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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES: TRADITIONS, KNOWLEDGE,

AND ADAPTATIONS AMONG BLACK FARMERS IN OHIO

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the

Graduate School of the Ohio State University

Gail Patricia Myers, M.A.

The Ohio State University 2002

Dissertation Committee: Approved by:

Dr. Douglas Crews, Adviser

Dr. Pat Mullen

Dr. Virginia Richardson Department of Anthropology

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT

Black fanning communities developed in Ohio from the early 1800’s through the

1870’s. The impetus for the development into Ohio was its free state status and it was a

short route to Canada, via the Underground Railroad. Early during this period some

farmers owned land as large as 2000 acres. However, these were fragmented through

inheritance, sales, and loses to others. Today’s black farmers by and large run small-scale

farms of 50 to 140 acres. They have not generally been successful at sustaining farming

as a business.

This research is based upon the agroecoiogical model that examines

relationships among people, the environment, agricultural systems, biological diversity,

and traditional knowledge. I collected data from 24 African-American fanners in Ohio by

observation, multiple interviews, participant observation, and archival research. These

data were transcribed from tape, audio and video, and fieldnotes, and coded to computer

compatible data utilizing Nud*st 4.0 software. Qualitative data collection and analysis

utilized grounded theory methods, systematic and constant comparative. Structured

survey data were analyzed by averages utilizing the standard deviations.

Agricultural ways of today’s African American fanners are part of a tradition of

ecology-based farming and representative of sustainable farming systems. Resource

management decisions appear to emanate from concerns about the local ecology, family,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. material aesthetics, kinship, and community identity. In general the data examined herein

support the idea that agricultural behavior (tradition, knowledge, adaptations) provides a

means to establish a cultural identity for African American farmers within a larger social

system of which they are a part.

iii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dedicated to my wonderful mother

Luevenia Mae Weems Myers

In loving memory of my grandmother

Carrie Lee Weems

To the

People of the Randolph Estate who never got their land

And to all

African American Farmers who ever lived and yet to arrive!

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All praise and thanks to the creator. I could not have completed this project

without the help of the farmers in this study and the other individuals who provided

information and leads for this research. I would like to thank Mrs. Helen Gilmore who

gave me the motivation to conduct this particular research with African American

farmers. Henry Burke was a wealth of historical information and local data and I thank

him for having a great sense of humor. Sincere thanks to Charles Loggins, Robert Coles,

and Jon Bourdon for invaluable assistance in locating the farmers in this study.

When times got tough, my resolve was rejuvenated by my family. I want to

thank my mother Luevenia Myers, who as always encouraged me to follow my dreams

and gave me spiritual inspirations along this academic road. To my sisters, Diane,

Brinda, and Jeannette for support financially and spiritually. To my nieces and nephews,

Ivory, Deannia, Jasmine, Adrianna, Genisia, Jabarri, Mitchell, Ashlee, and Ervonni for

teaching me new information all the time.

Much gratitude to my friends from California to New York, from Chicago to

Florida, who sent money, food, and prayers to help me make it through this dissertation

writing process. To my friend Wanda in Columbus who taught me a lot about many

things and who always had kind words to say.

I would like to thank the members of my committee for their outstanding

guidance and direction throughout the writing process. A special thank you to Dr.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Crews, who took me into his writing wings and guided me into the next level of my

scholarly writing. A special thanks also to Dr. Mullen for being ever so willing and

able to assist me during those difficult transitions in the department and reading the

many drafts. I am deeply indebted to my mentor Dr. Virginia Richardson for

encouragement and guidance during my years at OSU and for being the rock of

Gibraltar for me during my tenure at OSU. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Richard

Moore for sparking my interest into this inquiry of Black Farmers. All praise and

thanks to the creator.

1 gratefully acknowledge that this research was funded by a grant from the

Graduate Student Alumni Research Award (GSARA).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. VITA

August 10, 1957 Bom - Daytona Beach, Florida

1991 B.A. - Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida Major English with emphasis in Creative Writing

1997 M.A. - Georgia State University Atlanta, Georgia Applied Anthropology

1999 Admission to Candidacy for Ph.D. Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University

1999-2001 Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Anthropology

vii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract...... ii

Dedication...... iv

Acknowledgments...... v

V ita...... vii

List of Tables...... ix

List of Illustrations...... x

Preface...... xi

Chapters 1. Introduction...... 1

2. Methods...... 40

3. Development of Black farming settlements...... 61

4. Black farming settlements in O hio...... 84

5. Black farming traditions and practices...... 117

6. Environmental/Ecological perspectives and Sources of knowledge ... 158

7. Discussion...... 185

Bibliography...... 199

Appendices: Appendix A- Introductory Letter...... 216 Appendix B - Telephone Interview Script...... 217 Appendix C- Consent Form...... 218 Appendix D- Black Fanner Questionnaire...... 219 Appendix E- Quantitative Codebook...... 224 Appendix F- Qualitative Codebook...... 228

viii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. U.S. Census population of Ohio from 1800 to 1870 ...... 95

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page

1. Guinea Fowl ...... 149

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE

My earliest memories of a farm were during the summers when my family

would travel to Dothan, Alabama. You see I grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida,

literally on the beach. I spent a lot of time on the sandy shores. Those summer visits

to my great uncle's farm were few and ended before I could grasp farm life. What I

do remember though was the strong aroma of the soil. In the heat of summer, I

remember that heat and soil filling my nostrils like the rush of waves beating against

the shore. My mother grew up on a farm and there were farm stories she told when I

was growing up. All of those experiences I took for granted until I began researching

the contemporary black farmer.

Two months after enrolling in the program at the OSU, I had a conversation

with Dr. Richard Moore about his work with Amish farmers. The subject of black

farmers came up, a subject of which at the time I knew very little. My mind flashed

back to summer visits to Alabama. I remembered that smell of the soil. During that

same quarter while enrolled in a methods class, a course requirement was to conduct

an interview. That assignment led me to my first interview in October 1997. I had no

idea before that first interview, with Mrs. Helen Gilmore an Ohio historian and

descendent o f the Randolph Settlement, that I would be drawn into their vortex of

pain over the loss of land. The interview with Mrs. Gilmore left me m shock. I had

watched the movies, read the fiction, even read some slave narratives. But nothing I

had ever experienced prepared me for the emotional feelings I had following my xi

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. interview with Mrs. Gilmore. She told me about the horrible injustices done to her

descendants who migrated from Virginia in 1843. Within days after that first

interview, I knew that this would be my dissertation topic — black farmers in the U.S.

xii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

They used to plant by the moon. By the light of the moon, by the dark of the moon, they would say. Certain things you plant by the light and some by the dark. One time my beans bloomed all summer long but they had nothing inside of them because I planted on the wrong sign. I learned right then after I planted by the wrong sign. Want to plant my potatoes by the dark of the moon, they stay down in the ground. They used to call it superstition.

Sustaining Community

These comments, from an African American woman in Ohio who has lived on the

farm for over 55 years, speak to some of the traditional farming practices of today’s black

farmers in Ohio. Although her remarks are not indicative of all contemporary black

farmers in Ohio, they speak to persistent relationships between tradition (agricultural

knowledge), current farming practices, their change and continuity over time. Planting

by signs and other traditional farming ways, survive as folk beliefs or superstition. These

traditions survive because they are linked to modem ways. African American Ohio

farmers illustrate how people practicing traditional farming incorporate modem

knowledge. Not all black Ohio farmers practice traditional ways. Still, essential elements

of traditional farming survive and are today melded with modem ones. This illustrates

how culture adapts to changing sociological and ecological environments.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This dissertation investigates the relationships between agricultural traditional

knowledge, ecological perspectives, and innovation of African American Ohio farmers.

It is guided by an agroecological perspective that sees a dynamic relationship between

farming ways and traditional knowledge. My major hypothesis is that traditional

knowledge serves as a mechanism of both continuity and change. Tradition forms a

bridge with the past, represents sustainable farming, and promotes biological diversity.

The agroecological perspective suggests that one examine culture and agriculture from a

holistic framework regarding traditional knowledge as equal to scientific knowledge.

Epistemoiogically, western science regards traditional knowledge as folk belief or

superstitution. However, to others traditional knowledge is seen as essential for

maintaining healthy agroecosystems. (Altieri 1987). Agroecology studies farming in a

comprehensive and inclusive fashion, utilizing both western and folk knowledge and

looking for synergistic interactions between tradition and innovation. This approach,

rooted in ecology, views change as part of a continuous process for managing local farm

ecology. The perspective of this research is that African American farms have operated

efficiently within changing landscapes and sociohistorical circumstances while

maintaining basic ethnoecological values.

During the periods in U.S. history when African Americans have been at the

center of sociopolitical thought (e.g. the Atlantic slave trade, Reconstruction, the Jim

Crow period, Civil Rights) agriculture has been one constant The forced migration of

Africans to the New World was to provide slave labor for tobacco, rice, indigo, sugar,

and cotton agriculture (Mannix 1962). From the moment of the arrival of the first

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Africans in the New World in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the material

culture of African Americans took root An outcome of forced separation from their

indigenous culture, these African people reinvented themselves always with some of the

old and with some things new. “Once in the New World, Blacks took their own foods

and techniques, added in native foods, and created new cuisines” (Harris 2001:15). In

cuisines, pottery, and other elements blacks recreated themselves with materials from

past and present, old and new (Ferguson 1992; Harris 2001). Present analysis is an

attempt to explain the development of African American rural material culture as

originating from the constant innovation and reinventions throughout the transitional

periods in the history of African Americans. In spite of the continuous reinvention

process, certain basic tenets regarding the natural world never altered from generation to

generation and they were uncovered in the current research.

Africans in America have been part of US agriculture for more than three

centuries. During Reconstruction many blacks eager to prosper and develop

communities turned to farming. Reconstruction was a golden age for farm owners and

tenant farmers in the US. Historical processes that shaped African American culture

were tied to a series of collective reinventions, creolizations, and transformations

centered on farm lifestyles and agricultural activities. This typified African Americans

more than any other ethnic group. The essential core through these continuous

reinventions has been the farms, farming, and ownership of farm land.

Continuously responding through innovation and resourcefulness, while also

incorporating discontinuities between the past and present with continuities flowing into

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the present from the past, has typified the black experience in North America. It is not

surprisingly that after 300 hundred of years of agriculture, that farming traditions,

knowledge, and adaptations of today’s black farmers retain to some degree the basic

values and ecological beliefs of West and Central Africa.

Farming traditions invoke spiritual, aesthetic, and material essences which

transcend spatial and temporal boundaries. These traditions may remain superficial and

transitional on the way to extinction, but they also may survive as a cultural resource that

may be recovered and reworked into the new meanings in the present (Marcus and Fisher

1986). Within the complex quagmires of culturalized information, farming traditions

and views of the natural environment remain identifiable. Relationships between land

and the symbolic conceptualization, blended of continuity with discontinuity, can be

explored to understand how groups bridge the past with the present

To Handler & Linnekin (1984:273) tradition is “a wholly symbolic construction.”

Tradition involves both continuity and discontinuity (Handler & Linnekin). Tradition is a

process in constant re-creation (See also Hymes 1975). Since the interpretation of

tradition is done in the present, there is no genuine tradition (Handler & Linnekin 1984).

In this model, tradition becomes a symbolic process mediated by present interpretations

(Handler & Linnekin 1984). Traditions are created out of the conceptual needs of the

present (Handler & Linnekin 1984). “Tradition is not handed down from the past, as a

thing or collection of things; it is symbolically reinvented in an ongoing present”

(Handler & Linnekin 1984: 280). The reworking of the past as part of tradition is part of

tradition also (Handler and Linnekin 1984).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Kroeber (1948) offers the classic anthropology definition of tradition: the

“internal handing on through time” of a core of cultural traits (1948:411). Archaeology

applies Kroeber’s ideas to more tangible elements of culture (Handler & Linnekin 1984).

They would argue that traditions have less artifactual essence than a process o f thought,

“an ongoing interpretation of the past” (274). The naturalistic approach of something

bounded and unchanging has pervaded scientific thinking about traditions (Handler &

Linnekin 1984). For example, studies of blood pressure, weight, and disease variation

often compare traits of modem samples as though they are something immutable in

populations (Crews & Mackeen 1982).

Kroeber (1948) and Shils (1981) suggest there is an identifiable unchanging

essential core which is observed as tradition.

The “essential elements persist in combination with other elements which change, but what makes it tradition is that what are thought to be the essential elements are recognizable . . . as being approximately identical at successive steps” (Shils 1981:14).

Although Shils (1981) acknowledges that other elements change, tradition

he theorizes, has an approximate identity. The perspective taken herein is that there may

be approximate basic values which do survive and that those values survive within the

context of those other changing elements Shils recognizes.

Handler & Linnekin (1984) find no essential core, or pure tradition as such, instead

they see tradition as inseparable from the past, interpreted in the present, and represented

symbolically in social life. They do suggest that elements from the past can be identified

in certain domains of life but that they are being reinterpreted in each generation, which

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. is the general perspective of this research. They support their supposition with a case

study of nationalistic ideology in Quebec and Hawaii (Handler & Linnekin 1984). They

find it difficult to identify any traditional culture motivated by a nationalistic ideology

and suggest that there never existed a folk society in which traditions were handed down

(Handler 1983). Only certain parts of the past were selected and chosen to be

represented and therefore they were creating the national identity for an interpretation in

the present. Moreover, the innovation upon those traditions and the incorporation of the

new makes tradition invented.

What survives from the past can be identified in certain basic values, for example,

in the farming knowledge, practices, and perspectives of a population of farming people.

Why certain agricultural practices are preserved and the loss of others occurs is not

known. Moreover, what ritual concepts bind people to the land remains unknown.

Those things that people hang onto are important from an adaptation perspective and

because of that those particular practices have not been discarded. Yet, in some ways

those essential cores, as Kroeber (1948) describes are preserved through farming using

the basic values. There are no pure forms of a practice just the basic values. These

practices and approaches, on the surface appear as part of a general body of fanning

knowledge, yet underneath they may reveal clues to the relationships between culture,

ecological perspectives, and adaptation. Some traditional farming practices may be

identifiably African/African American based farming ways and perhaps represent

culturalization of agricultural traditions and ecological perspectives. This idea of a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. agricultural traditions representing a culturalization process, presents a bridge to the

Handler and Linnekin (1984), Shils (1981) and Kroeber (1948).

Hymes (1975) uses the term traditionalization to capture its process and dialectic

nature. This research examines the traditionalization of ecological perspectives and the

culturalization of agricultural traditions as being on a continuum and constantly

changing. While there may be accordingly, some identifiable elements, they exist as part

of the continuum. The traditional practices speak to a culturalization process of

agricultural traditions and ecological perspectives. The constant involvement of African

Americans in farming has meant certain information, time tested through trial and error,

survived from the past traditionalization. The perspective of this research is that when

tradition is symbolically constituted in the agricultural practices and knowledge about the

natural world, concern for the natural world transcends the temporal and spatial

boundaries and sustains the culturalization processes. When tradition is symbolically

constituted in the agricultural practices and knowledge about the world, transcending the

temporal and spatial boundaries, it is reinterpreted in the present/modem.

This suggests traditions may be retained within basic core ecological values.

This underlying essential core may be the basic fabric upon which experiences are woven

and passed from generation to generation. Could there be a spiritual core unidentifiable

and empirically unverifiable, yet the glue that binds. What of the spiritual and aesthetic

contexts within which preservation of certain agricultural practices takes place.

Retaining traditional knowledge and information about caring for the earth, symbolizes

basic core values and perspectives. Modem ideas have emerged from these cores. Black

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. farmers always embraced the new but melded it with the traditions of the past. From the

cuisine, pottery, other elements of culture, the black experience in the rural and urban

settings have involved constant change and incorporation of the new. Traditions are a

continuous process (Handler and Linnekin 1984). Culture constantly evolves. Thus the

past is constantly being re-interpreted as part of the modem. All new inventions represent

re-creations of some similar idea used for another purpose in another time. Determining

the body of farming knowledge and perspectives that actually survived into the present,

may provide clues as to how local knowledge survives and how the past impinges upon

present perspectives of the natural environment.

Paradoxically, constant involvement in agriculture sustained the population of

enslaved black people throughout slaveiy. Access to land was the only means by which

they could maintain any self-sufficiency. By appropriating space, planting small gardens,

and keeping small farm animals, blacks maintained their communities during plantation

life (Vlach 1993). From their first days in the New World, African farmers in North

America utilized their ethnoecological and ethnobotanical knowledge to survive and

develop an agricultural industry. Although seldom acknowledged, the African

ethnobotanical knowledge helped create the profit base for tobacco, sugar, and rice

agriculture (Grime 1979; Ferguson 1992; Carney & Porcher 1993; Camey 1993 ).

Utilizing traditional African knowledge and practicing an extensive and mixed

farming system was crucial to daily survival among the generations of Africans in North

America. Agriculture and land endured as a strategy sustaining community for multiple

reasons. Working land allowed some agricultural subsistence to meet nutritional needs of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I

the controlled community. Gathering and cultivating food provided plantation

inhabitants both power and independence. Working land also provided a sense of

rootedness in space and time. This sense of place as an idea has survived as a traditional

aspect of modern times and represents continuity with the past This rootedness in a

community space stabilized an otherwise displaced community. Planting and harvesting

allowed a sense of ownership and place. Land was an asset allowing people to exchange

food and other items to provide status within the community. Working the land also

promoted retention of traditions specific to the African worldview, including communal

living, respect for natural environments, foodways, and religion. These multiple aspects

of slave life provided a sense of cultural identity deeply rooted in the land.

Agriculture ways of today’s African Americans may provide insights into how

human cultures adapt to enslavement but preserve traditional practices in a new

environment. Given dynamic relationships between people and their natural

environments, it is important to understand how culture impacts land management

strategies. Such strategies ultimately determine the success of adaptation to natural

environments. Of particular relevance might be the manner in which traditional

agricultural practices transcend time and space.

Cultural Identity and Tradition

African-Americans have participated in agriculture enterprises over the past 300

years in the United States (Zabawa 1993). This participation has been little documented

as having African American flora and fauna knowledge. Remaining black farmers

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. represent cultural capital, invaluable sources of information on natural agriculture.

These few are repositories of local agricultural and environmental wisdom. They endure

within constrained social and political landscapes. A comprehensive understanding of

the significance of land for cultural and community identity among black fanners may be

approached through an agroecology analysis.

Many African American Ohio farmers are not surrounded by communities of

other African Americans farmers. However, they share common food ways, traditions,

knowledge, and ecological perspectives. Therefore, ethnicity should provide reasonable

criteria for investigating variability in land management and stewardship.

Anthropologists have long been interested in how ethnicity influences farm land

management and adaptation (Barth 1969; Netting 1993; Kottak 1997).

Within the framework of sustainable agriculture, cultural diversity may be as

important as biological diversity to sustainable agricultural communities (Nazarea 1999;

Pena 1999; Hunn 1999). Loss of biodiversity and loss of cultural diversity loss are

intimately intertwined (Zent 1999). A traditional farmer’s local sense of place is rooted

in the intrinsic value of land as an instrument for sustaining community through

subsistence independence (Van der Ryn & Cowan 1996). Interestingly, in the process of

sustaining themselves through their own ethnoecology, these farmers also enhance their

natural capital and environment. Traditions and ethnoecological carried forward through

time often are environmentally specific and therefore culturally fragile. Ethnoecology

when tied to the sense of place provides the basis for sustaining a community and

produces an ethnoecology relationship.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This research examines farm management strategies used by African American

farmers to feed themselves, establish communities, and develop markets within the

context of biologically diverse mixed agricultural systems. A number of anthropologists

and others have emphasized the connection between biodiversity and indigenous

ethnoecology (Conklin 1954; Moran 1982; Posey 1983; Posey et al 1984; Altieri 1987;

Norgaard 1987; Moles 1989; Bellon 1990, 1995; Nettings 1992; Plotkin & Forsyth 1994;

Rhoades 1995; Van der Ryn & Cowan 1996; Nazarea 1999; Zent 1999; Nazarea 2000;

Maffi 2001).

Traditional agriculture systems typically enhance genetic diversity through well established cultural practices . . . Over generations of plants and people, a careful partnership between nature and culture allows hardy varieties to coevolve to meet the vagaries of the environment In this way, cultural diversity and biological diversity are inextricably tied (Van der Ryn & Cowan 1996:60).

Traditional agriculture has adapted to local [ecological] conditions over time as

traditional farmers recognized resources and approached food cultivation innovatively

(Egger 1981; Altieri 1987, 1994). This innovative process denotes a reworking of the

past knowledge with the needs of the present This particular feedback process has

benefited the farmers and biological diversity. Cultural learned behaviors stimulate and

regulate feedback from social and biological systems (Altieri 1987).

In the case of drastic and unforeseen changes in the environment the presence of genetic variability on which natural selection can operate ensures perpetuation of the species and life itself. In the same manner, sociocultural evolution works on the cultural variability that exists within any population in terms of knowledge, technology, and lifeways. If this variability is missing in this case, in terms of knowledge systems coding information about agricultural practices then the population has lost its most significant reservoir of adaptive capability (Nazarea 1998:71).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Traditional small farmers inherit a complex farming system that has provided

their ancestors’ subsistence needs for centuries, regardless of adverse environmental

conditions ( marginal soils, droughts, or floods), and with the same scarce resources

(Altieri 1987). Often this is done so without mechanization or chemical fertilizers

(Altieri 1987). The indispensability of "local" environmental knowledge to larger

agroecosystems is well documented (Conklin 1954; Altieri 1987; Netting 1993; Bellon

1995; Warren et al.1995; Nazarea 1999; Pena 1999;). Farmers incorporate the modem

alongside their traditional practices in Mexico (Gliessman 1990; Bellon 1991, 1995).

The biological diversity of traditional agroecosystems is higher because their

crops contain variably adapted domestic and wild subtypes (Altieri 1987; Wilkin 1987;

Bellon 1991). Traditional crops includes mixtures of differing genetic lines that react

differently to disease and pests adapted to the local region in which they evolved (Altieri

1987; Nazarea 2000). Conservation of this native diversity occurs naturally in

agroecosystems using traditional techniques but will be retained in larger settings only if

guided by local plant knowledge (Altieri 1987; Gliessman 1990; Nazarea 2000).

Keeping traditional fanners on their farmland preserves these systems.

Mixed system agriculture, as used by African American farmers today, is rooted

in this traditional ecology perspective. These mixed farming systems may provide food

and cover for wild flora and fauna and for local herbs and fruits in the forests in and

around farming communities. Practices such as foraging and gathering can be

accomplished because of the wild flora and fauna. Gathering, normally thought as

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. poverty subsistence is closely associated with traditional farming (Altieri 1995). Most

subsistence farmers collect wild plants for family food while working in the fields and

often take pains to assure the proper environment for herbs, berries, and game are found

on their property. Use of these plants and herbs requires knowledge of local wild flora

and fauna. This represents ethnoecology and ethnobotany.

"Ethno' suggests understanding something from the "native" point of view

(Nazarea et al. 1999). Ethnoecology is used broadly to encompass ways in which local

people interact with the natural environment (Martin 1995). Fundamentally,

ethnoecology explores the methods people who inhabit an area utilize the plants,

animals, soil and other things in the natural environment for their eveiyday use. The

term is interchangeable with traditional knowledge or folk knowledge of the natural

environment The key difference between ethnoecology and ecology is the point of view

or reference, where the ethnoecology would constitute the emic point of view and the

ecology the etic point of view (Gragson & Blount 1999). This research endeavors to

present the emic perspective.

Native systems of thought regarding plants, animal and physical resources are

adapted to their resource niche. Farmers juggle their options to meet daily requirements

(Nazarea 1998). Documenting environmental knowledge and beliefs of local peoples

prevents the loss of possible options for conserving biodiversity that exist (Nazarea

1999). Traditional farmers are thus the lifeblood of farming communities and

sustainable.

