspora
natural resources.

Presentation Type: Symposium Presentation
Number: S2002
Abstract ID:659
Candidate for Awards:None