The search for self-sustaining, low-input, diversified, and energy efficient agricultural systems is now a major concern o f many

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. researchers, fanners, and policymakers. A key strategy in sustain able agriculture is to restore functional biodiversity of the agricultural landscape (Altieri 1999: 22)

Biodiversity performs key ecological services and if correctly assembled in time and space can lead to agroecosystems capable of sponsoring their own soil fertility, crop protection, and productivity (Altieri 1999:29).

Sustainable Agriculture Defined

Sustainable agriculture means capacity building. It leads to:

1) Maintenance or increase in the stocks of renewable resources and

2) Substitution of nonrenewable with renewable resources (Stauber et al.

1995).

Sustainability requires different solutions for different environments (Stauber et

al. 1995). For sustainability, energy and materials used are in balance with what the area

may continuously supply through natural processes (photosynthesis, biological

decomposition, and biochemical). One implication is that smaller patterns require less

energy and allow more efficient waste management (Stauber et al. 1995). Therefore,

small farms contribute more than farm production they promote sustainable biological

systems. Small farms represent diversity of cropping systems, traditions, culture,

landscapes, biological corridors (USDA Report 1998). Further, this decentralized land

ownership produces more equitable economic opportunity for people in the surrounding

communities, and is a vehicle for self-employment opportunities (USDA Report 1998).

Three goals of sustainable agriculture, articulated by the University of California

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP) are:

• Environmental health

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. • Economic profitability • Social and economic equity First, food needs of society must be met without compromising natural and human

resources (SAREP 1998). Sustainable communities require less of their inhabitants in

time and maintenance and demand less from their environments in land, water, soil, and

fuel (Van der Ryn & Calthorp 1991).

Sustainable communities are not necessarily autonomous or self-sufficient rather

they are based on people. In shared spaces they establish a sense of community.

Sustainable communities break down isolation (Van der Ryn & Calthorp 1991). Because

they are not isolated from the larger systems, formers incorporate the technology into

their agriculture. Sustainable communities are not suspended in time nor are they

immobilized by the past Influences from technological changes, urban influences, and

media, for example, ensure that people adjust to present. At the same time, in

sustainable communities, traditional farmers, maintain their generational land,

experience generational learning, show economic profits, provide a means for the future

of the form business, and promote biological diversity (Soule & Piper 1992; Stauber et al.

1995; Prugh et al. 1995; Altieri 1999; Nazarea 1999; 2000 ).

Industrialization in agriculture was responsible for the decline in genetic diversity

and the use of animal and human labor (Berry 1977; Vogeler 1981; Magdoff 1992; Soule

& Piper 1992). Both were critically important for quality of life among farmers.

Ironically improved agriculture has not led to improved air, water, or soil.

Industrialization of agriculture and improvements in modem agriculture has resulted in

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. inefficient use o f fossil fuel and loss of human labor. Short term high productivity of

large single crop agribusinesses is built on the massive application of energy ( e.g.

machinery, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, processing, transportation, water) (Berry

1977; Vogeler 1981; Altieri 1987). The agribusiness approach sacrifices long term land

quality and sustainability for short term profits and productivity. This increasingly is an

unstable, vulnerable enterprise and energy inefficient (Vogeler 1981; Altieri 1987;

Noorgard 1987; Soule & Piper 1992; Prugh et al. 1995).

Comparing energy input to output or general resource utilization, small and

traditional farms are more efficient ( Moran 1982; Norgaard 1987; Netting 1993;

Peterson 1997; Nazarea 1999). Theoretically, increased energy consumption marks

more advanced societies (White 1943). How intact farming communities utilize energy

also support (Conklin 1954; Moran 1982; Norgaard 1987; Netting 1993; Peterson 1997;

Nazarea 1999; Hunn 1999; Pena 1999) suggestion that it is cultural to maintain

environments. Traditional farmers recycle energy thus they are more efficient (Netting

1993; Nazarea1999). Measures of nutrient release from soil, nitrogen fixation, and

nutrients in the soil root zone all support this finding (Moran 1982; Magdoff 1992).

Production may be measured yield per unit area, constancy of production, yield

per unit of labor per unit of investment, or energy efficiency (Altieri 1987; Peterson

1997). Production may be estimated using energy ratios (Altieri 1987). Measured so,

traditional systems are as efficient or more than modem ones (Altieri 1987; Peterson

1999). Commercial systems show3:l input/output ratios, traditional ones 1:10 to 1:15

(Altieri 1987:44). Factors other than size influence costs in agriculture (Peterson 1997).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "Small family farms are at least as efficient as larger commercial operations. In fact,

there is evidence of diseconomies o f scale as farm size increases”(Peterson 1997:3).

In modem mechanical systems, imported energy completes the work

accomplished ecologically in traditional systems (Altieri 1987). Although less

productive per crop than monocultures, more traditional polycultures generally are more

stable and energy efficient (Altieri 1987; Magdoff 1992). Analyses of small farm

production often neglect the value of reduced risk over maximized production to

subsistence farms (Vogeler 1981; Altieri 1987,1999). Further small scale and

subsistence farmers determine entire farming system not a single crop (Altieri 1987).

These decisions are informed by the myriad of present circumstances.

Agroecological integrates environmental and social perspectives in studies of

agriculture. Attention is given not only to production, but also to ecological

sustainability of the production system and the emic view is examined (Altieri 1987:

Noorgard 1987). According to agroecology, nature is in a cooperative relationship with

the agriculturalists, much like the worldview of traditional cultures.

On the contrary, the philosophical underpinnings of modem/conventional

agriculture are that:

a) “Nature is a competitor and must be overcome;

b) Progress requires unending growth of larger farms;

c) Progress is measured as increased production and material

consumption;

d) Efficiency is measured as the bottom line;

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. e) Science is an unbiased enterprise driven by natural

forces to produce social good." (Stauber et al. 1995:13)

Modem fanning systems vary from farm to farm and from country to country.

However, they share many characteristics:

• Rapid technological innovation;

• Large capital investments in order to apply production and management technology;

• Large-scale farms;

• Single crops/row crops grown continuously over many seasons; monocropping or

monoculture;

• Uniform high-yield hybrid crops;

• Extensive use of pesticides, fertilizers, and external energy inputs;

• Dependency on agribusiness;

• Livestock production comes from confined, concentrated

systems. (Stauber et al. 1995:13).

The development o f industrialized agriculture, and current global farming

systems, have led to monocropping and reduced biotic diversity while underutilizing

human capital. Traditional, small, low energy input operations perform more efficiently

and provide an infrastructure to maintain democratic environment Moreover, small

systems create capacity for community stabilization as is illustrated by Goldschmidt

(1978).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Goldschmidt Hypothesis

In the 1940’s, Walter Goldschmidt (1978) studied relationships of people to small

farms in rural towns in California, Arvin and Dinuba, and how this promotes sustainable

communities and democratic social environments. The underlying principle is social

democracy in farm settings (Goldschmidt 1978). Social democracy includes a basic

structural framework for sustainable communities: thriving farm and non-farm

businesses, safe and healthy local neighborhoods, independent farm operators, and a

concern for the wellbeing of the at large community. Goldschmidt (1978) observed the

importance of farm size for these various community variables. This work supported the

hypothesis that the quality of life in communities surrounded by small farmers is superior

to that of those surrounded by large farms. Agricultural potential of an area rises

according to local environmental resources, and the methods used to obtain those

resources. In Dinuba, with 722 farms averaging 57 acres each, farms were more efficient

and democratic. In Arvin, with 133 farms o f497 average acres, the schools were not well

equipped and other public services were either inferior or neglected compared to Dinuba.

Overall the Dinuba community enjoyed a better quality of life. Goldschmidt’s hypothesis

has been replicated with findings being mixed (Heady & Sonka 1974; Heffeman &

Lasley 1978; Buttel & Larson 1979;Harris & Gilbert 1982; Green 1985; ) to those that

disagree (Heaton & Brown 1982; Swanson 1982; Buttel et al. 1986;) and studies which

support (Tetieau 1940; Heffeman 1972; MacCannell & Dolber-Smith 1986). In general

it appears that large farming negatively impacts community wellbeing (Lobao 1990).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. These works suggest that small-scale independent producers may facilitate

development of stable local economies and social democracy for the local community.

The results are better equipped schools, paved streets, parks, and other government

facilities, and well maintained facilities. Local people form organizations that facilitate

both social and economic development for the community. Retail businesses flourish

because income levels sustain nonfarm businesses. This illustrates the economic and

social potential of small-scale farms.

Although illustrative of social democracy and social value of small farms,

Goldschmidt (1978) ignores relationships between the local farming knowledge and

environmental perspectives, goals of this research. Others have studied local

knowledge. Conklin's (1954) classic work with the Hananoo, inspired other

anthropologists (Goodenough 1957; Frake 1962; Sturtevant 1964; Nazarea 1998). He

suggested that knowledge and behavior of local people is geographically specific and not

at all destructive. Local knowledge, ethnoecology, of the Hananoo is quite sophisticated

and represents a keen understanding of the local environment (Conklin 1954). Indigenous

practices promote and enhance biotic diversity (Conklin 1954). However, such

knowledge is fragile because it is locally specific, living or dying with the sustaining

community (Hunn 1999). As science strives for general and universal knowledge,

ethnoecology looks at local knowledge and details of a specific area (Hunn 1999). Such

knowledge may be grounded in thousands of years and many generation of interaction

with the local environment. The culture of ethnic enclaves is the product of long term

adaptation and knowledge within a particular environment (Netting 1974). Netting

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (1993) points out that for the smallholder Kofyar farmers of Nigeria, local ecological

knowledge was vital for their agricultural successes.

Value of Local Indigenous Knowledge

Local people's knowledge and perspectives are valuable for the local ecology

(Conklin 1954; Netting 1983; Posey 1983; Altieri 1987; Plotlrin & Forsyth 1994; Hunn

1999; Nazarea 1999; Pena 1999; Zent 1999). The ethnoecological approach recognizes

the cultural capital of local and indigenous people. Today knowledge is being replaced

by technologies that have not demonstrated their sustainability or long-term contribution

to society (Posey 1983; Mander 1991; Nazarea 1998). Systematic documentation or

memory banking of indigenous farming practices and traditional varieties of staple and

supplementary crops is necessary (Nazarea 1998; Zent 1999). Human and ecological

forces that shaped the local variants along with local knowledge must be preserved or the

genebanks will be decontextualized (Nazarea 1998). Nazarea (1998) suggests that,

Farmers' options are increasingly restricted to agricultural packages proffered by extension agents, backed up as they are by loans and other incentives for procuring recommended seeds and other inputs. Unfortunately, this reification may approach a point where the existence of alternatives is hardly recognized. What is needed is a way to systematically document, store and retrieve information on cultural practices associated with traditional crop varieties such that potentially useful technologies and varieties will be available and accessible when the need arises... (Nazarea 1998:117).

Ongoing research indicates that unless traditional knowledge is actively put in to

practice, the memory banking is decontextualized (Zent 1999). People are important in

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. agriculture partly because traditional cultures nurture diversity (Posey et al. 1984; Nazarea

1998; Posey 1999; Zent 1999). With production and distribution geared toward efficiency

and profit, few options remain for maintaining plant diversity (Nazarea 1998; Prugh et

al. 199S). Documenting indigenous knowledge and technologies, including uses,

preferences, and evaluation criteria associated with traditional varieties is necessary

(Nazarea 1998). Such indigenous knowledge and practices must be documented soon or

lost (Nazarea 1998:Zent 2001).

A relationship between agricultural intensification and loss of diversity is

apparent (Altieri 1987; Nazarea 1998; Zent 1999; Hunn 2001). Commercialization has

whittled away at the genetic diversity of crops and cultures of local farming populations

(Altieri 1987; Posey 1983; Nazarea 1998). Following the extension workers advice to

pursue mono-cropping, traditional diverse mixtures of plant races, once part of

traditional field grown seed mixtures have become extinct as hybrid and select seeds

provided by government and business have replaced them (Nazarea 1998). On the other

hand, for example,

Farmers in marginal areas relatively insulated from market demands and price fluctuations retained varieties of potatoes despite ''improved” varieties—products of agriculture research and extension—and suggested that diversity rebuilds over time (Nazarea 1998:36).

Indigenous knowledge held by small farmers may also provide resources for

restorative environmental activities (Posey et al. 1984; Nazarea 1999; Posey 1999; Hunn

2001). "Farmers appear to have an intuitive understanding of many local, physical,

chemical, and biological soil processes, and will determine the health of a soil from a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. multitude of conditions" (Romig et al. 1995:231). Local farmers possess generational

knowledge on how to replenish and regenerate soil, care and plant crops, and how to

incorporate modern techniques with this background knowledge (Nazarea 1999; Posey

1999).

African American gardeners and farmers in the Georgia, Alabama, and South

Carolina express concern for environmental quality and over use of agricultural

chemicals (Westmacott 1992). Some gardeners used manure to maintain soil, although

many purchased their fertilizer (Westmacott 1992). Purchasing fertilizer represents the

modem alongside basic ecology values. These southern gardeners and farmers

apparently adhere to an ideology promoting Natural Capital in the local ecology

(Westmacott 1992).

Natural Capital includes all systems that maintain physical and biological

integrity and structure of natural habitats (Prugh et al. 1995). Biotic diversity maintains

soil productivity through natural processes. The theory of Natural Capital suggests that

economic systems cannot endure without renewable natural resources and that human

and manufactured capital cannot replace natural capital (Prugh et al. 1995:5). Further,

ecological and economic systems rest upon a foundation of Natural Capital (Prugh et al.

1995). Finally, this theory suggests that maintaining sustainability of the Earth is

fundamental to the human survival (Prugh et al. 1995). Economists reiterate what soil

scientists (MagdofF 1992; Bezdicek 1996;Romig et al. 1996) have espoused, fertile soil

and biological diversity are critical for a healthy planet. Unless Natural Capital

formation is integrated into economic behavior both social and environmental systems

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. will continue to deteriorate (Prugh et al. 1995). One way to improve Natural Capital is to

employ more people. This will reduce use of materials and energy from the environment

(Prugh et al. 1995). Since more human capital is available than Natural Capital, the task

at hand is to put the human capital to more productive use by integrating human and

natural systems (Prugh et al. 1995). The premise of this dissertation is that African

American (AA) farmers may provide one important and functionally sustainable model

for examining how human populations adapt and maintain Natural Capital in local rural

environments.

Because of economic and political factors, AA farmers have failed to create

sustainable economic capital. Geertz's (1963) study of the historical development of

Indonesian agriculture during Dutch occupation (1619 to 1942) illustrates a population of

agriculturalists adapting to multiple historical and political factors. Examining

ecosystems and microecosystems of Indonesian rice terraces and rain forests Geertz’s

(1963) reported both stability and durability of these systems along with soil fertility and

biotic diversity. By practicing swidden agriculture these agriculturalists maintain a

healthy and stable micro-ecology. Increased population pressures and extractive politics

did not break the stability of rice terrace systems (Geertz 1963). Rather than limitations

of local ecologies, political dynamics destabilized lifestyles in Javanese society,

especially for agriculturalists (Geertz 1963). This suggests that environmental

adaptations alone do not provide a complete framework for studying agricultural

societies (Geertz 1963).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THEORETICAL CONTEXT

The present study investigates, within an ethnoecological and historical

framework, the knowledge, tradition, and adaptations of Black fanners in Ohio. No

other discipline utilizes such holistic framework as anthropology. Anthropology, does

not propose a grand theory for the entire realm of human behavior instead it incorporates

all realms of the human experience to find meaning behind human behavior (Geertz

1983). The goal of anthropology should not be to develop an all-encompassing theory, or

attempt to find laws similar to those in the hard sciences but to find the meaning in

human behavior (Geertz 1983). Geertz suggests the meaning provides the thick

description. Only through thick description can the behavior represented by symbols and

meanings be understood. Geertz (1983) explicates that it is not the structure but the

actual behavior reveals the meaning. Theory then should not attempt to codify an

"abstract regularity" but to establish a framework for thick description to make

observation useful for analysis of meaning (Geertz 1983). For Geertz (1983), these are

the materials of human existence. Moreover, Geertz (1983) proposes that it is an

interdisciplinary focus that is needed in studying human behavior. The framework that

this dissertation employs interprets data and behavior within an agroecological

perspective and explores the framework of New Ecological anthropology of Kottak

(1999).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Agroecological Approach

Because of its inclusion of the symbolic and the material, this research is guided

by the holistic perspective of agroecology. As a researcher, I acknowledge the

inextricable ties between the political, economic, and social parameters in which these

farmers have existed through time. Given that political and economic factors impinge

upon any marginalized group's ability to manage their farming operations, the

agroecological and new ecological approaches seem quite apropos to examine this topic

of African American farmers.

Research which situates the endogenous biological and environmental features of

agriculture with the exogenous social and economic factors reveal the particular aspects

of the agroecosystems structure (Altieri 1987). Altieri (1987) maintains that agroecology

merges the environmental and social factors which influence the ecological sustainability

of the production system. Agroecology situates the crop field as an ecological system in

relation to other vegetation (Altieri 1987). Such an approach establishes the relevant

context from which AA farmers manage their agricultural systems and relate to their

ecological and sociological environments. This approach also produces background

material necessary for a better understanding of local agricultural practices and cultural

adaptations within constrained economic, political, and social conditions. "Social factors

such as collapse in market prices or changes in land tenure can disrupt agricultural

systems as decisively as drought, pest outbreak or soil nutrient decline" (Altieri 1987:9).

Javanese farmers’ agricultural system changed because of the exogenous forces which

left them with few options and powerless (Geertz 1963).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Agroecology provides an interdisciplinary framework for the study of farming

communities (Altieri 1987). The major principle is that agricultural farming systems are

human artifact, yet the farming system itself is an ecosystem and part of larger ecosystem

within a broader bioregional context (Norgaard 1987). Agroecology values the local

knowledge over the imposing universal mechanistic knowledge and acknowledges the

significance of traditional ecosystems and sustainable agriculture.

The greatest difference between agroecology and western science is that

agroecologists perceive people as part of evolving local systems (Norgaard 1987:23).

They understand that people and biological systems have coevolved. Therefore,

agroecology includes knowledge, values, technology, and social organization along with

complex biological systems (Norgaard 1987:24). Moreover, there are no universal truths

as put forth by western science in agroecology and so the concept of objectivity is

insignificant (Norgaard 1987). As the biological system molds culture, human culture

molds the biological systems which put selective pressure on the other (Norgaard 1987).

These six premises define the field of agroecology:

1. Biological and social systems, as systems, have agricultural potential.

2. This potential has been captured by traditional farmers through a process

of trial and error, selection, and cultural learning.

3. Social and biological systems have coevolved such that each depends upon

feedback from the other. Knowledge embodied in traditional cultures through

cultural learning, stimulates and regulates the feedback from social to biological

systems.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4. The nature of the potential of social and biological systems can best

understood, given the present state of formal social and biological knowledge, by

studying how traditional farming cultures have captured the potential.

5. Formal social and biological knowledge, the knowledge and some of the inputs

developed by conventional agricultural sciences, and experience with western

agricultural technologies are institutions can be combined to improve both

traditional and modem agroecosystems. In this element, agroecology recognizes

the value of both the traditional and modem technologies and knowledge and

establishes that there not dichotomous technologies because both employ

elements o f the other.

6. Agricultural development through agroecology will maintain more cultural

biological options for the future and have fewer detrimental cultural, biological

and environmental effects than conventional agricultural science approaches

alone. (Norgaard 1987:26).

One major defining difference between agroecology and western science is the

direction of the information flow. Modernity seeks a one way model which gives

knowledge to traditional farmers derived from technology while agroecology strives to

understand how traditional farmers have developed in order to enhance science and

ultimately enhance modem agriculture (Norgaard 1987). Handler and Linnekin’s (1984)

argument corresponds appropriately with the agroecosystems theory with regard to the

symbolic and material. Tradition is reconstructed and reinterpreted in the present and as

such is being invented and selected (Handler and Linnekin 1984).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Both of these ideas intersect as adaptations which people employ to survive.

Information from the past is only as relevant as its means o f adaptation to the present will

allow. The flow of information is bi-directional as the present is imprinted with the past,

the traditions of the past become part of the present milieu. Agroecology connects the

modern with the traditional and the flow of information is bi-directional as suggested by

Handler & Linnekin (1984). Agroecology recognizes the limitations of the one-way

traditional ecosystems approach and provides a two-directional alternative.

Parallels exist between tradition and agroecology. Agroecology recognizes the

total farming system, the biological and cultural realities o f the farm or the recognition

of the past and present Farming systems are not viewed as stuck in the past or static.

Handler & Linnekin (1984) contend that tradition is interpreted in the present and not

static. Local knowledge is time and place specific. That is the crux of local ecology

knowledge, part of a changing social and ecological environment suggesting place and

time specificity. In ecology based farming, learning occurs within the purview of the

present environmental conditions. The information is time specific, albeit woven from

the past Even as the scientific knowledge resists similarities and association with the

folk knowledge or superstition, the two are inseparable from the other as distinct and

pure forms. As a matter of fact they are both dependent upon the other for survival.

Unfortunately, in some cases science ignores indigenous knowledge systems and

provides erroneous information because of it

In one classic case of science ignoring indigenous knowledge, the Inuit caribou

hunters on the Ellesmere Island were told by the government wildlife managers to hunt

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. only large and male caribou Mander (1991). The Inuit knew this to be unsuitable

because the older and larger animals were better suited for the harsh environment with

strength to push through the snow for food. The traditional knowledge and wisdom had

come from thousands of years of surviving in the Arctic environment (Mander 1991).

Limitations of the ecosystems approach exist (Moran 1984). Traditionally,

ecological anthropology has focused on ecosystems, energy inputs, and efficiency. The

term was mainly a didactic device to emphasize the interaction between living and

nonliving components of a system and generally refers to structural and functional

interrelationships among living organism and the physical environment within which

they exist (Odum 1971).

Ecosystems research debuted in anthropology in the 1960's. These research

efforts measured the flow energy and the bounded environments of specific populations

(Moran 1984). However, that idea of the flow of energy and cycles of matter are

aggregate measures appropriate for macro ecosystem description but provide little insight

into human variation in resource use in given localities (Moran 1984). Moreover, the

cultural ecology research does not include the external conditions which play a part in the

cultural change (Geertz 1963). Political, historical, as well as environmental should

necessarily be included in a research inquiry. The approach of cultural ecology is to

examine bounded systems. As much as habitat contributes a limiting factor, it is not the

driving force behind the adaptation. The total social, political, and economic scopes, the

externalities, are part of the whole deal and can change culture or limit culture. “There is

noa priori reason why the adaptive realities a given sociocultural system faces have

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. greater or lesser control over its general pattern of development than various other

realities in which it is also faced” (Geertz 1963:11).

All cultures, whatever their respective degrees of development, have

technologies, social systems (customs, institutions), beliefs (lore, philosophy, science)

and forms of art (White 1943). White (1943) suggested that culture evolves as the

amount of energy harnessed per capita is increased White (1943) claims that humans

can harness the energies of rivers, fuels, and atoms. White conceptualized three cultural

subsystems: technological, sociological, and ideological. The way society uses its

technology to sustain life influences the sociological and ideological systems (White

1943).

The perspective herein is that strict ecosystems or traditional ecological

anthropology, cultural ecology, has limited theoretical application.

Cultural ecology, forms an explicitly delimited field of inquiry, not a comprehensive master science (Geertz 1963:10).

According to White (1943) culture evolves as more energy is harnessed from the

technological systems, all mutually involved in positive feedback relationship. On the

other hand, agroecology and even the ecological economy recognizes that all energy is

not equal and moreover, it is not the increasing energy being harnessed that will sustain

an advanced society but the increasing efficient use of the energy that makes the

difference and recognition of the co-evolution of life in the particular ecosystem (Netting

1993: Prugh et al. 1995). Netting (1993) says that the idea that efficiency is progress and

that human labor is backwards is still with us yet he suggests that ideas around efficiency

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. are ambiguous. Like the ecological economists, Netting (1993) contends that all energy

is not equal and the nonrenewable energy will reach declines eventually. Netting’s

(1993) suggestions will be explored later. White’s law of cultural evolution is linear and

suggests that harnessing more energy necessarily represents a progressive scheme.

Cultural ecology as developed by Steward (1955) saw culture as a means of

adaptation to the natural environment This still tended to divide the system into discrete

parts and ignored the role of external forces, meaning the political aspects of land

acquisition. As illustrated in the Indonesian scenario of historical developments, how

much of the growth is attributable to ecological processes and how much is attributable

to political, stratificatoiy, commercial, and intellectual developments is to be determined

(Geertz 1963).

Steward (1955) differed from White by viewing cultural innovations as

secondary. Steward’smultilinear evolution, although proposed no universal stages of

evolution, attributed similarities to cultural interaction with the environment Steward

(1955) believed culture was a superorganic factor and suggested we focus on cultural

cores. Cultural cores, subsistence patterns, economic arrangements show the same

response to environment and have the same structural and functional relationship. The

cultural core, as used by Steward, refers to the social, political, and religious patterns.

The secondary factors are the cultural historical factors, such as random innovation

(Geertz 1963).

Steward (1955) looked at levels of sociocultural integration and suggested that

like units could be compared. Steward’s work placed more emphasis on environment as

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the determining factor more so than White who suggested culture is the determinant

Steward (19S5) classified these culture types according to ecological adaptations and

historical development Steward universalizes knowledge according to these culture and

ecological types. Steward (1955) viewed culture as a means of adaptation to

environment Steward (1955) the leading cultural ecologist of the 1960's along with

Rappaport utilized a static category for the ecosystem. Steward (1955) suggested that

anthropologists look for parallel changes in form and function occurring in similar

environments to see whether any causal principles could be ascertained. Steward (1955)

suggested classifying culture on a continuum of complexity but not in the same manner

as the cultural continuum of White's cultural determinism.

Rappaport (1968), also a cultural ecologist, saw the basic units of ecological

anthropology as the ecological population and the ecosystem, and he treated them as

discrete and isolatable parts. Although Rappaport (1968) recognizes local ecosystems are

not bounded, he follows Steward's lead in analyzing the relationship between culture and

environment. Rappaport (1968) defines ecological population as aggregates of

organisms having in common a set of distinctive means to maintain a common set of

material relations within the ecosystem (Kottak 1999).

Various limitations exist with regard to the traditional ecology approach of

Steward, White, and Rappaport. There is a/an: a) tendency to reify the ecosystems and to

give it the properties of a biological organism; b) overemphasis on predetermined

measures of adaptation such as energetic "efficiency"; c) tendency for models to ignore

time and structural change, thereby overemphasizing stability in ecosystems; d) lack of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. clear criteria for boundary definitions, and e) lack of attention to human populations, and

finally f) lack of attention to power relationships (Geertz 1963; Kottak 1999).

Geertz’s Agricultural Involution (1963) research shows how relationships of

power impact groups to a larger degree than the ecosystem area. For example, among

the Javanese, during Dutch colonialization of Indonesia, from 1619 to 1942, the political

dynamics had more influence on the Javanese farmers than ecologic or environmental

factors (Geertz 1963). The strictly ecosystems approach has limited theoretical value for

assessing the factors which contribute to settlement development and persistence.

Much the same manner that AA farmers have been disenfranchised historically,

their ability to farm has been tied to the historical and political externalities beyond the

bounded ecosystems purview. Aspects of power imposed upon these farmers from the

larger community made it impossible to pursue farming as a successful enterprise.

New Ecological Anthropology

Unlike the 1960's ecological anthropology, Kottak's (1999) new ecological

anthropology deals with aspects of power, the exogenous pressures toward cultural

change, and the internal dynamic of local cultures. Kottak (1999) suggests:

Social scientists need new methods to study this complexity and myriad of forces, flows, and exchanges that affect local people and their ecosystems. The new ecology involves policy and values orientation. Methodologies within new ecological anthropology must be appropriate to the complex linkages and levels that structure the modem world (10).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The traditional ecological anthropology and traditional ethnography forwarded

the illusion of isolated, independent groups, and did not address issues of cultural

hegemony. “The new ecological anthropology considers the linkages of time and space,

combines multi-level (international, national, regional, local), analysis, systematic

comparison, and longitudinal study using modern information technology and power"

(Kottak 1999:17). His recommendation for mixed methodologies and multi-level units

of analysis, necessarily challenges the lone ethnographer approach and forwards the

development of large-scale interdisciplinary collaborative team projects. However, this

still requires a basis in fieldwork (Kottak 1999).

The new ecological anthropology does not remove local people and their specific

social and cultural forms, as the old ecological anthropology did. Kottak (1999) prompts

cultural anthropologists to remember the primacy of society and culture in their analysis

and not be charmed by ecological data. “Ecological anthropologists must put

anthropology ahead of ecology, anthropology's contribution is to place people ahead of

plants, animals, and soils"(23). Change always proceeds in the face of prior structures (a

given sociocultural heritage) Kottak (1999). The direction and nature of change is

always affected by the organizational material (sociocultural patterns) at hand when the

change begins (Kottak 1999).

Changes in ecological anthropology mirror the shift in general in anthropological

research— a movement away from focusing on a single community or "culture" perceived

as more or less isolated and unique to a recognition of pervasive linkages, flows of

people, images and information and the role of differential power and status in the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. postmodern world system. This linkage of information, flows of people mirrors the

Handler and Linnekin (1984) idea of tradition, the unboundedness of the single

community. Implicit in this unboundedness are a lack of isolation and the presence of

linkages of place and time. Culture is unbounded and influenced by linkages from

outside the present spatial and temporal arrangements. Anthropological research is

expanding to encompass linkages across levels of sociopolitical integration and across

time and space. Handler & Linnekin’s (1984) traditional extends through time and space.

This process of culturalization is maintained because of the lack of boundedness. The

local knowledge is maintained because of the presence of the land and because of the

relevance of basic ecology based values.

Sustainable development is something which should be culturally appropriate,

ecologically sensitive, and self-regenerating change (Kottakl999). Issues addressed in

the new ecological anthropology arise at the intersection of global, national, regional, and

local systems, in a world characterized not only by clashing cultural models, but also by

failed states, and regional wars (Kottak 1999). Although local practices impinge heavily

upon quality, eventually local and global actions feed back into each level. Much like

sustainable farming, local level capacity to practice these principles becomes affected by

the regional, national, and international price and market demands. Sustainable

development must be contextualized with a consideration of the many external agents

acting upon the human population, as Kottak reminds.

The new ecological anthropology blends theory with analysis with political

awareness and policy concerns. Kottak (1999) premises that anthropologists cannot be

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. neutral scientists studying cognized and operational models o f the environment and the

role o f humans in regulating its use, when local communities and ecosystems are

increasingly endangered by external agents and in some cases due to field research of

anthropologists (Kottak 1999). "Today's world is full of neocolonial actions and

attitudes—outsiders claim or seize control with proposing and evaluating policy"(Kottak

1999:15).

The shortcomings of the traditional ecological approach of White, Steward, and

Rappaport were that they made no provisions for power, rapid globalization, and

considered technology and increasing use of energy as superior. This one way trajectory

of progress meets the one way flow of information model typical in western science

whereby science dictates knowledge to traditional farmers without the exchange going

the other way. Implicit in these traditional ecological model are reproduction of power

relationships. Kottak (1999) forwards that the ecological anthropology of the 1960's, as

a systems theory based upon presumed stability rather than change. Ecological

anthropology o f the 1960's investigated the role o f culture in enabling populations to

optimize their adaptation to environments and maintaining ecosystems (Kottak 1999).

Kottak (1999) also explored the connection between ethnicity and ecology. He

discovered that an ethnic label corresponds to an ecological distinction. Within

territories of large ethnic groups, there is variation in the environment, modes of

production, and means of adaptation. African American farmers by virtue of cultural

identity have adapted a mode of production specific to their historical and generational

understanding of the role of the natural environment

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. An added value of Kottak's new ecology is that it offers a corrective to colonial

and imperialistic assumptions of the traditional anthropology and the traditional

ethnographic authority. Kottak's (1999) new ecology lends itself to thick description

espoused by Geertz (1983). Additionally it has an emancipatory appeal and a potentially

far reaching effect The new ecological anthropology brings to bear upon my research an

acknowledgment of the linkages o f time and space and addresses the issues of power in

theory, methodology, and culture in general.

The objectives of this study are:

1 ) To trace the development of black farming communities in Ohio.

2) To document the farming traditions, knowledge, and adaptations of African American

farmers in Ohio.

3) To explore their environmental perspectives, e.g. do they have a competitive or

cooperative relationship with nature; do they promote biological diversity; do they

regenerate the soil naturally; what are their soil management strategies.

4) To develop an understanding of the relationship between ethnicity and farming

practices.

Specific Aims:

To accomplish objective I, I will utilize archival, electronic, library, and field research

To accomplish objective 2 ,1 will conduct multiple unstructured in-depth, semi, and

structured interviews.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To accomplish objective 3 ,1 will conduct multiple unstructured in-depth, semi, and

structured interviews.

To accomplish objective 4 ,1 will conduct participant observation and interviews.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 2

METHODS

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. — Zora Neale Hurston

This research project will examine agricultural knowledge and traditions of

African American farmers in Ohio. The following specific aims will be completed:

1) Trace the development of black farming communities in Ohio

2) Document the farming traditions, knowledge, and adaptations of African

American farmers in Ohio.

3) Explore their environmental perspectives, e.g. do they have a competitive or

cooperative relationship with nature; do they promote biological diversity; do they

regenerate the soil naturally; what are their soil management strategies.

4) Examine relationships between ethnicity and farming practices.

Specific Aims:

• To accomplish objective 1,1 conducted archival, libraiy, and field research

• To accomplish objective 2 ,1 conducted unstructured in-depth, semi, and

structured interviews.

• To accomplish objective 3 ,1 conducted unstructured in-depth, semi, and

structured interviews.

• To accomplish objective 4 ,1 conducted participant observation and interviews.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The limitations of this research include small sample size, qualitative or

impressionistic, in that regard I aim to understand the emic perspective. Moreover, in

contradistinction to the traditional ethnographies which have privileged the ethnographer

as all knowing, my aim is to problematize the privileged status of ethnographer or the

researcher as the expert so that I understand the emic view. This also involves paying

particular attention to issues of power, particularly the manner in which these farmers are

represented or re-presented in text.

Methodological Critique

One of the goals was to use the method as theory and theory as method, to

examine the interface between science and indigenous knowledge. For that reason again,

agroecology represents an apropos approach. The epistemological basis of agroecology

differs from the dominant world view or the dominant scientific models. Western

science views knowledge universally and systems mechanically (Hecht 1987). Newton's

mechanics, had a profound impact upon the dominant thinking of modem science toward

the perception of systems and organisms as mechanical (Hecht 1987; Norgaard 1987).

Agroecologists think holistically and recognize that complex systems include people.

Agroecologists perceive the evolution of organism within the context of larger systems

(Hecht 1987). Again, the agroecology proved beneficial for the methodology because I

wanted to examine the role of science as knowledge, method, and theory.

I believe that traditional knowledge symbolizes and represents a bridge to the past

which allows these farmers to work in the present to achieve the end result of survival

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and adaptation. As I listened to the stones and the answers to my questions, those who

had accumulated traditional knowledge or wisdom through generations of observing the

natural environment, the science that I knew became reduced to a little dot upon large

scene of a vast universe. As I attempted the method of science to pursue the knowing of

traditional practices, I discovered that the things that I had learned new were the same

old things that had been known to humans for thousands of years. I began to understand

more of the cultural dynamics around diversity and why it was so important to keep the

traditional people on the land. This is not an attempt to debunk science, but provide an

admonishment to the sorts of science that could benefit tremendously from an

understanding of the old information of the traditional people and the centrality of

biological diversity. Because of the centrality of biological diversity in agroecology

theory, the approach presents a relevant framework in which to explore traditional

farmers. The ideas of agroecology correspond with the traditional African American

farming ways and perspectives.

Ethnographic Authority

Because historically these farmers have garnered neither economic, social or political

power and in order to provide an emic view and account of African-American farmers

perspectives, the furthest idea from my mind is to impose more power and authority

upon them from a researcher standpoint These farmers have been lead to believe that

their knowledge was of little value and "backwards". What they are finding out though

is that they possess a rich body of knowledge that it behooves science to document before

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. it disappears. Moreover, when researchers collect data and report findings they declare

their sense of authority to their written or visual account. In contrast to the fashion in

which they have been viewed, as minor players in the major league of agriculture, this

research endeavors to provide a forum which presents these farmers not as the estranged

other but as principals possessing a valuable ethnoecological knowledge base. As

science has led these people to believe they have nothing to add to the body of

knowledge, I do not intend to be misled into believing the traditional method for the craft

of the discipline, ethnography, is without political baggage.

From the end of the nineteenth century, the ethnography became the legitimate

account of the nature of others. "The development of ethnographic science cannot

ultimately be understood without isolation from more general political-epistemological

debates about writing and the representation of otherness” (Clifford 1988:24).

Concomitant with modernity, ethnographic projects provided evidence for the emerging

theories of human evolution. The hegemony of fieldwork was established early and

power and privilege comprised its basic tenets as the field established itself as the norm

for European and American anthropology (Clifford 1988).

Ethnography being enmeshed in writing, is a translation of experience into textual

form complicated by the multiple subjectivities and political constraints beyond the

control of the writer (Clifford 1988). "In response to these forces ethnographic writing

enacts a specific strategy of authority. This strategy has classically involved an

unquestioned claim to appear as the purveyor of truth in the text” (25). Malinowski

becomes the frontispiece for such an idea (Clifford 1988).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Recently, alternate strategies for ethnographic authority have been utilized in

research which self-consciously rejects the Malinowskian style of representation

(Clifford 1988). In these new paradigms, it appears that ethnography can untie itself

from its historical colonial roots. Clough's book, The End(s) of Ethnography (1992)

suggests that ethnographic authority mediates the reality of experience. For Clough

(1992) ethnographic authority, and the distinct social worlds ethnographers

authoritatively describe unconsciously stem from masculine notions of separation and

identity. "Writing this essay, I find myself ever conscious about how I participate in

constructing Others” (Michele Fine 1994:71). My goal is to remain cognizant of how I

am constructing others and how I utilize my positionalites. This research created a space

for me to explore the fragmentations attendant upon the crisis of representation. This

was an exercise in attending to the creation of science and the development of self.

My intention is not to perpetuate the ideology of ethnographic privilege, as much

as I am a native researcher. I wholeheartedly object to ethnography being used as an

object of science in the modernist tradition to further marginalize and disenfranchise the

other. The study recognized the tensions between the privileged positions o f ethnography

and ethnographer. The tension also resulted from the position of native ethnographer and

I felt as a researcher I was not totally removed from this community of farmers. On both

sides of my family are deep roots in the farm land. As an African-American, female,

anthropologists, with farm roots, I realize the multiple subjectivities which I bring to this

research. In other words, I do not portend an imaginary objectivity. How I locate myself

in relation to my subjectivities-gendered, raced, and classed otherhoods— relates to the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. politics of my location. Politics o f location addresses elements of power in research.

(hooks 1990; Hill-Collins 1991).

Within a complex, and ever shifting realities of power relations, do we position ourselves on die side of colonizing mentality? Or do we continue to stand in political resistance with the oppressed, ready to offer our ways of seeing and theorizing, of making culture, toward that revolutionary effort which seeks to create space where there is unlimited access to pleasure and power of knowing, where transformation is possible (hooks 1990:145).

Methodology

This study is based upon over four years of archival/library, field research,

structured and unstructured interviews, and participant observation. Two years ago, I had

planned to conduct an ethnography of one small bounded local level black fanning

community. I had selected Washington County for several reasons. First, it was the first

legally established town in the Northwest Territoiy. Second, in the beginning of this

research, many sources suggested I talk with a well known historian from Washington

County, Henry Burke. The strategy was to conduct an ethnography as is typical in

anthropological research, following the hallmark of anthropology. However, early in the

research, I became aware of a stark reality, that there was no site, in the typical sense.

The AA farming community I had envisioned, did not exist, per se. Therefore, it seemed

more advantageous to investigate the diversity within the state. The archival research

and electronic sources uncovered the unique history of many early, once thriving, AA

settlements in Ohio. Each of the twenty to thirty all AA farming settlements encountered

similar endings, disappearance. Many AA settlements developed in Ohio before the Civil

War and most of them were along the UGRR. Washington County was no exception. So

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. as the research progressed, I began to broaden my research scope and investigate the

history of other all black settlements using Washington County as a particular case study.

This approach fit more consistently with the theory of not focusing only on a bounded

system. Consequently, the project became one of traveling to various parts of the state or

multiple sites as opposed to one site. I spent many days and some nights in Adams

County, Washington County, Montgomery, and Lorain Counties visiting farmers and

their farms.

The First National Conference of Black Farmers

On May 7,1998,1 attended the "First National Conference of Black Farmers"

held in Detroit, MI. This all day event was mostly a venting session for the AA farmers

and for representatives from the USDA to assuage them. Having gotten lost on the way

to the conference, I entered the main meeting hall after the morning proceedings had

started. It was an auditorium on the Michigan State Fairgrounds. The auditorium, which

seated approximately 300-400, was practically full, mostly with AA men, a few women,

and some young children. I sat toward the back in order to be able to take notes. I

observed four hours of discussion between speakers on stage and audience members, in

participatory format There was a break for lunch. There were over 50 vendors from the

local area and a few national vendors selling various food products, cosmetics, health

foods, and education tables set up in an exposition style area adjacent to the auditorium.

From observing this conference, I came away with the sense that a lot of suffering

and loss occurred to America's Black farmer; further, this has persisted for a long time

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. without any attention from various agencies. Black farmer after farmer from the audience

stood up and voiced different stories about how they lost or are losing their land due to

what they se as unfair lending, harassment, and nonpreferential treatment from local

white agriculture staff.

Dr. Lowery, former director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,

stated that this may be the next civil rights movement of the 21st century.

The basic idea I gained from this conference was that these farmers felt that the

practices of the United States Department of Agriculture resulted in the loss of their land

and the farmers wanted the agencies to be held accountable.

Government has been setting up Black folks to fail. USDA gave 30 million dollars to corporations to produce food to flood the market But they cant appropriate 30 million dollars to black farmers to sell good vegetables and food Stop killing our people (Conference transcript 1998).

USDA never treated black farmers like we had rights; they set aside land for white fanners. I assumed government created for white farmers. They worked hard with USDA at their side. USDA planter mentality 3/5=to white farmer. They say we deserve the crumbs. 1862 Homestead Act opportunity for white farmers to own land (Conference transcript 1998).

One artifact of the conference was development or continuation of the urban-rural

connection. The potential of an urban-rural connection has implications crossing

geographic, regional, and religious boundaries. The Nation of Islam representative, very

well received by the audience by the show of applause when he was introduced,

suggested that political bridges will be forged irrespective of religion. Dick Gregory, one

of the speakers, made a parallel between the disappearance of Black farms and the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. burning of Black churches. In many regards this first conference appeared to be a

successful event Conversations flourished over lunch. There was a long line leading up

to the barbecue trailer so people started talking to the person in line next to them and

other people who they did not know. Listening to the conversations there was a diversity

of attendants, non-farm people from various walks of life, professionals, students, and a

lot o f seniors.

During the lunch break, I had a conversation with a woman who appeared to be

in her seventies. She lived in Detroit but was bom in the South and came to conference

because she heard it on the radio and wanted to know what was happening with AA

farmers. One woman seated next to us came because her daughter who is disabled

wanted to come and could not so she asked her mother to come find out more.

Archival Research

The archival research on this project began May 1999. I spent several months at

the Ohio Historical Center, Washington County Historical Society, and the OSU library

reviewing microfilms, old records, and old census data from the 1800's, as early as I

could find. I made several visits to the Washington County Historical Society library and

gathered Washington County census data from the 1840 census. Dr. Richard Moore

arranged for me to use the OARDC library in Wooster which houses statistical

information and I spent one day researching census data. I visited the Ohio Historical

Society from time to time to review books and other documents.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fieldwork

Unofficially, the fieldwork portion of this research began four years ago when I

begin searching for information about black farmers in Ohio and conducted my first

interview with an African American historian from Ohio in October 1997. Over the

course of the next several years, I conducted numerous personal and telephone

interviews, participant observation, including family reunions, archival research, and

drove over 8,500 miles covering the state via Interstates 70 East and West and 71 North

and South and state roads and routes.

In October 1999,1 interviewed a soil scientist, Mr. Tim Gerber of the Ohio

Department of Natural Resources, Columbus. Mr. Gerber shared maps and information

about soil regions throughout the state. Based upon my interview with Mr. Gerber, I

learned that through a collaborative effort with the USEPA, ODNR, NRCS, US

Geological Survey, Forest Service, the state of Ohio is state is divided into five different

ecoregions. They were divided as such because regional boundaries provide similarity in

ecosystems, a spatial framework for research, assessment, and monitoring (ONR Poster

1997, US Geological Survey, Denver, CO). The ecoregions provides common framework

for examining ecological regions and for the entire nation (ONR Poster 1997, US

Geological Survey, Denver, CO). Therefore, after meeting with him I decided to

compare the various soil management strategies and select five farmers to interview, one

from each ecoregion. After gathering more information from others familiar with the

ecoregions approach, I was informed that those delimiters do not really mean anything

much as far as farming strategies. After reviewing the two schools of information I

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. decided to divide the state in fourths and to conduct in-depth interviews with one farmer

from each of the four areas of the state and to get a representative sample throughout the

four regions for the survey portion of the study.

In December 1999,1 conferred with Mr. Charlie Loggins, Natural Resource

Conservation Service, and Mr. Robert Cole, Farm Services Agency, both from Columbus

office of the USDA, who provided me with a list of 158 minority farmers. This list had

been compiled a few years before by a Sharon Nance, as part of her dissertation in

Agricultural Economics (Nance 1994). When contacted, most all of these farmers were

supportive of my research goals.

In February 2000,1 began contacting local agriculture agencies and

representatives across the State for information as to where AA farmers resided. I

contacted Jon Bourdon, from the USDA Natural Conservation Resource Conservation

office in Washington County where I traveled for meeting in early February 2000. Mr.

Bourdon provided information on and insight into the area along with names of black

farmers in the county and a local historian.

As I met with individual representatives of these systems, my role as an

intermediary was obvious. As I examined both local farming and scientific knowledge, I

also became a bridge for information among groups. As research progressed I saw

myself as an interface between science and indigenous knowledge. Moreover, I was

reminded of Kottak’s ideas of not being the neutral scientist and searched for ways to

give something back to these farmers. While teaching a course on Black Farmers in the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. US, at Denison, I became convinced that a conference including all the various entities I

contacted during this research was essential.

DATA COLLECTION

Data collection officially began January 2000. However, during the preceding

two and a half years, I had attended fanning conferences, met with agriculture agency

representatives, and collected news articles and anecdotes, long with statistical and

census data. This research developed fortuitously. Often key informants were referred to

me, while I just happened upon some data. Everyone I approached was receptive of the

study, and supportive of my educational pursuits, and provided as much information as

they could. Data collection ended in March 2001. It involved four parts: 1) archival

research, 2) in-depth interviews, 3) structured surveys conducted via telephone and in

person, and 4) participant observation — family reunions, church services, and family

activities.

In the February 2000,1 began archival research in Washington County, the Ohio

Historical Society, and the Ohio Agricultural Research library in Wooster.

My first interview aside from the agricultural agency representatives was in

March o f2000, with a local historian who had a wealth of information.

In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews inquired into the following thematic areas:

• Sense of tradition

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. • Sense of heritage

• Environmental context -

• Significance of land

• Family land ownership background

• Kinship and Inheritance patterns

• Land rituals and practices, i.e. planting by the signs

• Folk and material traditions specific to local community

• Ecology-based farming, e.g. crop diversity, pest and soil management

• Relationships to the market and products distribution, market and non-market

distribution; mutual aid and cooperative groups

• Channels of distribution for farm produce

• Role of women in farm operations and sustainable agriculture

Sample Size

The data from which this dissertation is written consist of multiple in-depth

interviews with four families and 20 semi-structured surveys with African American

farmers throughout Ohio. This is not a systematic sample. I did not use any type of

systematic sampling to enlist in-depth interviewees or questionnaire respondents.

Individuals volunteered for in-depth and semi-structured interviews.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Sample Selection

A purposive convenience sample was enlisted. Although, it is important to

mention again that access progressed in quite a fortuitous manner. A variety of methods

were used to access farmers in these four regions. The Southeast in-depth interviewee

was arranged via contacts with the Washington County historian, and a NRCS

representative. The Southwest participants came from the list provided by the NRCS.

This farmer was asked to participate in the telephone survey. When he said, you would

be surprised how old 1 am, he turned out to be 92. Since he was lucid, alert, and had a

good memory, I asked for an in-depth interview. The Northwest respondent came from

a NCRS contact of a farmer not on their list The farmers and his wife from Northeast

was the most fortuitous of all meetings. A friend in Cleveland audiotaped a National

Public Radio broadcast (July 2000) about black farmers in Ohio. The writer had

interviewed an 89 year old farmer whose hometown was the same as a friend of mine.

Upon listening to the interview, she said, “that's Mr. Perkins, I know him.” However,

she did not know if he was still alive. In the ensuing weeks she and I drove to her

hometown where her mother still lives and we began trying to locate Mr. Perkins. My

friend located his telephone number. She made the initial call and talked to Mrs.

Perkins about my research, and the interview was arranged.

Interview Conditions

In-depth interviews were conducted in the living rooms and kitchens o f the

farmer’s homes. One interview took place at Bob Evans. At the beginning of each

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. interview, I read the Human Subjects consent form and told them that if I asked them

anything that they did not want to answer, he or she should not feel obligated to answer.

They then signed the forms and the first interview began.

Before beginning the interviews, I discuss my interests in AA farmers and a little

about my background. The second interview is more familiar, commonly including food

being shared. I always accepted meals, and was always sent home with some vegetables.

Following the second interview, I bring a gift upon my return. By the third visit, I hardly

wrote at all, because this was difficult while eating or walking about the farm or outside

activities. My interview style changed through the course of these in-depth interviews. In

the beginning, I was more formal. I asked questions based upon the interview guide. At

the first meeting, I always wrote quite a bit and the respondent talked little. By the

second interview, I was more relaxed as was the interviewee and I asked fewer questions

while they talked more. If such circumstances prohibited note taking, my first activity

after leaving was to type or write field notes. Inevitably, the more visits I made to the

farms, the fewer questions I asked and the more interesting the information I recovered.

Subsequently, each interview lasted longer and longer by one or two hours. The first

interview was usually only two to three hours, the second from three to four hours, while

the third and later were from four to five hours in length.

In the beginning, I took a tape recorder but did not use it. In the process of

developing rapport with families (which is essential before tape recording) they talked

about their farming experiences and interviews flowed informally. This flow would have

been interrupted, in most cases, if the tape recorder was introduced. During subsequent

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. interviews, I continued to bring a recorder. However, inevitably interviewees, would

reveal very sensitive information or say "don't write that" During these times I was

pleased to not have the recorder working. However, I lost that research instinct late one

night when my students and I stayed over at the Landers' farm. The son of our host and

hostess killed two chickens outside. I was in the kitchen interviewing my host at the

time. A grandson came in to ask for two plastic bags because his father had killed a

chicken. I rushed outside to see and observed the second chicken being plucked. The

students and I were fascinated. That was a rich and rare moment and one in which I wish

I had used the video camera, which I had in my possession. It was a priceless missed

opportunity. However I did use the tape recorder during the last part of the study, asking

in advance if I could bring a tape recorder to interview. I noticed interviewees watching

the tape recorder.

Farmers, men and women, conversed in a circular manner and loved to tell stories

and the historical and other context for their stories. The more elderly respondents taught

me to slow down and simply listen. In answering my questions, they often ended up

telling a long story. I came to enjoy listening to their stories and looked forward to

hearing them. I graciously accepted the invitation to attend the family reunion of family

in August 2000. As a participant observer, I was able to observe the intra-group diversity

in regards to African American ethnicity. Moreover, participating in the family reunion

provided an opportunity to meet one of Ohio’s oldest families. I attended the family

reunion church service. This long standing tri-racial (Native American, African

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. American, European-American) community is hardly spoken of but represents a strong

tradition and one of the few land-holding farm families in the county.

Structured Surveys

The purpose of the structured survey was to gather specific data from a sample of

AA farmers to contrast and compare with in-depth data. I also utilized non-probability

purposive sampling strategy. Twenty farmers were interviewed by telephone. These 20

farmers represent 16 different Ohio counties. Respondents were solicited from two cross-

referenced lists. I cross checked the two lists the national Resource Conservation Service

and the Farm Services Agency of the USDA provided that contained addresses and

telephone numbers. After cross checking the two lists for duplication, I ended up with

108 names and addresses of individuals who were of possibly of African American

descent. In April 2000,1 began calling farmers from the list. Most of the phone numbers

were no longer working. Some telephones were still active with changed area codes.

Ten of the respondents for this study came from those individuals I contacted from that

first list by telephone.

I decided to mail an introductory letter to Ohio African American farmers on the

list (Introductory Letter-Appendix A). Names that were typically of Vietnamese,

Hispanic, and Native Americans were first dropped. In July 2000, 84 letters were mailed

from the remaining names. Fifteen letters were returned with no forwarding address or

stating the addressee was deceased.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ten farmers responded to the introductory letter and called me back on the 800

telephone number reserved for this project following. Again, the other ten farmers were

contacted by telephone from the NRCS & FSA lists. At least two conversations occurred

with each participant by telephone, except in one case when I interviewed a woman at

the time she first called me. Normally, during the first conversation, the project

objectives were detailed and asked if they would be interested in participating in the

study. If so, I set a time to call back when they could talk for at least 30 minutes.

Telephone interviews lasted thirty minutes to one and one half hours. As I

conducted the telephone questionnaire, I stimulated dialogue and made notes, cross-

referencing the survey questions with alphanumeric codes. I had developed a coding

scheme for the survey sections by themes, for example, LK11 was local knowledge

question 11. I mailed thank you cards to all the survey interviewees.

DATA MANAGEMENT AND ANALYSIS

Grounded theory guided this research. Through systematic data collection and

analysis, I collected and analyzed the data simultaneously. Through the constant

comparative method, this allowed me to examine emerging themes and patterns in the

data. I utilized a software designed specifically for grounded theory, Qualitative

Solutions Research (QSR) Non-numerical Unstructured Data Indexing Searching and

Theorizing (Nud*st 4.0XN4) to manage the data. The software is based upon grounded

theory and allows users to search for patterns in the coding and test theories in the data.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Nud*st 4.0 encompasses the comparative method. Nud*st 4.0 is well-suited for the

systematic management of qualitative data.

Directly after the interview, that same day or the next morning, I typed my field

notes and saved them as a word processing file. After typing the interview, I imported

the file into N4. Nud*st 4.0 gave me the capacity to link the various types of data. Also,

N4 links different types of documents, interview transcripts, observation notes, archival

research, and memos.

Coding the data

I coded the interviews after they were imported into N4. I had developed an

initial codebook from several pilot interviews and participant observation fieldnotes and I

built upon these codes by adding new codes and deleting some old ones. In grounded

theory, the data may guide the development of codes or nodes. In coding the data, line by

line, I pursued a mostly "splitting" versus "lumping" strategy because I wanted to have

access to gradations within the thematic areas. Once developed, the codes were treated as

concepts and categories. Not taking on anpriori a set of codes allowed me to be aware

of the development of data and the emerging concepts. In collecting the qualitative data,

I had general research questions and was also cognizant of how concepts related to one

another. This process of constant comparison allows for theory building.

My decisions about lumping and splitting also encompassed concerns about what

I would potentially use the text to compare or to support. For example, when I asked

about the perceptions of USDA, I wanted to code for negative and a code for positive

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. comments, instead of just one node for USDA. In that case, USDA would be node 30,

USDA, neutral perceptions 30 1, positive 30 2, and USDA negative comments would be

30 3. If the respondent said negative comments about the USDA and they were regarding

lack of response to loan applications, I would code this also so that particular node

address would be 30.3.1.

I realized that when I collapsed or expanded a node category I was making a

judgment about the data and the meaning assigned to that node. In general, I coded all

text relevant to a predetermined code or theme and added more codes that related to

either the data or subareas within a code, thereby making more refined subcodes within

the existing categories. (Codebook-Appendix F). Making coding decisions clarified

some of the connections I was unclear about.

After coding, I looked systematically at the data and the intersections in the data

with the assistance of the software. Upon completion of the coding, I conducted string

searches, pattern searches, and node searches for certain themes, as well as searching for

overlaps, intersections, and unions. The printout of certain results included all references

in the database about that particular node or key word searches. I browsed the results for

relevant data. I looked for intersections in the corpus of data. For example, by

performing the overlap command, I searched for overlap or intersections between soil

and heritage. I also searched for text references by performing key word and phrase

searches. Results of text search were viewed in the browser and printed to hardcopy.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Data Interpretation

My interpretive strategy, in coding the data, was to place the text within the code

category which best fit the text itself. For example, if a farmer said that an old woman

taught him his farming ways (farming knowledge), I coded that text— knowledge, elder

female (21 4). When a respondent said that they use all manure, eggshells, etc., I coded

that text—recycle local farm resources, animal by products (27 3). In coding the

interview data, I became even more aware of how the process of affixing a particular

code tended itself to interpretation. This supports Geertz's (1983) notion that all we can

really learn is the art o f interpretation. I interpreted the meaning of text within the

context of the theoretical and thematic associations and coded accordingly. Hopefully,

the representation of these interpretations will lead to new understanding of the farming

traditions, knowledge, and adaptations among African American farmers in Ohio.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 3

DEVELOPMENT OF BLACK FARMING SETTLEMENTS

Limited black control over land has deprived the black community of a major source o f wealth in this country (Nelson, 1979:83).

Black Farming Communities in the U.S.

Many all-black farming communities and towns formed right after the Civil War

(Rose 1959; Bittle & Geis 1979; Crockett 1979; Bethel 1994). There were a few black

settlements formed during the post- Revolutionary era and by the antebellum years, a

number of such towns dotted the East and Mid West (Rose 1955; Crockett 1979). These

were isolated people and sought only to be left alone. They fanned small plots of

marginal land and whites usually ignored them. The black town reached its peak in the

fifty years after the Civil War. At least 60 black communities were settled between 1865

and 1915 (Pease & Pease 1962; Crockett 1979). Oklahoma led all other states with 20

(Bittle & Geis 1957;Hamilton 1977). The black-town ideology sought to combine

economic self-help and moral uplift with an intense pride in race, while at the same time

encouraging an active role in county and state politics (Ross 1978; Crockett 1979).

Again, I do not suggest that African-American farmers are monocultural,

changeless through time, however, after slavery African Americans developed beliefs

about land use and religion which fostered the emergence of self-worth as a collective.

During the period directly after the Civil War and Civil Rights movement, African

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Americans have participated in a dialectical negotiation for land and access. This

process of dialectical renegotiation of community, involved negotiating the

discontinuities of the time with the remnants of the past in hopes of renegotiating for an

ameliorated future. Levine (1977) writes: “Upon the hard rock of racial, social, and

economic exploitation and injustice black Americans forged and nurtured a culture; they

formed and maintained kinship networks, raised and socialized children, built religion,

and created a rich expressive culture which they articulated their feelings and hopes and

dreams” (xi).

Reconstruction

After slavery, blacks pursued farming as a mechanism for independence and self-

sufficiency. O f all the periods in history when blacks owned the most land,

Reconstruction goes on record as the Golden Age for black farmers and black land

ownership in general. There was a brief period of sustained communities for black

farming settlements. After the Civil War, President Lincoln initiated Reconstruction

initiatives. The Reconstruction Era lasted from 1865 to 1877. After Lincoln's

assassination, Reconstruction continued for short time during the Andrew Johnson

administration, but many new Southern governments placed restrictions on former slaves,

denying blacks (males) the right to vote and not allowing them to be educated (Franklin

1961). Taking steps to keep blacks from acquiring real property and education, the Black

Codes (1865-66) became instituted and in many cases resembled the former slave codes

with the name "ffeedman" written in where the word "slave" had been. Although the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. legislation to redistribute the land failed in both Houses of Congress a few blacks did

purchase some of the public land (Rose 1955; Crockett 1979). The aftermath of

Reconstruction: I) increased violence against blacks as Southern whites reacted violently

against black progress; 2) Black men losing voting privileges; and 3) the Supreme Court

legalizing segregation, was the beginning of what has been termed the Jim Crow “the

Crow” policies (Franklin 1961).

With the Emancipation Proclamation, presumably the slave system came to

an end, but the ideologies remained firmly entrenched within the institutional

frameworks. Consequently, African-Americans entered agriculture within the

same ideological terrain and belief system which once justified slavery. Within

the domain of agriculture, the institution of slavery was replaced by the

sharecropper institution. Within the federal domain of agriculture, legal

authority was given to the government which maintained the ideological and

structural arrangements of the past

Although ineffectual, some federal policies attempted to correct through

various measures, the legacy of disparity of treatment between African-

Americans and Whites. One such measure was the Morrill Act of 1890 which

theoretically established an equitable division of funds between the White and

Black land-grant institutions within the Southern States (Schor 1996). Not

surprising, inequality persisted in agricultural education even after the Morrill

Act in and even with the passing of the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, which created

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Cooperative Extension Service, the Federal government assumed no pretense

of equality (Schor 1996).

The Importance of Land for African Americans

No doubt, after slavery, land served as the raw material for transformation into

independent farming communities. During Reconstruction, land represented a sense of

stability and cultural identity. Many all black settlements flourished during

Reconstruction (Bittle & Geis 1957; Magdol 1977; Crockett 1979; Bethel 1997). Many

families settled on sites of their enslavement (Kennedy 1969) They had developed a

sense of rootedness there. Hunn (1999) suggests that of importance to a subsistence way

of life is the "rootedness" of the community in its local environment, the community

sense of place.

For African-Americans attempting to establish rural communities, they developed

an interdiscursive relationship between religion, their every day activities, and beliefs

about land, nature, God, and whites. However, the core of these burgeoning communities

was the community itself. Subsistence activities were integrally tied to a sense of the

community. They worked and shared the fruits of their labor with their neighbors,

generalized reciprocity of food items and other types of support. Accordingly, Hunn

(1999) contends that for subsistence farmers, the opportunity to engage in nature gives

meaning to their lives and strengthens their family and community ties. The sense of

community and linkages solidifies social life of the community (Hunn 1999).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Not only does the relationship to the farm land give meaning to their lives, but

also stabilizes families, and communities (Hunn 1999). Hunn (1999) proposes that the

"rootedness" of the community represents a sense of place in the local environment

Knowledge becomes tied to the sense of place. After all family is there, the local

knowledge base and love of the land is there. Local knowledge is passed on within the

context of community and environment Hunn (1999) discusses the "rootedness" of the

community in its local environment, meaning how long the family has been in the same

community or region. There are certain linkages between local knowledge and sense of

place. The knowledge and the systems employed could sustain biological diversity and a

subsistence way of life for many generations. As long as there was the farm, local

knowledge would be passed on.

Land became the mechanism by which they could move from the old to the new

and to make sense of the changing social and political landscapes. Of particular

significance for African Americans coming out of slavery was the necessity to construct

communities constitutive of some similarity of continuity in changing social and

political landscapes. Through the process of land acquisition, material culture originated.

After locating family members, they knew that if they could acquire some land they

could establish settlements. The first things emancipated blacks did coming out of

slavery was to try to find their family members and then to establish a home location

(Frazier 1957). Settlement patterns gave structure to beliefs about freedom,

independence, and family. The role of family played a significant part in forming family

farms and further stabilization.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. We see by most accounts that African-Americans perceived the acquisition of

land for subsistence and fulfillment of activities thereof for the purpose of constructing a

family and community solidarity. Land served as the quintessential raw material for

constituting freedom immediately after emancipation. Land represented a sense of

stability and burgeoning cultural identity. The legacy of family separation during slavery

required intentional mechanism to reverse the impact of loss of family, a further thorn of

insecurity.

In a study of an African American community, Bethel (1997) observed that the

"The desire for a plot of land dominated public expression among the freedmen as well

as their day-to-day activities and behaviors"(54). Foundations of these new African

American communities which emerged in the late nineteenth centuiy were vested in the

land. Settlements took form around the material and symbolic meanings of land use.

Spatial patterns emerged representing the newly emancipated arrangements

(Bethel 1997). For example, in Promised Land South Carolina, Bethel (1997) notes that

the first generation of blacks who came to Promised Land had lived as slaves in clustered

housing. The spatial distribution of their houses now, most rather squarely located in the

center of their own farms, was a symbol of freedom. As new families moved into the

community, they favored locations near one of the roads (Bethel 1997). The same

phenomenon has been documented among Southern gardeners and small farmers who

preferred their homes being placed near the road (Westmacott 1992). Westmacott (1992)

researched gardeners and small farmers in three southern states and revealed that most of

the houses were near the road. Placement of homes near the road, vernacular buildings—

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. barns, smokehouses, churches, schools— conveyed a perception and attitude about what

that placement represented, a sense of an open and close-knit community. These early

settlement patterns of African Americans in the rural areas can be viewed as signs of

resistance to the plantation system - and slavery. Settlement patterns can be viewed as

the material spatial manifestations of a communal worldview. Land formed the basis for

a collective ideology.

The communal aspects of African indigenousness have been noted (Dettwyler

1994; Dei 1999). These distinctive communal aspects formed the basis of the

institutions—churches, aids societies, community centers— and the roles of those in the

community. The ideology of self-help was taken seriously and institutions developed to

facilitate the survival of the community. Mutual aid societies and various organizations

in the church provided support for the community members. They quickly established

schools, churches, and economic independence (Bethel 1997). Early African American

farming communities displayed the artifactual evidence of an interrelationship between

land, religion, community stability, and reverence for nature.

Communal spirit to survive together, evidenced itself in activities such as

religious ceremonies, feasting, cooking, and food, production, activities which can be

seen as the fabric of African American farmland culture. Communities took shape

around the material and symbolic meanings of land use and stewardship. Information

survived in the oral and material traditions specific to farming in the African American

tradition and can be noted in foodways and language. Food ways particular to a rural

lifestyle represent the form and structure of farmland material culture. The

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. implementation of the smokehouse, comhouse, other storage buildings, and diversity of

crops, prevented starvation in the rural areas. Paradoxically, the same materials—soil,

crops, farm animal, bams— that were of value as slaves, became meaningfully

appropriated by African Americans as did the importance of land.

Bethel (1997) highlights how children of landowning parents delayed marriage.

The children were influenced by an artificial land scarcity and were willing to delay

marriage in order to eventually own even a small piece of land (Bethel 1997). Thus equal

shares in the inheritance tradition became the customary family tradition. “It was one of

the few foundations of economic security for Negroes attaining maturity in the last two

decades of the nineteenth century" (46). Land became handed down and used as a

dowry. Bethel (1997) writes that

Land enhanced a woman's marriageability and thus enabled her to attract a more desirable husband. Dowries of land served their intended purpose, for they assisted young women in establishing stable and independence households. They also bound the young woman and their husband to the community(64).

Kinship became a key strategy for community collectivization. Distinct aspects

of kinship become codified as a collectivization strategy. Customary inheritance meant

that children received small tracts of land which encouraged offspring to remain on the

family land. This builds a familial cluster and the entire family gains status. Their

relationship to the natural environment was motivated by subsistence, a localized

perspective, and they stewarded the land in the long term because it was family wealth.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The relationship to the land gave meaning to their lives, strengthened their family,

and communities and provided the leadership class. The new black leadership emerged

from these new settlements during Reconstruction (Marable 1979). At this time former

slave and formerly free black men enjoyed political careers. Some land owners held

political office (Marable 1979).

Decline o f Black Owned Rural Land

Kalbacher and Rhoades (1993) suggest that some of causes for the

decline of African-American farmers were:

The legacy o f slavery, failure to redistribute land to African-Americans after the Civil War, and continuance of white domination and African- American political, economic, and social suppression (48).

In spite of the challenges of acquiring land, by 1920 there were over

920,000, African American farmers operating farm, albeit a short window of

success. As impressive as the numbers suggest, 1910,890,000 farms, and 1920

over 920,000 farms operated by African American, the fact is that in 1910 only

218,000 were run by full or part owners and 670,000 by tenants (Browne 1973).

Although the overall number of tenant farmers began to decline at the

national level, African Americans still comprised a larger percentage of tenant

farmers. In 1910 tenant farms came to 37 percent of all farms and fell 32.9

percent in 1920. This fell even more sharply during War n, in 1950 tenants

made up 26.8 percent of all farmers (Schlebecker 1975). In 1954, approximately

60 percent of minority farms were operated by tenants as compared to 20 percent

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of white farms (Davis 1966). However, in 1987 tenant farms comprised 13

percent of all minority farms while white tenants feel to less than 12 percent

(Brown et al. 1994). The data indicate increases in land ownership relative to

land tenant-ship for African American farmers.

Yet, during the 1910’s and 1920’s the numbers of African-Americans

involved in farming and in tenancy was highest This could suggest that these

individuals were a political and economic force and were possibly incorporated

into the agriculture. On the contrary, because of the nature of their relationship

to the means of production and the market they never were incorporated into the

main structure of agriculture as free and competitive agents. Their positions as

tenants and sharecroppers left them without any real access to the major

national, and international markets. They existed as mere peasants, as small

acreage tillers of the land marginalized and dispossessed.

In spite of the hard times and marginalized status, these farmers sustained some

land ownership on a small scale. As mentioned earlier, even without the assistance of the

Homestead Act of 1862 which benefited numerous white farmers, Blacks managed to

become full or part owners of more than 15 million acres of land by 1910 with a

population of 9.8 million (Browne 1973). Blacks acquired land and created

communities and a small amount of landholders did appear very soon after emancipation.

Although, the majority of these farmers during their initial entry into agriculture were

freed people, they were tenants and sharecroppers, who barely controlled the means of

production.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The tenant-sharecropper systems allowed the plantation economy to survive

emancipation and were simply substitutes for the plantation system (Thompson 1975;

Nieman 1994). Since the majority of black farmers were sharecroppers, they were still by

and large part of the plantation system. The share-tenancy mode of farming prevented

blacks from economic profit (Kennedy 1969). The crop-lien system allowed the merchant

to hold a lien upon the growing crop in security for supplies advanced. Because of the

nature of the sharecropper system, African-American farmers had to borrow fertilizer and

seed from the planter to extract products from the land. When surplus was produced,

they had limited access to the market and even if given access, they would not have been

able to compete. Similar practices which reinforced the plantation system, e.g. the

political, religious, and educational institutions supported the tenant and sharecropper

systems. They proved even more menacing to African-Americans tenants and

sharecroppers because of this "false consciousness” that they could actually achieve full

land ownership and participation in the main. For a small group this did happen. Yet for

the majority of tenant and sharecroppers it was matter of time before they would be

evicted from the land they cultivated. Having limited opportunities to capital, they were

doomed to fail. Loan money from local banks and the government never materialized.

(Browne 1973; Zabawa 1991) Debt accumulation prevented many African-Americans

from sustaining their family farmland. Equivocation through the discursive practices of

federal and local level agricultural agencies, stymied success of African American

farmers while loans and subsidies were reserved for white farmers (USCCR 1965,1982).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In some cases lacking recourse from any other source, African American farmers

went to local merchants for credit advances. In his study of Southern Mississippi Delta,

Myers (1971) indicates that Farmers in Holmes County cited examples of how easily

white farmers obtained loans and how difficult it is for Blacks to receive the same loans.

He found that for blacks in the Mississippi Delta access to loans and foreclosures was a

major factor in their demise.

There is evidence that white bankers, federal loan agencies (FHA and Federal Land Bank) and local merchants conspire to force blacks into foreclosure. Blacks are forced into dealing with whites because the have no other resources. The lender controls the mortgage and the equipment. He is also in position to force the borrower into foreclosure by accelerating payments or other deceptive practices. The same white man who loans the Black man money to purchase farm equipment is usually a co-owner or partner in the farm equipment business. The Black man uses the money he just borrowed from the lender to purchase farm equipment from the same man. Actually the money never leaves the office of the white merchant. (Myers, 1971 :D-2)

However, there were some success stories with the Resettlement projects

of the New Deal (Brown 1976). Most of these success stories were of

landowners and not tenants or sharecroppers. Still since most African

Americans were tenant farmers even during the Roosevelt administration, they

were therefore unable to take advantage of Roosevelt's New Deal. The planters

refused to share the subsidy payments with their tenants and the planters

eventually evicted them from the land (Schor 1996).

Historically, African-Americans could not benefit from the programs or local

and state offices set up to assist other farmers because they were, by and large,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. not land owners and in the case of land owners those in agricultural positions

responsible for implementing the programs were nonresponsive to African*

American farmers. Here we note the persistence of the hegemony to control the

resource base of those nonwhite farmers. In many cases involving land owners,

they were purposefully excluded by local agency representatives and targeted for

swindling (Browne 1973). Historically, African American farmers have

experienced a hard rock of existence. Most often these farmers have been shut

off from access to resources such as loans, because of local, state, and federal

practices (USCCR 1982). In this regard, African-American farmers could not

withstand the structural nor ideological tensions of agriculture.

For Brown et al. (1994), the structure of agriculture refers to the organization and

control of farm resources. "Structure includes the number and size of farms, the

ownership and control of farm land, capital, labor, the arrangements for inputs and

product marketing; and other factors that affect decision making, the control of

resources, and the behavior of producers” (55).

The combination of improvements in agricultural technology and farm subsidy

programs gave "loopholes" for the establishment of agri-business (Browne 1973).

Goldschmidt (1978) submits that

American agricultural relief has subsidized the corporate interest in agricultural production. Government policies give special advantage to corporations through: 1) agricultural support programs; 2) tax policies; 3) agricultural labor policies; 4) research orientation of USDA and land grant colleges(xxxiii).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Large scale fanning businesses can undersell small farmers and recoup their investments

plus a profit via write-offs and land speculation (Browne 1973). Technological

advancements pushed the minimum size of acreage higher to make it economically

impractical for small farmers. "But as the number of farmers fell, the size of farms

increased” (Schlebecker 1975:267). The largeness of scale benefited the large scale

farmers because he had a large enough volume of output to obtain higher prices of farm

commodities, for small farmers, they do not have the volume to compete. The trend

toward large scale farming has been another disadvantage for a traditionally small scale

fanning group. Between 1954 and 1987, the average farm increased by 80 percent in size

from 256 acres to 462 acres (Brown et al. 1994). African-Americans experienced a

growth from 104 acres in 1982 to 115 acres in 1987, a 10 percent increase (Brown et

al.1994).

The combined effect of U.S. Agriculture and tax policies was to strengthen the

competitive position of large farms relative to small farms (Brown et al. 1994).

Brown et. al. (1994) intimate that structural changes in the agricultural sector have had a

disproportionately negative impact on African Americans because of limited accessibility

to capital markets, inadequate educational opportunities, and insufficient technical

assistance from public and private sources.

Nelson (1978) claims that, "In a society based on capitalism, land ownership

becomes an essential and unalterable prerequisite for economic development and the

exercise of political influence"(256). The structure of agriculture, has fostered

agribusiness' monopolization of the industry and hastened the loss of Black owned land

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in rural farm communities. An examination into the processes by which the agricultural

structure contributed to the permanent marginalization and eventual decline of African-

Americans farmers requires a systems level approach with attention to the intersections

of various systems. Taken within its historical context processes operated to some extent

to limit the political potential and the economic wealth of black farmers. Although the

established slave system came to an end, the ideologies which facilitated slavery,

remained firmly in place within the institutional frameworks. Neither the Civil War, the

13th Amendment, nor the Reconstruction legislation did much to dismantle the social

order which slavery had engendered.

When blacks did obtain ownership of land, they were often victims of

unscrupulous lawyers, land speculators, and county officials (Zabawa 1991). In

Alabama, along with tax sales, tax collectors and assessors used threats to force people to

pay taxes and then sold the land (Figures 1973) Partitions sales, although rare in

Alabama, were used to partition off and sell pieces of the land; mortgage foreclosures;

failure to write wills all contributed the lose of land for many farmers (Figures 1973).

Research suggests that those who owned the means of production controlled land access

and security of black farmers and their surrounding communities.

"The evolution of the Black capitalist class was subverted in the post-Civil War

period when Blacks were either denied ownership or were separated from the means of

production as well as from the products of their labor” (Hogan 1984:144, 157). By and

large, in Marxian terms, African Americans were perpetually alienated from the products

of their labor. Because, as impressive as the numbers suggest during 1910 and 1920’s,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the fact remains they were primarily tenants and not land owners (Browne 1973). Still,

in 1954, approximately 60 percent of minority farms were operated by tenants as

compared to 20 percent of white farms (Davis 1966).

Lack of land ownership by blacks has been at the heart of black economic

impoverishment and political powerlessness in the US (Nelson 1979:83). Full

participation by African Americans in the national economy has been prevented by lack

of a Black capitalist class (Hogan 1984). Limited land ownership has deprived the

Black community o f a major source o f wealth in the country (Nelson 1979). Family

farms are the initial sources of human capital and physical assets for farm children

starting out, as well as source of land for expansion via inheritance (Laband & Lentz

1983; Zabawa 1991):

The farm as a resource base is important to the community in terms of political, economic, and social power. The farm as a residence is important to the family and extended family across generations. And the farm as a business enterprise is important for the immediate survival for the family (Zabawa 1991:78).

However, because most black farmers did not write wills - problems associated

with property inheritance hindered their farm production (Zabawa 1991). Giving each

child shares fragmented the land and ultimately reversed many of the hard gains by

African Americans pursuing land ownership (Zabawa 1991).

Black farmers in Alabama also fell by debt-to-asset ratios (Zabawa, 1989).

From 1910 to 1987, Black-owned farms in Alabama declined by 98% from 110,387

to 1,828. (Zabawa 1991). Comparatively, white owned farms declined 73% from

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152,458 to 41,416. However, while land acreage among Blacks decreased from

1910 to 1987, acreage o f farms fully and partly owned by Whites increased.

Furthermore, although Black-operated farms have more than doubled in size from 51

to 115 acres over the past 77 years, White operated farms almost tripled in size (153

to 447 acres) (Census of Agriculture 1992). Today, nation-wide, Black-operated

farms average less than 50 acres (Zabawa, 1991).

Marable (1979) gives five reasons for to decline of black land in the South and

the black land-owning class in general:

1) emergence of white racism and Jim Crow Legislation

2) fall of cotton prices

3) the boll weevil

4) lack of adequate credit at reasonable rates

5) general erosion of and depletion of soil

Given these particulars, African American farmers in the South and the North could not

escape the loss of land and community (Marable 1979).

Less than one percent of African American farmers lived in the North at the

time of Civil War (Davis 1966). However, as the territory north of the Ohio River

was settled, where slavery was forbidden, some free Blacks and escaped slaves

gradually moved in (Davis 1966).

A majority of the Negro settlers went to the hilly wooded country of southern Ohio and Indiana.. .Others obtained better lands in the Cora Belts of Ohio and southern Michigan and engaged in more commercial type agriculture. But after the Civil War, the rural settlements declined even with better social climate and land ownership (174).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In 1900, the North and West had 9,400 Negro operated farms, with more than 1,000

each in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas. Small areas of land of low quality was their

pattern (Davis 1966). Opportunities in cities drained younger people and reduced the

labor pool. By 1959, there were only 3,850 African American farms in the North, West,

and Kansas, with the largest number in Michigan (Davis 1976). In California, African

Americans worked in farming as hired hands at first, and eventually purchased family

farms (Davis 1966). By 1959 California had 443 farms operated by African Americans,

after Michigan and Ohio, the largest number outside of the South (Davis 1966).

Ohio has a rich African American farming history. By the early 1800's, a steady

flow of Black farmers arrived in the Ohio Valley crossing the Appalachians from

Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina (Katz 1999). By 1808, several colonies of

African American and Indians fanning communities were established in Western Ohio

and outside of Cincinnati (Katz 1999). These were along the borders of Indiana and

Michigan, towards Dayton, where the soil was rich and fertile and the countryside filled

with wildlife (Katz 1999). These early settlers created enclave areas and established

farming community (Myers 1998). At one point during the early 19th century, Ohio had

twenty to thirty Black towns (Katz 1999).

In Ohio, in 1900, there were 1,966 Ohio black farmers. There were 1,616 in 1920,

the peak of black land ownership nationwide. By 1940, there were 1,092 and in 1954,

965 Ohio farms operated by blacks (Census of Agriculture 1964). The number plummets

to 496 in 1964 and ten years later, in 1974, to 170 Ohio African American farm

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. operations (Census of Agriculture 1978). The number stabilizes to 173 reported in 1992

(US Census of Agriculture 1992)

Rural farming communities outside the South have been disintegrating in recent

times (Davis 1966). Davis (1966) contends that, "Their stable Northern background and

higher than average education have made it easier for them to succeed in cities than

their Southern counterparts, and it is the cities where they are going” (Davis 1966:174).

African-American Migration Northward

Although the greatest portion of African Americans who have left rural America

probably were sharecroppers and tenants and probably not land owners, migration and

the causes behind the migration contributed heavily to the decline in African American

land ownership (Browne 1973). The first bulk of African American Northern migration

did not occur until 50 years after the abolition of slavery. Although white migration to

Northern and Southern cities was increasing, during the first fifty years after the

Emancipation African American population in the South remained fairly stable (Davis

1966). There were waves of Northern movements and some Western movements as

well. In the Midwest there was movement into Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. During the

decades directly after the Civil War, movement continued westward to Louisiana and

Texas (Davis 1966).

Rural populations in the South increased, from 1870 to 1910 rural Georgia

increased from 500,00 to 952,000 ( Davis 1966). The time between World War I and the

depression was a time o f troubles and receding activity in farming for Negroes in the old

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Cotton Belt (Davis 1966). The most apparent movement of African-Americans

occurred during 1910-20 (Kennedy 1969). At the beginning of World War I, there was

an expansion of industry in the United States in response to European demands for war

materials and supplies (Kennedy 1969). Availability of laborers also decreased due to

the passage of 1921 immigration law and Law of 1924 which placed a two percent

immigration quota on each national group (Kennedy 1969).

Between WWI and WWII, northern industry pulled people to job opportunities in

factories and the southern agricultural situation pushed them away from the South.

Major sociocultural push factors followed after the mechanization of agriculture (Browne

1973). Major northern migration began around 1915 (Davis 1966). In 1900,90% o f

African-Americans lived in the South, by 1960 only 60% did (Davis 1966). There was

continual decline: 1910, 89%; 1920, 85%; 1940, 77% (Davis 1966).

Push factors included discrimination, segregation, and injustice (Davis 1966).

Precipitating factors in Black out migration from the South included severe devastation

of Southern agriculture by the boll weevil and a series of bad crop years (Davis 1966).

African Americans were attracted to cities by the same inducements that drew other

populations, labor demands, better education, and satisfaction of artistic, intellectual and

social needs (Kennedy 1969). What had kept Blacks tied to rural areas was their long

relationship with cotton farming.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Role of Cotton

Cotton prices and land sales fell in early 1840's (Rostow 1980). Although, not the

only producer of cotton, the U.S. supplied two-thirds of the world market in 1860

(Rostow 1980). In 1845, the U.S. experienced a bumper cotton crop and the lowest

prices of the 1815-1860 periods (Rostow 1980). Expansion in the 1850's into fertile

Western lands permitted the cotton textile revolution to proceed on a widening

geographic scale (Rostow 1980). The overall effect of this expansion produced an

increase in domestic prices but not in imported cotton and this created a favorable shift in

the American trade balance (Rostow 1980). From 1865 onward, the center of cotton

production slowly shifted West to California, by 1877 California had become a major

producer of cotton. (Schlebecker 1975). With westward expansion, cotton farming in

the South becomes less profitable (Schlebecker 1975).

During 1915 and 1916 the boll weevil struck the cotton belt of the South

(Kennedy 1969). Abandoning cotton, planters grew other less labor intensive crops,

com, oats, sweet potatoes, peanuts, and brought new machinery to plant and cultivate.

These fluctuations in cotton, especially mechanization, pushed many African Americans

out of agriculture. During the same periods in which Blacks were leaving the farms,

federal monies became available for white rural farmers (Schor 1996).

Department of Agriculture Discrimination

From 1914 to 1972 funds were inequitably disbursed from the Extension

Services (Schor 1996). In 1965, the United States Commission on Civil Rights

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (USCCR 1965) conducted an appraisal of services to agricultural communities.

The commission's findings of four major USD A programs indicated that the

Department had failed to assume responsibility for assuring equal opportunity

and equal treatment to all entitled to benefits (USCCR 1982). For example, the

normal application processing time was 60 days, for black farmers it was 222

days. Discrimination at the local and federal level was obvious. In the 1982

report, the USCCR found that FmHa loans to disadvantaged farmers were neither

timely nor equitable. The same study found that Farmers Home Administration

programs failed to advance, and in some cases may have hindered the efforts of

African American farmers to remain in agriculture. The Farm Security

Administration which became the Farm Home Administration (FmHa) has been

criticized for its inequities of treatment and reserving set-aside programs for

White farmers (USCCR 1982).

For a few African American farmers compensation may come soon. On April

14, 1999, a federal judge handed the government a three billion dollar tab for decades

of discrimination against black farmers who applied for crop and operating loans but

were denied by federal farm agents.

Browne (1973) considers seven reasons for the rapid decline of black farm land:

1) Tax sales - The taking of delinquent property by the state and auctioning it

off to the highest bidder.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2) Partition sales - The number of heirs and the size of the property is such that

it is physically impossible or impractical to actually divide. Therefore, property

is sold to the highest bidder and proceeds are divided among heirs in the

proportion to their interest in the land.

3) Mortgage foreclosures - The loss of mortgaged property due to delinquent

debt.

4) Failure to write wills - Results in the devolution of property by intestacy.

Therefore, one's right to property is considerably weakened.

3) Land ownership limitations on welfare recipients - Generally to receive

social security or other public assistance, one must not have sufficient income

and resources to provide reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and

health and the assessed value of property must not exceed a certain amount

6) Eminent domain - The taking of property for public use. The classic case of

taking large tracts acreage of black farm land was in Hilton Head, SC.

7) Voluntary sales - Often Black landowners do not receive fair compensation

for the sale of their property due to their lack of experience in real estate

negotiations and transactions. Also due to lack of financial resources and /or

technical skills to transform land into a viable investment, Iandownership is

often perceived to be a financial liability rather than an asset. This is because

the land drains financial resources paying for mortgages and property taxes

without any compensating benefits.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 4

BLACK FARMING SETTLEMENTS IN OHIO

The soil you see is not ordinary soil—it is the dust of the blood, the flesh and bones of our ancestors. Shes-his (late 19th century) Reno Crow

Amidst a rugged topography of virgin forests of oak, chestnut, and maple trees

and a wild faunal assortment of cougars, wolves, elk, red and gray foxes, and other

smaller mammals, the efflorescence of African American settlement in Ohio began as a

resistance to the horrific situation of slavery. Resistance to the racial politics of those

times forced the establishment of refugee-like communities of mixed native Indian and

African communities and indeed motivated the organization of the Underground Railroad

(UGRR). European enslavement of Africans and Native Americans in the Ohio valley,

led to the formation of mixed native American and African settlements which provided

the access to land ( Katz 1999). In 1673, 1703, and 1720, French explorers, hunters,

trappers, and Jesuits often included Africans in their parties, they often escaped into the

Ohio valley seeking haven (Katz 1999). French enslavement of Africans and Pani

Indians in the Ohio Valley led to many Africans and Indians fleeing into the wilderness

where they eventually formed their own communities (Katz 1999). As early as 1669,

Africans were living in the Old Northwest Territory among the Shawnee after escaping

from French slavery (Katz 1999). These Africans found refuge among their Native

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. American counterparts and consequently began intermarrying. This pattern of African-

Indian relationships favored the development of mixed farming settlements and

foreshadowed centuries of interracial marriages between whites and blacks in rural Ohio.

In spite of the policies and customs preventing their physical, economic, and social

mobility, the African American population in Ohio grew.

By and large, African American settlement into Ohio preceded white settlement

Up until the late 1760’s, there had been few settlements of any kind other than Native

American villages and mixed settlements of blacks and Indians in the Old Northwest

Territory (Jones 1983; Katz 1999). By 1779, a white few settlements had developed

along the Ohio River and south to the Muskingum (Jones 1983). Squatters came during

the Revolutionary War from western Pennsylvania and Virginia and moved into Belmont,

Carroll, Columbiana, Guernsey, Harrison, Jefferson, Mahoning, Monroe, and Stark

counties (Jones 1983).

With the ratification of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the newly formed

Congress established the Northwest Territory (Jones 1983). From 1787 until 1802, Ohio

remained in a territorial becoming an official state in 1803 (Gerber 1977). Of immediate

concern to the new Congress was the disposal of the newly acquired Indian lands and

settling of the vast virgin forestland of the territory northwest of the Ohio River. Land

disposal policies facilitated the distribution of thousands of acres of virgin land. The

land distribution policies had the intent of populating the new territory with white settlers

and disposing of the Indian but made no provisions for blacks to access land. The Land

Ordinance Act of 1785 founded upon the Jeffersonian ideals of agrarian democracy and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. prosperity for the common farmer required that public land be surveyed and broken into

six-mile square sections of640 acres each. It was to represent an opportunity for all

white people, poor and rich to gain equal access to land. However, the average settler

could not purchase the 640-acre tracts and land was sold at auctions to land speculators

who later sold the land in small parcels at higher prices per acreage to settlers. The goals

of the Land Ordinance, designed by Jefferson who drafted most of the act, was the

creation of isonomic space, equal distribution and division of land (Vogeler 1981). The

Land Ordinance Act revolutionized the land division policies by replacing the eunomic

space with isonomic space. Eunomic land mirrored that in England where land was

based on wealth, status, and merit (Vogeler 1981). Under the Jeffersonian ideal, the

Land Ordinance Act created isonomic division of land so that common persons could

purchase land, creating equal division (Vogeler 1981). 1 Although, the Land Ordinance

1 The most significant land distribution policy, which revolutionized the surveying system of public land, was the Land Ordinance of 1785. This 1785 legislation established a surveying system quite unlike the system, which had existed in England and instituted the new nation. Under the new Ordinance, land was surveyed into square blocks, with survey lines that stretched across the entire country. They formed townships with thirty- six-mile square sections and quartered these into 160 acres each, saving the plot of the township to be sold for a profit that would benefit the schools. The Ordinance had many problems mainly rampant corruption which favored the rich land speculators and did little for farmers (Vogeler 1982). The Preemption Acts replaced the Land Ordinance Act which gave farmers a right to legally settle on land they had not yet purchased. Ultimately fraud became rampant again and this lead to the creation of the Homestead Act 1862 . The Homestead Act of 1862 required that the federal government open the land to free settlers and it made 160 acres of land available to people after they paid 10 dollars and if they settled on it and farmed it for five years, they owned the land. The earliest land disposal system, which gave land away to those who came from England, was the Headlight System. This first system of land distribution allowed the yeoman settlers to obtain land and encouraged people from England to settle in America by giving 50 acres for cultivation and an additional 50 acres for each person accompanying the settler. The headlight system was devised to regularize the freeing of indentured servants (Schlebecker 3). In Maryland, men were given 100 acres of land while accompanying settlers were afforded 100 acres as well (Vogeler 1982). In Rhode Island and Connecticut and New England states, the town settlement system was instituted to reduce the opportunities for land speculation and prevented the development of huge estates or plantations until much later in history (Schelebecker 10). The town settlement system encouraged group settlement and kept certain areas of land undivided. 86

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Act policies did not include provisions for African Americans to acquire land, the

Ordinance framed the dialogue around slavery, discussed later in this chapter.

The military bounty system, the major land distribution system in Ohio,

facilitated the distribution of land in Ohio. A large portion of Ohio became the Virginia

Military District and land was redistributed to former Revolutionary War officers and

soldiers. The Virginia Military District was a set aside program for soldiers from Virginia

who had served in the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War (Gerber 1977). The

benefactors of this policy were veterans of past wars who often sold the land to wealthy

speculators (Jones 1983). Men who entered the military were offered land grants and all

those who joined in the war against the French received land grants. The military bounty

system was designed to increase the population of farmers on uncultivated land. In

general, early land distribution in the United States followed a set of laws enacted to

distribute land to males for farm-based operations and for railroads. However, later land

distribution policies, the Homestead Act 1862 allowed unmarried women to acquire land.

The military generals received 15,000 acres, captains, 3,000, and soldiers with more than

three years of service 200 acres (Peters 1930). This area was settled by the largest land

holders and today the largest farms in the state are in the Virginia Military District

(Hickok 1975).

Although, the Northwest Land Ordinance in and of itself did not benefit blacks

directly, the basis for the absence of slavery in Ohio derives from the Northwest

Ordinance o f 1787 (Hickok 1975; Gerber 1977). The Northwest Ordinance o f 1787,

originally developed with five sections but, later included a sixth section, prohibited

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. legalized slavery (Hickok 1975). The Sixth section barred slavery in the five states of the

Old Northwest— Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin (Gerber 1977). When

the issue of slavery came up again, in the first session of the Territorial Legislature of

Ohio in 1799, based upon the Sixth Article o f the Ordinance of 1787, the Legislature

rejected a petition to institute slavery (Hickok 1975). Again in 1801, the Legislature

received two petitions for some form of slavery, either through indenture or contract, and

the framers of the States’ constitution ruled again that the state would prohibit indenture

of colored persons (Hickok 1975).

Chattel slavery also never flourished in Ohio because the early settlers of Ohio

were primarily from the Eastern States where the climate and industrial conditions

rendered slavery unprofitable (Hickok 1975:28; Burke 2000).

The New England settlers of Ohio were pioneers, not only in the work of opening a new and almost unknown country and laying foundations for a future State, but they were among the few people who ever blazed a path through the wilderness, cleared the forests and planted the fields without the help o f slave labor (Hickok 1975:29)

From Ohio’s inception, in theory, Blacks had relative access to safety and

settlement development Although the State rejected slavery as a legal institution there

was little harmony between Blacks and whites. Blacks were not protected by law and had

to post a bond to settle in the State. In the State's first charter drafting session, the

convention of November 1802, Blacks were denied rights to vote, hold public office, or

to testify against whites (Gerber 1977). So although Blacks were granted protection

against enslavement they were not to take part in the governing process (Gerber 1977).

Eventually, the "Black laws" were created to limit the rights of Blacks (Gerber 1977).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Even though Ohio, like the other five original states of the Old Northwest - Illinois,

Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin— never instituted slavery, Blacks suffered

hardships and were denied full participation in the mainstream political, economic, and

social institutions.

These institutional policies and social practices did little to deter the swell of black

settlement in Ohio. African Americans moved through and into the state escaping the

horrors of enslavement seeking land for subsistence farming and a route to freedom. The

appeal of Ohio was its free state status and it was a short trip to Canada. Between 1800

and 1810, the black population more than tripled from 337 to 1,899 (Gerber 1977). In

1804, the State voted to restrict the Black population by requiring Blacks to show proof

of freedom. The Blacks residing in the State at the time had to register with clerks of the

courts in their respective counties. In 1807, blacks had to post $500 bond within 20 days

of arrival in the state (Gerber 1977). Penalties for harboring fugitives also were made

more severe (Gerber 1977). Clearly, the Black codes, the laws, and the required bonds

did not prevent Blacks from settling in the state early in the 19th century, although they

likely did reduce the number of Black settlers.

The Underground Railroad (UGRR) African American settlement in Ohio was propelled partly by the Underground

Railroad (UGRR) movement. Slavery and those escaping from it, necessitated the

UGRR. The UGRR pathways and trails provided the funnel that directed blacks to black

farming communities in Ohio. One key informant, Mr. Henry Burke, author, local

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. historian, and lecturer from Washington County, provided valuable and interesting local

information on African American history. According to him, the enactment of the

Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 made blacks unsafe even in free states and forced fugitive

slaves to flee to Canada. To avoid capture, they traveled across Ohio toward Lake Erie at

night (Siebert 1951; Burke 1999). Running north from the Ohio River, the Muskingum

River was an easy path for fugitives to follow (Burke 1999). All rivers in Ohio run

north and south and so were the UGRR markers to Canada (Burke 1999).

Free blacks and Abolitionists created the UGRR to actively resist slavery (Burke

1999). Although the UGRR was not a recognized as an organization until the early

1800s, it was already in place during the Colonial period (Burke 1999). The code name

"Underground Railroad" was coined sometime after 1830 when real railroads were being

built (Burke 1999). It was made a series of paths through woods and fields (Siebert

1951; Blockson 1987). Its stations were houses and churches along the way and the

agents and conductors were abolitionists, Quakers, free people of color (Blockson 1987;

Burke 1999). Agents and conductors would hear an owl-like call or a soft knock at a

door (Blockson 1987). Most of the stations were names of whites with houses on the

UGRR network (Burke 2000). After 1820, UGRR Stations were spaced at intervals of

12 and 15 miles along the Muskingum River and movement was done at night, guided by

the North Star—big dipper (Blockson 1987; Burke 1999). When people arrived in

Canada there were communes available. Josiah Henson the model for Uncle Tom’s

Cabin, started a well known commune in Canada and aided many fugitives to freedom

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (Burke 1999). As many as 100,000 Blacks fled to Canada via the UGRR, but the total

figure may be higher (Burke 1999).

It is estimated that in 1830, twenty to thirty all Black settlements dotted the state

of Ohio (Carroll 1953). The majority were situated along pathways o f the UGRR,

including: Black Fork-Lawrence, Berlin Cross Roads in Jackson County, Gist Settlement

in Highland County, Pee Pee Settlement (PP) of Pike County, Poke Patch of Gallia

County, African Hill in Brown County, Hicks Settlement in Ross County, Clay Township

in Scioto County, the Randolph Settlement in Pickaway County; Near Cherry Fork in

Adams County. Today, not one of these settlements exists as an intact community. In

some cases the only visible marker remaining is an all black cemetery (Gilmore interview

1997).

After 1790, free Blacks of the Upper South likely grew in numbers while newly

freed slaves comprised the majority of Ohio's ante-bellum Black migrants (Hickok 1975;

Gerber 1971:6). Added to this free and recently manumitted, the Black population of

Ohio grew by those who had escaped across the state’s longer river-border (Gerber

1977). In comparison of free to escape Blacks, the fugitives settling were few (Gerber

1977). Most fugitive slaves stayed only briefly on their way to Canada (Zelinsky

1950;Gerber 1977). Clearly, Ohio was a magnet for southern migration (Gerber 1977).

The correspondence of surnames among Ohio Blacks and free Blacks in the Upper South

reveals the origin of Ohio Blacks (Gerber 1977). The majority of Blacks settling in Ohio

were from slave states surrounding Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (Gerber 1977). Ante-bellum Blacks were rural people and fanners who commonly

resided in small clusters o f several families in rural townships (Woodson 1925).

Both Eastern and Western Ohio were populated with blacks, from Mercer to Stark

Counties. In Mercer County blacks settled there moving from Cincinnati to escape the

enforcement of Black Laws in Ohio after 1827 (Gerber 1977). Hamilton County had the

highest population of Blacks for over a century (1800 — 1900) and violence against them

by local whites was common (Gerber 1977). Daily life for Blacks in the North may have

been more difficult than life in the South (Gerber 1977).

A substantial number of Black settlements in Ohio developed out of the

settlements of former slaves from plantations in Kentucky and Virginia. My first

interview, over four years ago was with a local historian and descendant of the

Randolph plantation. Her great uncle was among Blacks freed legally in 1833 from the

Randolph plantation, but were not freed physically until 1846. Mrs. Gilmore, a

descendant of York Rial freed at nine years old from the John Randolph plantation in

Roanoke Virginia. Randolph freed 383 Blacks and purchased 3,200 acres for them in

Mercer County. Unfortunately, the Randolph Blacks never occupied the land because

o f violence and legal chicanery by local white residents (Myers 1998; Katz 1999).

Like John Randolph of Roanoke Virginia, several other plantation owners freed their

slaves and purchased land for them in Ohio (Gerber 1977; Katz 1999). The areas in

southwestern and south central Ohio became primary (re)settlement areas for freed

blacks by their former slave masters (Gerber 1977). At least five such cases were

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reported during this research or found in other sources (Zelinsky 1950; Gerber 1976,

1977; Myers 1998; Katz 1999; Gray 2001).

In 1818, several hundred ex-slaves of Samuel Gist were settled on 2,300 acres at

two sites in Brown County. Many of the Gist former slaves became subsistence

agriculturalists and worked as farm laborers (Zelinsky 1950). Two individuals from the

present sample are descendant of people from the Gist plantation. Occasionally, all-

Black settlements included blood relatives of their masters, usually the natural children

between masters and slave mistresses (Gerber 1976). In Darke County, about 60 miles

northwest of Cincinnati, around 1808 a mixed-heritage group of Indians, Negro, and

Pennsylvania Dutch migrated to Ohio from Virginia and settled on about 780 acres

which they had purchased (Gerber 1977). Another mixed-blood community from

North Carolina populated Darke County in the 1800's (Gerber 1977). Interracial

marriages continue in many Ohio farming communities.

In the early 1800’s, the largest concentration of Blacks was found in the south

central and southwestern regions along the Little Miami, Great Miami, and Scioto

Rivers, and eastern portions (Gerber 1976). In these regions the color line was quite

rigid and the majority of Ohio’s lynchings and separate schools were here also (Gerber

1976). August Wattles, a white philanthropist from Cincinnati purchased land for

blacks in Mercer County, but the settlements did not last because of white prejudice

(Gerber 1977).

There were a few large concentrations of African Americans in the southeastern

areas, Marietta-Athens-Zanesville area and the counties surrounding Steubenville.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Both areas bordered the West Virginia state line and were settled by Quakers, Germans,

and New Englanders (Gerber 1976). Greene County also became a desirable

destination for free blacks arriving from the South (Gerber 1976). Besides Cincinnati

in Hamilton County, the Miami Valley, and the Ohio River, the area which attracted

the largest concentration of blacks were eastern Ohio regions near the coal mines in

Belmont, Harrison, and Jefferson Counties (Gerber 1976; Gray 2001).

Outside of south-central and eastern Ohio, the African American population was

scattered. The Western Reserve, located in the northeastern region, was settled by

New Englanders and was characterized by racial tolerance (Gerber 1977).

Interestingly, much later around the late 1890’s, the Western Reserve had one of the

most rigid color lines (Gerber 1976). Nonetheless, almost eighty years earlier, a large

number of African Americans settled in Lorain and Cuyahoga counties because of

racial tolerance. Oberlin, located in Lorain county was a center for abolitionism and

attracted free Blacks. Oberlin University was one of the first in the state to admit

African American students.

Based upon the 1840 Census, Ohio’s African Americans were residing in rural

areas (Gerber 1977). Exceptions were a few urban areas, Columbus, Cincinnati,

Gallipolis, Marietta, Steubenville, Portsmouth, Chillicothe, Dayton, Springfield, Xenia,

and Zanesville. This pattern also was apparent among other farmers in the state.

Nearly all southern counties had one or more colored settlements by 1830 (Hickok

1975). In Pike County, in 1840, thirty-three African American families together owned

2,225 acres of land In 1840, Shelby County there were 265 African Americans who

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. owned 4,286 acres with horses, cattle, and sheep (Hickok 1975). In Darke County,

281 persons owned between four and five hundred acres (Hickok 1975). By 1850, Ohio

had an African American population o f25,279 of which 3,691 or 15% lived in the

counties of the Southern settlement in the Virginia Military District (Hickok 1975).

The Black population in Ohio grew prior to the Civil War reaching 36,673 by 1860

(Gerber 1977).

A minority of the antebellum Black population was composed of persons who had

worked for years to buy freedom for themselves and their family members. Two

southern counties in Ohio had 20 percent of the local Black population freed through

self-purchase or by friends or kin (Gerber 1976). After raising between $400 to $1,200

to buy their freedom, a person would begin to raise money to buy family and friends

(Gerber 1976).

YEARS WHITE COLORED 1800 45,028 337 1810 227,861 1,890 1820 576,572 4,723 1830 928,093 9,586 1840 1,502,125 17,342 1850 1,955,050 25,279 1860 2,302,808 36,673 1870 2,601,946 63,213

Table I. U.S. Census Population Ohio 1800 to 1870

The following are some of the earliest ante-bellum Black settlements in Ohio,

many of them settled primarily by land owning farmers. This information

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. accomplishes objective one, to trace the development of Ohio Black farming

settlements. The following list is not meant to be comprehensive and does not provide

much information about the far Northwestern and Northeastern parts of the state. I was

able to gather data through historical archives and references on most of the settlements

and for others only the name of the settlement and the location. These settlements

were not all fanning settlements, but they were involved in agricultural pursuits.

Again, this list is not the definitive source of early farm settlements in Ohio and I

anticipate that others will continue to build upon this information.

(1) Africa Hill - Brown County/Delaware County

This community was active in the UGRR. Many fugitives were aided on the

UGRR. It was known locally by the people who lived there as Africa Hill. Very little of

the community is there today (Gray 2001).

(2) Berlin Cross Roads - Jackson Countv

This was a prosperous black settlement populated by former slaves and free

people. The Woodsons, Nookes, Cassels, and Leach families operated stops on the

UGRR. Other families included Webb, Wilson, Dyer, Brown, and Mundell. There was a

discovery of coal on some of the properties. The Thomas Woodson family relocated

from Chillicothe in 1820 to Berlin Cross. Some other families were the Yancy, Wilson,

Leach, Cassells, Quarles, and Wylie. This settlement was very active in the UGRR. The

settlement prospered until the early 20th century. The settlement had a hotel, Post Office,

AME church, and a school. A highway project demolished the farms and buildings. The

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Woodson Cemetery and few houses remain of this once thriving settlement, located on

State Highway 32 about seven miles east of Jackson Ohio. (Gray 2001).

(3) Bidwell and Big Bottom - Gallia Countv

(4) Black Settlement - Chillicothe. Ross County

(5) Blackfork - Lawrence Countv

Iron furnaces in Lawrence County aided the development of Black Fork. Many

Black men worked at the furnaces. The Union Baptist Church (1818) marks the site of

Blackfork today and descendants of the founding families still live in the area. (Route 93

South of Oak Hill). (Gray 2001)

(6) Carrs Run/ Straight Creek Settlements/Jackson Township - Pike/Jackson Countv

Several families of Harrises, Crockers, settled at Carrs Run.

Due to its geographical isolation and separation an area in Pike County offered

runaway slaves, Native Americans, and free people of color, a shelter from whites and

they settled east of Waverly in Jackson Township. There were so many nonwhite

inhabitants that the township was once known as East Jackson where most of the Black

population lived and West Jackson which was largely white. (Gray 2001)

(7) Cherry Fork Settlement - Adams County

Just a few miles west of Cherry Fork were a settlement of about 50 African

Americans. They located there until one of the locals was charged with murder. Most of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the families moved away after the accusation. A settlement of people of color lived near

Cherry Fork in Adams County. Some of the residents were UGRR operators. (Gray

2001)

(8) Greenville - Darke Countv

(9) Abram Depp Settlement - Delaware Countv

Abram and Lucy Depp’s farm was the first farm in this African American

settlement, which was also a safe haven for Blacks fleeing on the UGRR. The settlement

was located north of Columbus, near Delaware, Ohio. (Gray 2001)

(101 Emlen Institute - Mercer County

One of the most successful black settlements was Carthegena in Mercer County.

It was established by Augustus Wattles who purchased 30,000 acres and parceled them

out into small farms. Wattles established a school, known as the Emlen Institute, for

blacks in Cincinnati. The town grew near the school and was a center of activity for the

UGRR. In 1846 the Blacks began to sell their farms to Catholic priests. The cemetery is

all that remains. (Carroll 1953). One of my first informants for the pilot study mentioned

Carthegena. They had four Black settlements in Dayton. Settlements still there in 1944,

people living in houses, tin roof, had pot belly stoves, land handed down from black

family to family. Blacks who owned are not there anymore. Dunbar High school sits

where land used to be. Crown point still in Dayton, Stewart St. Bottom, black village,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. not farmers though. In 1837, Wattles settled land for those Blacks up there. Southern

part of Ohio, lots of farms, near Cleveland farm settlements (Gilmore interview 1997).

(11) Columbus and Granville - Franklin Countv

(12) Gist Settlement - Highland County

A rich Englishman named Samuel Gist purchased 1,112 acres of land near

Georgetown and another 1,200 acres near Browne County and in 1819 brought 900 of his

former slaves to settle there (Katz 1999). In 1815 he died and stipulated through his will

that the slaves be freed and money given them to settle. One group of them settled in

Highland County near New Vienna. Others went to Erie, Brown, and Adams Counties.

This pre-Civil War community had members who served in the Civil War with (surnames

Hudson, Day, Harrison, Anderson, Turner, Williams, and others) (Gray 2001). Tax sales

eroded the land ownership and now only one descendant remains and he is trying to keep

his small farm, the only land left in the family. Many were cheated out of their land

while others lost their land because it was useless for farming (Katz 1999).

(13) Guinea Settlement - Belmont County

(14) Harris Station - Ross Countv

(15)Cheviot- Hamilton Countv

(16) Havti - Jefferson Countv

In 1840, Mr. Buford of Virginia freed eighteen slaves. His will established that

land be purchased in Ohio and divided among the children of the former slaves. There

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. were 100 people who received about 5 to 15 acres each. Near Hayti was another

settlement called M t Pleasant Supposedly in M t Pleasant there was a free labor store

which did not carry any products manufactured by slave labor. (Carroll 1953)

(17) Hicks Settlement - Ross County

Six miles northwest of Chillicothe, was a community called the Hicks Settlement

after Tobias Hicks and his sons who settled there around 1800. Hicks came from

Maryland, possibly with his former slave-owner, White Brown. Hicks purchased land and

eventually other blacks settled near him. The Jackson family settled there early on. They

were able to get the teaching assistance of John Mercer Langston, who was on break

from Oberlin College, for their school. Only a cemetery remains as of the settlement.

An adopted son of Tobias Hicks, lived in the settlement, his name was Joseph Stillguest.

He had come to the Hicks as a runaway slave. Tobias Hicks made him part of his

family. Stillguest remained in the settlement after Tobias Hicks died and his sons moved

away. Stillguest operated a stop on the UGRR in Hicks settlement and continued his

work on the UGRR when he relocated to Urbana, Ohio. (Gray 2001).

(18) Huston Hollow/Clav Township - Scioto Countv

In 1830, approximately 80 persons of color most of them Blacks were driven out

of Portsmouth, Ohio in Scioto County. Several of them settled in Clay Township. There

too

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. was cluster of farms called Huston Hollow. Two farm families, the Lucas and Love

families, were active in the UGRR. (Gray 2001)

(19) Lucas Settlement - Brown County

(20) Mystery Settlement - Erie or Sandusky County

A man from Stark attempted to set up some all Black settlements and purchased

fifty acres near Sandusky where he settled about 400 Blacks. Eventually, whites urged

the Indians to attack the Blacks and they left the settlement before 1821. (Carroll 1953)

(21) New Guinea - Stark County

New Guinea, part of what is now Alliance, was one of the earliest all Black towns

in Ohio dating back to 1810. It held nearly 200 residents from Virginia who were

assisted by the Quakers. It was a religious community called Christ's Disciples and they

built a church. In 1827, the town declined because the runaways who founded it feared

for their safety. In 1965, remains of coffins shaped like old fashioned ironing boards

were found in what is thought to be the site of the old all Black cemetery. (Carroll 1953;

Gray 2001)

(22) Pee Pee Settlement - Pike Countv

In the early 1820’s, in what is now Preble Township in Pike County; thirteen

African Americans families settled. They came from Virginia and later their families

joined them and the settlement grew. Most of them were free-born and only a few were

101

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. former slaves. They became prosperous farmers. However, the constant harassment by

their white neighbors forced several of the original families away. Three of the families

stayed and engaged in the UGRR, working with other operators in Scioto County. One

resident watched his house bum to the ground, torched by white neighbors who were pro-

slavery. Minor Muntz rebuilt his home and defended it by sitting inside his front door

armed with a shotgun. One interview participant living in Adams County experienced a

similar arson situation and defended his home in a similar manner as Mr. Muntz had

done over one hundred and eighty years earlier. The residents of Pee Pee settlement

organized a church in 1824 and constructed a building in the 1830’s or 1840’s. A school

and public building were also constructed. The settlement grew until the 1920's when

economic circumstances forced many to move. Only a few descendants of original

African American families remain. The name of the settlement came from the

surrounding hills and a nearby stream. Peter Patrick and two or three other white

families came to this area as squatters from Virginia in the mid 1700’s. After years of

battling with Native Americans, the white families returned to Virginia. Before leaving

Peter Patrick carved his initials on a tree PP. In the early I800’s the surrounding hills

were referred to as PP because of initials on the tree. The stream that flowed near the

tree was also called the PP Creek. (Gray 2001)

(23) Poke Patch - Gallia /Lawrence County

Another well known all-Black settlement was Poke Patch, located on the

Lawrence and Gallia counties border. It was said that a mulatto missionary, John

102

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Stewart, held day and night school for the local Black community. In 1827 a Virginia

plantation owner freed 70 slaves and settled them in Lawrence County. It is not certain if

this was a separate settlement from Poke Patch or the same. Several southeastern Ohio

UGRR routes crossing the Ohio River at Lawrence County headed for Poke Patch. There

was an all-black settlement in Greenfield Township in Gallia County. Benjamin Holley

and the Stewart families were involved in the UGRR in the early 1820's. Poke Patch sent

fugitives to other settlements in Berlin Cross. They also worked closely with African

American conductors in Morgan Township. The settlement has vanished but the site is

a well known on the URR site. It was peopled by escaped slaves from surrounding

plantations in Virginia, what is now West Virginia. The Ohio River was the path to

freedom from Virginia plantations. People chose to stay in Poke Patch because the area

seemed safe. (Carroll 19S3; Gray 2001)

(24) Randolph Settlement - Miami/Shelbv Countv

In 1833, a Virginia plantation owner freed his slaves and through the orders of his

will, made arrangements for them to be relocated in Ohio. In 1846 they attempted to

locate themselves on land that had been purchased by executor of the will Judge Leigh of

New Bremen Ohio in Mercer County. However, they were beaten back by white

neighbors (Gerber 1976; Gilmore 1981; Myers 1998; Katz 1999). They then traveled

down the Erie Canal to Piqua Ohio where they eventually settled in Miami County

among friendly whites who aided them. Some settled in Rossville and later some settled

in a new settlement called Marshall Town near Troy and Hankton, Ohio. Some of them

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. moved to Shelby County and some settled in Rumley Ohio. About 383 freed Randolph’s

settled in Miami and Shelby Counties. The first Black school was started in Rossville

(1869) and later a public school was constructed on McFarland Street (1873). Called

Springcreek School, it was located on Route 36 east of Piqua, Ohio. Rossville is the last

of the three settlements where the Randolph slaves lived. The first house purchased by

Randolph freed slaves in Rossville was purchased by Gabral White in 1847. He

purchased land located off Old Route 25 north of Piqua, Ohio. These former slaves were

skilled carpenters, barbers, mechanics, cooks, farmers, and masons. They played a very

important part in the development of Western Ohio. (Gilmore 1981)

(25) Van Buren Township - Shelbv Countv

Van Buren township had a large community of blacks from about 1835 but it

never had a name. Blacks were threatened by whites this prompted whites to write the

Governor to stop the violence after what happened to the Randolph slaves. (Carroll

1953)

(26) Stewart Settlement - Jackson Countv

(27) Twvman Settlement - near Macedonia Baptist Church in Burlington

(28) Upper Camp and Lower Camp - Brown County

From about 1819, there were two large settlements in Brown County, about 500

people each, known as Upper Camp and Lower Camp. One was located about three

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. miles north of Georgetown, the other was sixteen miles away. Many people who settled

in this area were ex-slaves of Samuel Gist (Carroll 1953)

(29) Rainbow Station - Washington County Ohio

Washington County represents a case study in Black farm settlements in Ohio. I

spent several months researching the history of this area. Because of anonymity issues,

pseudonyms will be used for actual location and last names. Sunshine Ridge was of

particular interest because this is the location of one of the original families and today

they persist in their farming pursuits. Washington County’s historical development may

reflect the growth of Ohio black farming settlements in general.

Washington County, named for George Washington originally included about half

the total territory of today’s Ohio. Gov. Arthur St Clair - Governor of the Northwest

Territory established it by proclamation on the 26th day of July 1788 (Burke 2000). The

settlement at Marietta, on April 7, 1788, grew out of an appropriation of lands made by

Congress in 1778 to officers and soldiers of the US army. Outside of former military

personnel, the county was settled mostly by New Englanders, who had lost their fortunes

in the Revolutionary War (Burke 2000). Many squatters and those who settled on free

lands were Pennsylvanians and Kentuckians of Scotch-Irish extractions. Settlers began to

arrive from Germany in 1833. Later migrations brought Catholic German and Irish

immigrants (Burke 2000).

The UGRR provided the backdrop for development of black farming

communities in Washington County. Washington County was active on the UGRR and

105

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. consequently many African American families settled there. The majority of early

African American settlers in Washington County came from Virginia (Burke 2000). The

antislavery/abolitionist movement was active and strong in Ohio and particularly in

Washington County. Quakers along with other church groups supported safe passage

along the UGRR through the county (Siebert 1951; Burke 2000). Washington County’s

southern borders extends sixty-five miles along the Ohio River. Burke (2000) claims

that, “You could walk across the river in a lot of places on the Ohio River. Escaping

slaves could take skiffs or walk across it There were six places along the river escaping

slaves regularly crossed.”

Washington County is located in the hilly Appalachian mountains. Because of

the location of the major plantations in Virginia - Francis Keene, William Lease, Jones

Lews, George Nester, Sr. John Harward, Robert Edelen, Blennerhassett Island, G.W.

Henderson, Corbett Soloman Harness, Alexander Henderson - and slave markets, which

abutted Washington County on the south side of the Ohio River, it was a major crossing

point and in some cases a major settling area for Blacks (Burke 2000).

Caves, fallen trees, dark hollows, cellars and bams were favorite hiding places

(Siebert 1951; Burke 1999). In Washington County the UGRR had three routes fugitive

slaves took depending upon where they crossed the Ohio River (Burke 1999). One route

approximated present day Route 555, running from the Ohio river north through Cutler,

and ending just south of Zanesville (Burke 1999). The central branch began in Marietta,

followed the Muskingum River north and ended in Zanesville. The third branch of

Washington County's UGRR began east of Marietta and ran north from the Ohio River

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. through Fearing and Salem Township. When the northern states abolished slavery in the

1780's, large numbers of free blacks from Virginia migrated north and west into Ohio

(Burke 1999). Some of these families and individuals settled in Washington County

(Burke 1999). About 150 black families lived in Washington County right after the Civil

War (Burke 1999).

Barlow and Bartlett were important stations on escape routes through western

Washington County. Belpre was a favorite place for fleeing slaves to cross. In the

1830’s, Virginia opened a road from Alexandria to Parkersburg, which was traveled by

stagecoaches and freight wagons (Burke interview 2000). Slaves kept close to the road

and moved northwest Opposite of Parkersburg is Belpre. Belpre had a river frontage of

fourteen miles, including Vienna Island, which fugitives used as a stepping stone from

Virginia to the Ohio shore. Nine miles below Belpre was a river crossing into Decatur

that led up through Wesley. Fugitives coming by this route were guided by abolitionists,

through dark gorges and shady ravines in daytime and put in hillside recesses and caves

at night. (Muscari 1969). They were guided by other escaped slaves and Quakers, and

antislavery activists. One judge’s wife was an agent who used to harbor fugitives in her

bam, unbeknownst to her husband (Burke 1999).

Safety was more important than speed so often the passage was zigzagged and the

trails crisscrossed to confuse pursuers (Siebert 1951; Muscari 1969). Sometimes they

had to stay in one location for three weeks while search parties searched the woods and

friends of the abolition movement and other escaped slaves slipped them food and drink

(Muscari 1969;Burke 1999). The Quakers in particular, and other church groups

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. contributed considerable support and safe passage along the UGRR (Siebert 1951; Burke

2000). Also, many free blacks who owned property aided the escaping slaves. With

these "free men of color" fugitives could find refuge (Burke 1999). The fugitive slaves

came over the Ohio River from West Virginia, which was then Virginia (Siebert 1951;

Burke 1999). They came to Ohio because it separated the slave states of Virginia and

Kentucky from freedom by 900 miles of the Ohio River (Burke 1999). There were

several UGRR routes and those that stayed behind in one location to settle remained near

the passage of the UGRR. Washington County like Poke Patch in Gallia and Lawrence

Counties and many ante-bellum Black farming settlements in Ohio, they were active in

the UGRR and contributed to the safe passage of many Blacks. Washington County was

settled by fugitive slaves from Virginia who lived within 40 to 50 miles from where they

were bom by crossing the Muskingum River (Burke 1999). They called Muskingum

river the “gateway to freedom” (Burke 1999).

The UGRR was in operation in Washington County for forty years or more

beginning in 1820 (Burke 1999). There were 16 undocumented UGRR stations in

Washington County: Belpre Station, Constitution Station, Tunnel, Marietta Station, Hoyt

Station, Newport, Gould Station, Rainbow Station, Barlow Station, Bartlett, Station,

Cutler Station, Little Hocking Station, Waterford Station, Hovey Station, and Palmer

Station. Six of the UGRR sites can be visited today in Washington County. Cutler

Station was one of the earliest stations on the UGRR. Manasseh Cutler, an officer in the

Revolutionary War, was the motivator for Article 6 of Northwest Ordinance which

prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory (Burke 1999). Later, his son Ephriam

108

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Cutler, a member of Northwest Territorial Legislature and delegate from Washington

County for the Ohio Statehood Convention cast the deciding vote that kept slavery illegal

in the state (Hickok 1975; Burke 1999).

Even before development of the UGRR blacks had settled in Washington

County. In 1787, James Davis was bom in Marietta, Washington County (Burke 1999).

In 1798, a young man of 16 or 18 years, Christopher Malbone, also known as Kitt

Putnam, came with Colonel Putnam as his servant. He moved to Belpre and became a

free man after five years (Burke 1999). Kitt was the first and only black to vote at that

time in Washington County and the only black to vote in Washington County for a long

time (Burke 1999). The first black who owned land was Richard Fisher (Burke 1999).

His deeds were recorded in 1800. The census recorded nine in his household. (Burke

1999). By 1800, Blacks resided in Washington County, most were listed as mulattoes

(1840 US Census). The majority came from Virginia, now West Virginia. Violet

Burrington was one of the earliest residents in 1800. Being the only child, she inherited

all the land from her father (Muscari 1969).

These early Black settlers were farmers. I asked one nonfarming member of an

original farming family in Washington County that dated back from 1799, how it was

that his family settled there. “There was free land, this was the first free territory. All you

had to do was file a land grant and you had land.”

From their beginning endeavors as members of tangible settlements, Black

inhabitants in Washington County were mostly farmers from African, Native American,

and multiethnic heritages, often Black and White but in some cases tri-racial (Black/

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Native American/ White). One mixed heritage family in Sunshine Ridge in Washington

County dates their family lineage in the area back to late 1700’s. Sunshine Ridge in

many ways was settled by families of mixed races. These families mixed heritage

reveals the pointlessness of racial categories. In many ways, Washington County’s Black

settlement development is a microcosm o f Ohio Black farming communities in general;

the UGRR provided roots for its growth. Geographically and politically, Ohio is

juxtaposed around racial contradictions. Washington County and in particular Sunshine

Ridge residents adapted to the realities o f their time and managed to grow strong and

deep roots in the rural community.

Ohio’s contradictions flow deep, on the one hand prohibiting institutional slavery,

while on the other hand permitting the creation of policies which limited the economic

and social mobility of black settlers in Ohio. Working within these constraints many

families made an adequate living on their farms in Washington County and many of

those original families remain today. They represent a persistence settlement and survival

strategy that has withstood the times.

Although the preceding presentation suggests a homogenous group of farming

people connected by threads of institutional inequalities, born out of the resistance to

slavery, there were no typical black fanning communities in Ohio. Albeit these early

settlements possessed the accoutrements o f separate, enclave communities —

institutions of worship, food distribution system, education— there was no monolithic

black culture that tied them together. People inhabiting these settlements commonly

came together seeking a better way of life for themselves and their kin members.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. However, some of these farmers existed as the single black/mulatto family in the

settlement Over time they intermarried with whites until there became little noticeable

phenotypic differences between them and other whites.

Ironically, in many cases these Black farming settlements and individual farming

families experienced a decrease in population. This was due to the local white

population’s resistance to change and resentment of the progress made by enclave black

and mixed communities. Less than fifty years into their flourishing developments, local

and state level policies, facilitated the disappearance of these Black farming settlements.

Two World Wars and jobs created thereof, along with the forces of mechanization forced

people away from the rural areas. These factors, along with the physical and economic

violence of race was more than these farming communities could withstand. These

externalities came pounding upon their doors with the same insidious contradictions that

necessitated their original development They forged settlements from nothing more than

the clothes on their backs and the knowledge of the natural environment They created

farms, built schools and churches from the local forest materials. They manufactured

businesses and subsistence farms and produced the means to feed members and their

settlements. These farmers were subsistence farmers who worked also as carpenters,

brick-masons, construction workers, blacksmiths, they were multi-skilled. They kept

their farms financially stable by working in off-farm employment. Only in a few cases

were they full-time farmers.

While the focus of this study was the on the development of rural farm

settlements, these data underscore the role of government in insuring the safety,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. protection, and economic viability of these farm operators. From the time of their

development, Black farming settlements were subjected to the paradox of the racial

politics and the collective beliefs of the times. There was a similarity of paths of

development—the UGRR. The ubiquitous nature of the UGRR pathways to the

development of settlements in Ohio speaks clearly to the intersection between resistance

and settlement development Black rural settlements in Ohio can be examined as

activities of adaptation and resistance. Rural black farming families were threatened by

the violence of race. Although agriculturally astute, their agricultural productivity could

not withstand the hostility of others and lack of access to financial resources, physical

mobility, and safety. Increasing migration from the rural settlements undermined the

labor base and the attractiveness of rural farm life. Those few families that remained in

the rural margins emerged as household units which could not maintain the large scale

labor demands necessary to compete for a productive farming operation. These Black

pioneers physically transformed their local environment, constructing homes, schools,

churches, public buildings, and farm buildings from the nigged forests of oak, chestnut,

and maple trees. By and large they struggled to gain land while trying to protect

themselves and their family members, their land, and their homes simultaneously. This

does not suggest that these Black settlers met with violence on a regular basis. The

violence was the exception and not the rule (Gerber 1976). However, without social and

legal support from government agencies, local law enforcement, and other institutions,

they existed as secondary citizens farming at the periphery of society while trying to

maintain safety and access to farmland. Their efforts proved short lived and they

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. experienced a major reversal of their land gains. The moment of prosperity for Ohio’s

Black farmers ended rather quickly.

Paradoxically, their demise from the rural landscape as mass settlements was

propelled by the same force which established their settlements in the beginning, acts of

resistance. Based upon data in this study, it appears that the local whites resisted the

progress and the gains amassed by these black pioneers and were instrumental in the

extermination of these farming communities. Without the formal and informal sanctions

and the buy-in from local whites, members of black rural settlements were vulnerable to

the prevailing forces operating at the time. Sociopolitical processes prevailing at the

time pressed upon these farming settlements until they were disintegrated. Still the few

Black farmers who remain represent a rich repository of agricultural knowledge and

traditions. Black farm operators have represented practical models of rural farm

economies with high levels of productivity and efficient uses of environmental resources

since their beginnings.

These data suggest that similar processes led to formation and disruption of rural

Black communities. Agricultural knowledge is essential, but it is not enough to sustain

the systematic processes inherent in agricultural development. Regardless of their

ingenuity and productivity, Black farmers were marginal operating at the periphery of

mainstream rural industry because of racial conflicts within the wider community.

Blacks were viewed as laborers, at best, in terms of their value to the market, not as

independent operators.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Destruction of early rural Black settlements was motivated by those who desired

the land and who retained the institutional power to drive them off. Whether these

communities might have survived, given equal access and treatment is debatable. What is

clear is that the ability of Blacks to accumulate income and expand the economic base of

their communities was thwarted. Loss of black farms illustrates how political and

economic systems may be used to limit resourceful agriculturalists. Loss of Black

farming settlements illustrates how rural farm settlements developed on the heels of

social and political developments. Viewed as threats to surrounding white residents,

these were places of hope for people forced into circumstances beyond their control.

While most black farming communities did not enjoy a sustained period of agricultural

operations, they represented model enterprises for people with little or no access to

resources. What do people do when their backs are pushed up against the wall, they

plant seeds in the earth, putting their fingers down in the soil to produce food. Human

beings by nature will adapt themselves to maintain group interests. These data highlight

the nature of community development within the context of dominant power structures.

These data represent historical analogue to theories on the topic of settlement

development and the structural processes specific to racial politics and race relations.

Agriculture was the principal industry of Washington County as in many other

early Ohio counties. By 1930 the majority of its inhabitants were employed in

agriculture. After 1950, industrial plants located and black farmers went to work in the

plants. They kept their farms operating by working other jobs. Their experience may

indicate that these farmers practice an ecologically based farming. Given the current

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. urgency to design energy and cost efficient, and environmental friendly food producing

systems, they may present interesting discoveries or reveal gaps in current policy

interventions.

Hard beginnings

Several farmers in the study describe hardships in starting their operation and

unfair treatment from local white business owners and neighbors. Two farmers

experienced arson of their homes. In their words, their houses were burned by white

locals. In one case, insurance paid the property off, and in the other the farmer was paid

three years later. Through arson, physical violence, differential pricing structures for farm

equipment and supplies, these farmers endured many difficulties in sustaining the

operations.

One farmer whose home was burned in 1976 said this:

When I first bought my place I was baling hay with a guy. The guy asked if I owned this place and I said yes. Well the guy told me that you won’t be here six months. So I got me some ammunition to prepare myself. I went to the sheriff and told him, I’m going to raise my kids on this farm. You hurt one of my kids and I’m taking 10 of yours. The sheriff went to the courthouse and told them what I said and the sheriff said don’t mess with him he’s crazy. I raised all my kids and didn’t have trouble. Sure I had to fire at a couple of them there were six at one time. ... another woman told me said you get out of there that they are all Ku KIux Klan and I said I’m Ku Klux Klan too.

Mr. C. was able to survive here in the deep Appalachia because he was

determined. He owned his land, he knew how to take care of it and he was clear that he

would defend himself from attacks and intimidation by anyone.

115

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. One fanner in his seventies who lives on one farm and has another farm said he

has 300 acres. He was bom and raised on this farm. He had been farming by himself for

last few years. His sons used to help out on the farm. One of his sons had a ranch in OK.

His dad and granddad was from Kentucky, they were sharecroppers. His granddad was a

mule skinner and his dad a tobacco farmer. He has a daughter who lives in Florida and

she wants him to move to Florida and raise crops—buy a farm there. “I cant plant on the

300 acres because of the rain. The government said they were going to help the farmers.

The government was supposed to give subsidies if you lost your crops, but they only give

them if you lose all your crops.” He didn't lose his entire crop that year just most of it.

They came out and did some measurements but they never came back and he never got

any subsidies. He said the government deals only help the big farmers, they gave to the

big farmers, but they didn't give to the little farmers.

Most of these black farmers endured lack of resources, intimidation, physical

violence, and loss of property. One farmer said he owned his land, he knew how to take

care of it and he was clear that he would have to defend himself from the attacks and

intimidation of whites. But they survived because they did then and still grow 90 percent

of what they eat. He said he knew the law and threatened to sue anybody that messed

with them.

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BLACK FARMING TRADITIONS AND PRACTICES

The archaic (meaning traditional pest management) was the genesis of what I do today, it is a melding of the past and the present to take me into the future.

In this classic statement, this Ohio black farmer captures the essence of farming

traditions among Ohio black agriculturalists. They have melded the old with the new to

progress into the present. The purpose of the study was to explore the ways in which

agricultural practices and traditions evolve in ever changing social and political

landscapes. African American farmers never achieved more than fifty years of sustained

economic growth in agriculture. Agricultural stability and development depend upon

external factors outside of the farm-* pricing, global politics, marketing, not to mention

societal discrimination specific to African Americans. As such, they did not experience

sustained agricultural productivity. However, these farmers maintained a practice of

sustainable long-term ecology based farming. The black farming approach included a

particular and specific environmental or ecological perspective as noted in the care of the

natural environment

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Care o f the Soil

African American farmers adapted to their natural environment through an

arduous process of knowledge acquisition and reproduction combined with the limited

mobility and access. Because of limited money, African American smallholders

depended on plows and draft animals, not expensive fossil driven equipment, to cultivate

their fields. Their particular knowledge of agriculture and the local ecosystem allowed

them to pursue a strategy of farming which supported the community members’ food

demands and sustainable agroecosystems. African American agriculturalists have always

fostered biodiversity through their traditional foodways. These include raising diverse

livestock and crops, maintaining several large gardens and opportunistic foraging of

herbs and healing plants (Clark 1991).

Catts and Custer’s (1990) archaeological investigation finds that areas where

African American farmers and laborers occupied had more wild fauna and varieties of

flora than nearby areas where other ethnic groups lived in New Castle County, Delaware

in the late 1800's. The type of dietary pattern represented by the faunal collection

recovered was similar to a pattern found at a late eighteenth century Kingsmill slave

quarters (McKee 1987). The pre-1846 Delaware site, with features interpreted as the

remains of the bottom of dug privy holes or pits, indicates that these residents were

recycling natural resources.

The circular nature, flat bottomed shape and regularity of size supports the conclusion. The pits likely were covered with a movable shed or building lined with a wooden barrel. When the barrel was full of "privy" soils, it was removed from the hole and the contents spread on the fields

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. or sold for fertilizers. A new hole was then excavated, and the process begun again... their placement in this area of the site was probably spurred both by aesthetics as well as hygiene (Catts & Custer 1990:136). What the current research indicates is that Black fanners have consistently

incorporated organic residues and recycled natural resources as part of their soil

management strategies. Traditional farmers have understood regenerating the soil to

increase fertility for centuries (Cotton 1996). Most soil scientists agree that soil organic

matter is the key to promoting biological diversity, environmental quality and plant and

animal health (MagdofF 1992; Bezdicek et al. 1996). Like other small and traditional

farmers, Black farmers use animal manure and other composting materials to replenish

the soil. By using organic residues they enhanced the soils around their farms.

African-based agriculture integrates various systems, careful soil management,

and intercropping (Andah 1993; Shaw 1993). Soil quality is important in the production

of food; food is grown in soil. Soil forms the cover for the earth's surface and functions

to maintain the ecosystems on which all life depends. Soil is a dynamic, living, natural

body that is vital to the function of terrestrial ecosystems. Soils form slowly, averaging

100 to 400 years per centimeter of topsoil (Lai 1994). Thus, soil is essentially

nonrenewable in a human life span (Lai 1994).

Soil has four parts or fractions: 1) minerals, 2) water, 3) air, and 4) organic

matter.

The solid minerals starting with the largest particle size are sand, silt, and clay. They mainly consist of silicon, oxygen, aluminum, potassium, calcium, and magnesium... The soil solution or soil water, contains dissolved nutrients and is the main source of water for plants. Essential nutrients are made available to the roots of the plants through the soil solution. .. The air in the soil, in contact with the air aboveground, provides roots with oxygen and helps remove excess carbon dioxide from respiring root cells ( MagdofF 1992:7). 119

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Soil performs valuable functions in the environment The three main functions of

soil are to provide a medium for plant growth, to regulate and partition water flow

through the environment, and to serve as an environmental buffer (Acton &

Gregorich,1996). Buffering is an important characteristics of soil that sets it apart from

other habitats (Warkentin 1995). Cycling of carbon and nutrients is probably the best

known soil function in any ecosystem (Warkentin 1995:227).

Other soil functions include:

(a) Recycling of organic materials in soils to release nutrients for further synthesis into

new organic materials;

(b) Partitioning of rainfall at the soil surface into runoff and infiltration;

pressures;

(d) Maintaining habitat stability, including a stable structure, resistance to wind and

water erosion, and buffering of habitat against rapid changes in temperature, moisture,

and concentration of potentially toxic materials;

(e) Storing and gradual release of nutrients and water, and

(f) Partitioning of energy at the surface, which is important in global circulation

processes (Warkentin 1995).

Stability of soil structure is increasingly being recognized as a basic soil concern

because it controls many of ecosystem functions (Warkentin 1995). Organic matter is the

unifying element in the soil stabilization and influences soil structure, soil organisms, and

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. plant growth while influencing physical properties. Organic matter is most useful to

plants only after some decomposition of organic residues has occurred.

Organic matter consists of three parts—living organisms, fresh residues or the

dead, and well-decomposed residues or the long dead (Magdoff 1992). The living

represents about 15% of the total soil organic matter and consists ofmicroorganisms,

earthworms, and insects which help break down crop residues and manures by mixing

them with the minerals in the soil and in the process recycle energy and plant nutrients.

Sticky substances on the skin of earthworms and those produced by the fungi help bind

particles together. This helps stabilize the soil aggregates, clumps of particles that make

for good soil structure (Magdoff 1992). Dead organic matter consists of recently

deceased microorganisms, insects, earthworms, old plant roots, crop residues, and

recently added manures. Through decomposition, these materials become food for living

microorganisms. Chemicals produced during the decomposition of fresh residues also

help bind soil particles together and give the soil a good structure (Magdoff 1992).

The long dead, the humus, is well decomposed materials. This is not food for

organisms, but its very small size and chemical properties make it a very important part

of the soil. Soil aggregates are particles of soil material — minerals and organic matter —

bound together. Organic residues provide the raw material which stabilizes soil

aggregates. As a matter of fact, the most important agricultural benefit of organic residue

is its effect on soil structure. There is no practical way to produce a stable soil structure

without organic residues. (Magdoff 1992)

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. All organisms except plants require organic matter for energy. Many prey on

other organisms which feed on primary organic matter (Magdoff 1992). Organic residues

that are regularly returned to the soil provide a food supply for a diverse group of

organisms (Magdoff 1992). Most of the energy stored in residues is used by organisms to

make new chemicals as well as new cells (Magdoff 1992). In a suitable environment for

predators, organic matter reduces the need for pesticides. In fact the energy in organic

matter reduces the need for fertilizers by facilitating the storage of water, the fixation of

nitrogen, the effortless movement of roots through a superior soil structure, and the

production of growth hormones and vitamins (Magdoff 1992). Organic matter is

principally a source of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur— nutrients which soil organisms

require and retain (Magdoff 1992). These nutrients slowly become available as the

organic matter decomposes. Most of the calcium, magnesium, and potassium in the

decaying organic residues are discarded by soil organisms rather quickly and these

nutrients become available for plants (Magdoff 1992).

Modem agriculture has left the soil impaired (Magdoff 1992; Romig et al. 1995;

Doran et al. 1996). Agrochemicals are used in crop production to improve nutrient

levels in the soil and to reduce damage to the crop by pests (Acton &Gregorich 1996).

Unused chemicals remain in the soil as soil contaminants or become water contaminants

by entering surface waters through runoff or groundwater through leaching. We know

that agriculture has contributed greatly to the problem of soil degradation on a global

scale (Doran et al. 1996). If we follow practices that build up and maintain healthy soil

with good levels o f soil organic matter, we will find it easier to grow healthy and high-

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. yielding crops (Magdoff 1992; Acton & Gregorich 1996). Plants will be able to

withstand droughty conditions better, and will not be as bothered by insects and diseases

(Magdoff 1992). A diverse biological community in soils is important in maintaining a

healthy environment for plants (Magdoff 1992). Diverse populations maintain a system

of checks and balances that can keep disease organisms or parasites from becoming

major plant problems (Magdoff 1992). Ecologically sound soil management is at the

very foundation of a sustainable agriculture (Magdoff 1992). What is apparent here is

that concerns about soil management occupy a central place in the land management

strategies of today’s African American farmers. These basic soil concerns, which

transcend temporal and spatial boundaries, provide mechanisms for cultural adaptations.

Indigenous African Aera-Culture

Various ethnic speaking African groups—Ashantis, Fulanis, Ibos, Ijaws,

Mandingos, and Yorubas, and other populations with different languages, food ways, and

oral traditions were brought together on North and South American fields and plantations

(Tibbetts 2000). One outcome of this forced migration was the creation of a common

Creole language -Gullah—from a mixture of African and English words (Tibbetts 2000).

As diverse as the language and customs were, there were some other commonalities;

communal or collective perspective, reverence for the spiritual and natural world, self-

help, and social responsibility (Dei 2000). African indigenous culture privileges

communal solidarity (Dettwyler 1994; Burnham 2000; Dei 2000). Indigenous African

epistemological constructs, views individuals as having obligations to the wider

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. community (Dei 2000). The social grouping of lineages, clans, age sets, and grades

obligates individuals to the group (Dei 2000). In the African world view, the

accumulation of individual property/ wealth does not automatically accord status and

prestige because social prestige and status are tied to social responsibility and

contributions to society’s welfare (Dei 2000). In the indigenous world view the

individual is supported by the family and the family by the community and vice versa

(Dei 2000). African culture general respects the authority of the elderly person, their

wisdom, knowledge, and closeness to the ancestors (Dei 2000; Burnham 2000; Wane

2000). Knowledge production involves dynamic interaction between individuals,

community, and nature (Dei 2000).

African American agriculture is neither monolithic nor monocultural. However,

by and large they are traditional farmers practicing an ecological, African based

agriculture. African-based farming cultivates a relationship with soil based on

conservation. The fragile and delicate nature of tropical soils would make conservation

and soil management a necessity. For example, Igbo farmers of eastern Nigeria planted

Acioca barteri in fallow fields to speed up soil regenerations and abandoned the plough

because the soils were too fragile to withstand plowing (Sampson & Crowther 1943). In

West Africa, local farmers' soil practices were agronomically and ecologically sound

(Cotton 1996). West African farmers have long been aware of the crucial importance of

the physical characteristics of soil using practices which would conserve appropriate

physical conditions for plant growth under intense rainfall or drought conditions (Andah

(1993:242). For example, heaping, ridging, mulching, terracing, minimum tillage, were

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. all techniques that minimized erosion and maximized moisture (Andah 1993). During

droughts, water conservation in soil in a tropical climate would be imperative for human

survival and increase the carrying capacity of that area. In this way climate influences

culture to adopt soil conservation methods. However, what may begin as a method of

conservation or environmental adaptation evolves into the sacred and traditional

knowledge and core values which become part of the group’s identity. These core values

characterized in the worldview and embodied in the actual practices become part of the

cultural repertoire of resources available to utilize in the adaptation process within the

local ecology.

Ethnobotanv

African ethnobotany reflects a people with a deep understanding of plants and

herbs, using them for medicine, food, shelter, and clothing. Africans used leaves for soap

and plants for household items, baskets, covering walls, and roofs of buildings (Grime

1979). African ethnobotany illustrates the utilization of plants from the natural

environment for non-food materials— leaves, stumps, branches, etc.— for everyday use.

Africans relied heavily upon the natural resources for medicinal purposes. These

ethnobotanical practices indicate the belief in nature as a means for providing for the

basic subsistence needs. Most of the African folklore includes elements of nature

(Imperato 1977; Burnham 2000).

J.W. Harshberger conceived the term ethnobotany in 1895 (Cotton 1996).

Harshberger defined ethnobotany as the use of plants by aboriginal peoples (Cotton

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1996). Botanist studied the commercial potential of plants used by aboriginal societies.

Anthropologists argued for the need to understand how different perceptions of the

natural world could influence the subsistence decisions of aboriginal people (Cotton

1996). Ethnobotany describes how local people interact with the natural environment

Ethnobotany is the part of ethnoecology which concerns plants (Martin 1995). We know

that plants have played an integral part in the evolution of human cultures, their physical

and chemical properties providing not only an invaluable source of food, but a wealth of

raw materials which fulfill basic medicinal and material requirements. Trees and plants

with their photosynthesis capacity form the basis of our biological food web. We rely

upon plants for life.

Plants that function in extreme temperatures often exhibit modified enzymes

which are able to retain their structural integrity and therefore their biochemical

activities— under such conditions. Oils of plants in semi-arid regions may protect them

from damage from fire-prone environments (Deans & Waterman 1993). We know that

the indigenous people and their plant management strategies have a profound influence

on plant genetic diversity and habitat conservation (Posey 1983; Nazarea 1999; Zent

1999; Hunn 2001). Moreover, many plants grown in conjunction with other plants are

not staples but are used for soups, condiments, sauces (e.g. peppers) (Shaw 1976).

Decisions regarding the use and management of plants and other natural resources are

based on a combination of biophysical, socio-cultural, and food choice factors, which

determine decision-making about the environment (Nazarea 1998).

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Studying the different perceptions of the natural world can elucidate the local

cosmology of a community. A given community’s approach to the use and management

of their botanical resources is determined by local empirical knowledge of the floral

resources available and by socio-cultural constructs which influence the ways in which

the world is perceived (Nazarea 1998). At the root of this knowledge are time-worn

traditions that maintain the land itself and make management strategies meaningful.

Now I will discuss the land management strategies of Ohio’s Black farmers as revealed

through the data.

DEMOGRAPHICS

Throughout the period of black farming operations, there was not a typical black

farm operation and still there is still not a typical black farm operation in Ohio. For

example, in this sample, acreage owned and farmed varied from 10 acres to 500 acres,

with an average farm size of 130 acres. Age of the sample ranged from the early thirties

to early nineties, fourth generation to first generation. Based upon anecdotal

information, it appears that 130 acres was about the average size of the land owned since

the beginning of black farming endeavors.

In fifty percent (50%) of the sample, the farm was the original family farm

passed down over several generations. Thus the current farm operator was the second,

third, or fourth generation farmer on that particular farm. The other fifty percent (50%)

of the sample purchased their farm after retiring, albeit they were themselves second and

third generation farmers. Thirty percent (30%) of those on land passed down were fourth

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. generation farmers. One farmer was still farming the land that had been in his family

since the early 1800’s. Another farmer still operated the family land from a settlement

community of slaves freed before the Civil War. Farmers were overwhelmingly third

generation farmers. Only one farmer was the first generation farmer.

1997 Ohio Agriculture Census

Findings of this study are consistent with some from the 1997 Agriculture Census.

According to the 1997 Ohio Agriculture Census, there are 135 African American farm

operators in Ohio. Of that 135 farm operators— 49 operate beef cattle farms, cattle

feedlots, or dairy cattle— 37 operate farming oilseeds, soybeans, or grain— 38 farm other

crops—com, tobacco, cotton, sugarcane, hay— 8 are hog farmers— 7 operators farm

vegetable and fruit, and —5 farm other crops (1997 Census of Agriculture-Ohio).

Tenure of Farmer Of the 135 black farm operators, 104 were full owners, 23 part owners, and 8

tenants. Full owners owned 8,784 acres, part owners had 3,280 acres, and tenants fanned

1,223 acres. (1997 Census of Agriculture-Ohio).

Size o f the Farms Of the 135 black farm operators in Ohio, 51 farm between 50 and 139 acres, 42

between 10 and 49 acres, 22 -140 and 219 acres, 10- 1 to 9 acres, 8 - 220 to 499 acres,

and 2 over 500 acres (1997 Census of Agriculture).

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Typical Ohio Black Farm

Study Data

Based upon the survey data, seventy-five percent (75%) of the farmers in the

sample raise cattle, hogs, or sheep either for subsistence or for the market and produced

soybeans, com, and wheat. However, farmers who operate 200 acres or more typically

raise cattle commercially. All of these farmers raise some type of vegetables or field

crops. Only twenty percent (20%) did not produce soybeans or wheat. Fifty percent

(50%) produced some type of potatoes.

Tenure of Farmer

These farmers owned their farmland and a few of them rented additional land in

some instances. Two females in the sample rented their farm land out to other farmers.

In a several cases the land was co-owned by two siblings. None of this sample were

tenants

Size of Farm

O f the twenty (20) farmers in the survey, six farm between 6 to 50 acres, and

three 50 - 100 acres, six 100 to 199, one 200 to 399, and four 400 to 500 acres.

O f the 20 farmers surveyed, the combined acreage owned was 2,616 acres with

the average size farm being 130 acres. However, several farmers rented more land than

they owned. One farmer owned 150 acres and he farmed 500 acres, one farmer owned

200 and rented another 200. Three of the farmers who operated farms with over 400

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. acres were cattle, corn, and soybean farmers predominantly. The smallest acreage

owned was 10 acres and the largest acreage owned was 425.

One woman, in her seventies, said that when her husband was alive they farmed

cattle, com, wheat, and soybeans on 1000 acres. Now she owns less the 50 acres. She

says she learned to farm from her husband.

Age o f Farmers The twenty farmers averaged 60 years of age. One 90-99, four 70- 79, nine 60-

69, two 50—59, two 40-49, and two 30-39. The average age category was 60 to 69

years old.

Farming Experience Farmers average over thirty years of farming experience. The least amount was 6

years and the most was over 80 years. They gained fanning experience through working

on the farm as a young person, working on the farm as an adult, reading or watching

other farmers.

Off Farm Employment

All farmers were skilled in numerous crafts and many were self-employed

business owners at some level— cement layers, contractors, home builders, computer

engineers, and mechanics. From the earliest days, these black farmers were carpenters,

brick masons, concrete layers, builders, and mechanics. Their ability to work with their

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. minds and hands was apparent and they were multi-skilled artisans or tradesman (Myers

1998: Gilmore interview).

“My grandfather was a contractor and my husband was a welder,” said one

woman.

Some worked in a factories or self-employed enterprises and simultaneously

maintained the family farm. Most worked days and nights to perform both tasks fulltime.

The average black farmer in Ohio is male and works fulltime in off-farm

employment Many work off farm at factories or plants for 40 hours per week and also

work 40 hours on their own farms. They provide the main labor source for the farm

business aside from their sons and daughters. In a few cases, the son who stays on the

farm helps maintain the operation as the head of household after the patriarch dies. On

the family land several sons and their families commonly establish a residence.

Several are retired from the military, mostly Wright-Patterson, large corporations,

or factory retirees who decided to purchase their own farms. One farmer was a computer

engineer for major airlines and a retired instructor. He also owns his own business. One

farmer has a two year degree in Recreation and Wildlife and worked towards a four year

degree in biology. Several farmers work at factories in the evenings and work mornings

on the farm. For one farmer, working so hard on his feet has led to foot surgery. His

ultimate goal is to work fulltime on the farm.

Working the farm 18 hours a day for yourself is fine. Hard work, no time to be sitting down.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The farmers operating between 200 and 400 acres, by and large the cattle

producers — beef or dairy — tend to work on the farm full time as the sole source of

income. The average farmer that works fulltime is a cattle farmer. These cattle farmers

have been on the land for several generations.

One farmer who has retired from fulltime farming:

He worked for himself in construction in the day pouring concrete and at night he worked at GE and he banked his money. He said he did some of everything at GE. Mr. said he worked for 50 cents a day and then he got to 1.00 a day. The highest he made was $ 1.05 an hour at GE. He saved his money and had four to 5 different houses.

This was a typical day on the farm, after retirement for an 89 year old farmer who

still farmed up into his early eighties, as told by his wife:

He got up at 4 am. He would drink some orange juice and eat a slice of ham. He had 40 acres of com. If he had to plant the com, it would start at daybreak and work until dark. He would take a nap every day, lay down on the floor and cross his arms and sleep for 30 minutes. Without having a watch he would get up in 30 minutes. And he would get him a drink of water. He would eat supper and eat dinner at 11:30 p.m. Before he retired, he worked fulltime and on the farm at the same time. He was also contractor, built 14 brick houses. When he retired from contractor work, he worked fulltime on the farm.

Agricultural Practices

Main Crops

The main crops grown by Ohio’s black farmers are wheat, soybeans, and corn-

sweet com, field, and commercial. Several farmers produce potatoes, pears, apple,

peaches, hay, and several farmers once grew tobacco. Interestingly, the older farmers in

the sample do not produce grain. Grain is produced by farmers younger than 69 years old.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The primary livestock includes cattle, and hogs, sheep, and lamb. A few raise

chickens, 20 percent Of the four who raise poultry, they were both the oldest and

youngest farmers in the sample. One older farmer had over twelve different types of

chickens.

I had chickens lay eggs bigger than this cup, pointing to a six oz Styrofoam cup. The eggs split the chicken open they were so big. You see that red spot in the eggs. Sometime that means that egg was too big for that chicken. We have a breed, a Black ausmanaught, a breed of chicken that the eggs won’t fit that cup. It kills the chickens after so many times.

I was surprised to discover that only 20% (twenty percent) raise poultry, I

expected this would be a higher percentage. None of these farmers raised bees for honey.

Twenty percent raise fish in captivity and others expressed interest in fish in captivity.

Most of them did not keep horses or other equine, only thirty percent did have horses.

Fifty percent had fruit, nut, or citrus trees on their farmland.

Although, there is not a typical Ohio black farm operation, most produce a

diversity of subsistence crops and livestock- typically cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs. One

farmer in the study had goat, turkeys, and a variety of fowl, hogs, cattle, and an emu.

Many of those in the southwestern part of the state started out planting tobacco

but government programs now pay them not to grow tobacco. All of these Ohio black

farmers grow field crops, peas, greens, other vegetables, and most of them grow grain

crops wheat, com, oats, and most grow soybeans.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Other crops include cabbage, cucumbers, cauliflower, onions, potatoes, peppers,

green beans, tomatoes, alfalfa, asparagus, sorghum, tobacco, butter beans, and field

greens.

Subsistence and Extensive Farming

Ohio black farmers have in common with black farmers in the Southern states

that they produce ninety percent of the food they consume and supply a market with food

products. On the other hand, they differ from farmers in the South in that Ohio black

farmers do not subsist only on the farm income. Instead they primarily work off-farm for

the bulk of their annual income. As a matter of fact, it is the income from off-farm

employment which enables them to maintain the farm operation. Even though they do

not primarily rely upon the farm for income, their food needs are met and the food needs

of their extended family.

One interviewee said that back in the days they didn’t have a lot of cash but they

didn’t want for anything either

Back in the days we didn't have a lot of cash. Didn't want nothing either. We made everything we needed. We had a sewing machine later on. She made shirts for my grandfather. The only thing we bought was sugar. We raised tobacco. My grandfather smoked a pipe. He soaked the tobacco in molasses. We had apple orchards, corn, and big gardens. We hunted ground hogs and raccoons. My grandmother canned everything. I grew up on the farm in the 40’s and 50’s. When my grandfather would butcher a cow, my father would buy one half the cow. My uncle would have cows too. We would buy food from my uncle and my mom would give food away. We raised sorghum, made clothes, made blankets, quilts. In the forties and fifties, we had no electricity. In 1952, we got electricity. We would go to bed at dark to save oil, and get up at the crack of dawn. We had a routine. My grandfather would get up and go to outhouse and then make his way out to feed the cows, and pigs com and get the fire started for the stove. I would get the kindling. Then my grandmother would get up and go

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to the outhouse and would come back and everybody would wash their hands before coming in the house. She would get the breakfast started and the day was started early.

The extensive biological diversity inherent in the agriculture approach of black

farmers is rooted in traditional foodways and practices. Because they pursue biological

diversity, they can gather wild plants and herbs. Gathering of wild plants races of and

herbs and other edible products is made possible because of the biological diversity.

These farmers responded that they gather plants and herbs from the local forest

environment They also responded that they did gather native plants and wildlife used for

cooking routinely and one farmer said they gather mushrooms from the local forest.

These extensive based practices did not destroy or degrade the environmental. They

approached their agriculture with a particular ecological concern— care for the soil,

concern for local biological diversity, and care for the farm animals.

Crop Rotation

In qualitative data collection one ideally reaches saturation in which all

respondents begin to say the same thing. Saturation was reached early from the in-depth

interviews regarding crop rotation and the questionnaire data were overwhelming as well.

All farmers in this sample practice crop rotation. They rotate com, wheat, soybeans, and

occasionally oats. As well, they practice an ecology based, biologically diverse mixed

agriculture.

They consistently indicated that rotating was the information they received from

their elders. “Rotating crops helps save the soil.”

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. One fanner said even if large scale he would do rotational crops. Rotate your

crops. He says that his elders gave him information on how to maintain and recharge the

soil through crop rotation.

Another farmer said his grandfather also told him about crop rotation and spring

plowing instead of fall plowing. He also said his grandfather taught him the basic

concept of never waste anything.

Another farmer talks about crop rotation.

In the beginning when we farmed we had 25 to 30 acres in tobacco and vegetables. We practiced crop rotation. Com will kill a ground by itself if com is on it daily. You have to rotate it and put soybeans.

My mother told me about farming what to do and how to do it. She told me about crop rotation. My mother told me don't hold it over seven years. Soybeans good for the ground.

We always practiced crop rotation. We had 240 acres, com, soybeans, greens, different areas. I fanned all 240 acres. I had everything mixed in different areas. Turnip greens, green beans, sweet corns. I had a combine.

Crop Diversity

These farmers also practice crop diversity. One cattle farmer, who works fulltime

as a computer business owner, grows 15 different vegetables in three, two acre gardens,

including sweet potatoes, potatoes (Yukon gold, Kennebec, Pontiac or red potatoes),

peppers, onions, apples, pears, milking cows, butter beans, cabbage.

During one interview, the wife of a long standing farming family, showed me a

loofa sponge that her husband is growing and trying to market It looks like a cucumber.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Her husband plants many different crops and is planning to expand his crops, she says.

He has fruit trees and plans to cultivate more fruit trees.

One woman said she and her husband used to plant pumpkins between the com

patch rows.

Not only do these farmers practice crop rotation and crop diversity, they had

significant amounts of idle land or just woods. One farmer with SO acres had 10 acres of

just woods. On the other hand, the cattle farmers tended not to have substantial land

wooded. Some farmers had half their land wooded. Most of the farmers had some acres

of woodland land that they owned.

Strip Farming

One fourth generation farmer in his early forties said he uses strip farming:

I use strip farming. I place 8 rows wide of com and 8 rows wide of soybeans. I started that in 1992. It ensures residue cover. Soybeans produce fragile crop residue not enough residue in the winter. So I protect it with nonfragile strips of com, which produces non-fragile crop residue. It makes it easy to do integrated pest management in this practice of strip farming.

Another farmer said he uses alternating strips of at least three different crops side

by side.

Soil Management Understanding the fragile nature of soil speaks metaphorically to the fragileness

of nature, family, and community. Soil conservation occupies a central place in the land

management strategies of Ohio black farmers. The farmers in this study, were very

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. concerned about the soil. The overwhelming majority used manure from the farm

animals to replenish the soil, as do most subsistence farmers worldwide.

“I use livestock manure as fertilizer and for the soil.”

One woman farmer, said that, “In Adams county there is a lot of clay soil so you

have to use fertilizer.”

One farmer told me about ridge tilling;

Ridge tilling as a form of replenishing the soil. A ridge is built with cultivation and crop harvest and no tillage in the fall. When ready, peel off top of the ridge and get the crop and you have fresh soil on the elevated plateau... ridge tillage originated in the 1960’s with farmers in the far western com belt in Nebraska. It was developed for places where water was a premium but you needed the moisture. I create furrows, canals. Ridge tillage could be adapted to any size farm. But on a large acreage farm it takes high level of management and takes time commitment when at the time of the year when it’s harvest time there are other duties to take care that take time away from ridge tillage.

One farmer said that it is the nitrogen that the soil needs. Most of the other

farmers responded the same way, they know that soil needs nitrogen. Nitrogen was

important for healthy soil, they reiterated. One farmer said you “recharge the soil by crop

rotation.”

A wife o f a farmer said: We had rich soil. People would come out here and get our dirt by the bucket load He puts manure in it, a lot of organic matter and so they know that.

Another farmer indicated; When we were farming all we used was manure. My grandfather had horses and we used the manure.

Several fanners talked about plowing under hay. “Sow hay, plow it under

the soil.” “Keeping cover crops saves soil. Keeps from washing away.”

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. One farmer stated that he used stubble to plow. Straw from wheat, corn stalks,

leave as cover. This farmer said he learned this technique from his grandfather. This

same farmer said he also leams from variety books, other farmers, and farming

magazines.

One farmer from the long lineage of Ohio’s black farmers before the Civil War,

said he used a clover plow down. He also gets soil samples and they tell whether or not

they need lime, phosphorous or magnesium. “If a person don’t have a hog, can have a

plow down, plant a red clover. Soil has a ph and if the ph too low, can’t grow alfalfa.

The truck comes up put the lime down and the lime sweetens.” He said a farmer has to

improve the soil. Several farmers said that com will drain the soil of its moisture.

Farmers say that their elders gave them information on how to maintain and

recharge the soil through crop rotation. “My grandfather taught me the basics of crop

rotation, mixture, and start with the basics and modernize.”

One man said that nitrogen is what soil needs.

My husband uses a certain type of fertilizer. We go way some where else and get fertilizer. It’s a different taste. Nitrogen is in. It’s a different taste in his greens.

Telling Soil Quality Although they disagree about whether soil quality can be known from the smell,

they overwhelmingly indicate that you could tell the quality by the color of the soil.

Ninety percent (90%) agreed that soil quality can be known from the color of the soil.

One farmer said you could tell the quality by the size of the food produced:

If the soil is healthy the size of the crops grown will be large. The size of the vegetable tells you how good the soil is. We had rich soil. If the soil was poor soil, the asparagus the size of the small finger. If you got good ground, asparagus

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. it will come right back [without replanting]. It grows according to the ground. Good ground, come right back. Good ground middle finger size of asparagus. That tells you if the soil is healthy the size of the crops grown.

As far as the soil is concerned, they feel that the condition of the soil around their

farm has remained the same, and it has not gotten worse. One farmer stated that his own

land had improved but his neighbors’ land had degenerated.

One woman said the air had gotten worse. She rents her land out to tenants who

spray with chemicals.

In contrast to Nance’s (1994) study, where she finds that black farmers do not

routinely get soil tests, these farmers indicated that they receive soil tests. “I get a soil

test and they tell us to use fertilizer if needed, otherwise I use manure from the farm.”

One farmer with 140 acres said he always gets a soil test. Most of the farmers said they

test their soil through soil test, from the oldest farmer to the youngest farmer.

One wife of a farmer who used to grow tobacco said they used to get their soil

tested.

Manure Fertilizer

The use of farm manure is consistent throughout the sample. One wife said:

“Rabbit dung is good fertilizer, chickens have high nitrogen, but you can mix it” They

relied upon the manure from the farm animals—rabbits, chickens, hogs, cattle to nourish

the soil. Since they practice a small mixed system of farming, they did not have to

produce great yields to survive. They produced what was manageable and reasonable

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. without wasting fossil fuels, expensive fertilizers, and large equipment costs. One

farmer states this:

We use cow manure for fertilizer. Why buy chemical when I have good manure and it adds humus to soil and is natural, it don't hurt food and don't hurt the soil. We have chicken, rabbit, cow manure.

We know what we feed our animals. You dont know what you get in that fertilizer. They see the top of my flowers and they all want what I got, the manure. Now they go and buy a little bag of manure that is expensive and got all I want. Black farmers don't like pesticide and herbicides. They do rotational crops. We do rotational crops. To keep from build up of pests and eggs and next year we change the crops. So a cabbage pest egg may lay in the soil waiting for another cabbage crop and we change it to com and so the cabbage egg can't hatch. Traditional practice is all farmers did. You deplete their soil when you use the chemicals. The best thing is rotational.

One farmer stated that he uses mixed up fertilizer, ponies, cows, and rabbits. One

woman in her seventies said they always used manure but they still had to use some

chemical fertilizers. She was one of the few participants who agreed that lack of access

to irrigation was a problem and that she does worry about water for the farm.

Pest Management

An inconsistency in the sample was the fact that eighty percent (80%) of the

sample stated they did purchase store products to manage pests on the farm and yet they

do not have a pest problem per se. One female farmer in her seventies stated that,

“Everybody has a pest problem.”

One farmer said:

It’s hard to grow without chemical fertilizer. You can’t get 200 bushel an acre on manure fertilizer. I do use livestock manure as fertilizer.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I also use spray chemicals to deal with pests. If you keep putting fertilizer in the soil it is going to get worse over time.

This farmer also states that the soil around his farm had gotten worse over the

years. This is an interesting comparison with the others farmers who said the soil had not

gotten worse.

Seventy percent (70%) of the farmers in this sample received information from

elders about how to manage pests on the farm. More than half of them answered that

they did not have a problem with pests on the farm. All o f the farmers who noted that

they had a pest problem used store products, while only half of those who stated they do

not have a pest problem used store products. In general, the farmers who did not have

pest problems did not use store products. Although the survey data indicate that most of

the farmers did purchase store products for pests.

One farmer said that in some years certain species of pests are a problem and

others years they are not He uses strip farming and says that it makes it easy to do

integrated pest management in this strip farming practice.

This is the farmer who said,

The archaic (meaning traditional pest management) was the genesis of what I do today, it is a melding of the past and the present to take me into the future.

This same farmer was extremely articulate and knew the scientific terms for crops and

soil types. Interestingly, I would never have guessed that he was Black because of the

lack of a distinctive black vernacular in his voice.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ‘The best pest management is rotational crop,” says another farmer.

Some stated that to handle the pest problems they planted more than they

would need if all the crops were harvested. There appears to be some

expectation of crop loss from pests. Permitting the survival of beneficial

insects, is one of the basic tenets of integrated pest management (Nazarea

1998).

One farmer, who I interviewed and later published a story in the California

Organic Fanners Newsletter captures it in this sentence when I asked him about the

rabbits eating the greens in his garden, he said “That’s alright, it’s all going to get eaten

around here.”

Irrigation Practices

One hundred percent (100%) of the sample answered that they do not irrigate or

use an irrigation process. They do not pump water into the farm. As well, they feel that

irrigation is not a problem for them. One farmer said that God is my system of getting

water. Only thirty percent 30 percent o f them stated that they used the local watershed as

a source of water for the farm. Three farmers had ponds, creeks, or lakes on their

property. Two farmers used well water for their livestock but they did not irrigate their

crops.

One farmer said when it rains he fills up large barrels with water in case he needs

them during a drought.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Another farmer who owns 80 acres with a creek on the property, dug out a pond

near the house. They utilize the pond for fish and source of water for crops.

This lack of irrigation is consistent with the finding in Westmacott’s (1992)

Georgia sample. The farmers and gardeners showed little use of irrigation, and he

speculated that the use of unreliable hand-dug or bored wells was the reason (Westmacott

19924). Even in Westmacott’s (1992) South Carolina sample when wells were dug or

deep-drilled, they did not practice irrigation. The same held true in Alabama, where ten

of the fifteen families were served by city water, and two had constantly flowing artesian

wells (Westmacott 1992). There was not evidence o f irrigation's becoming more

common with improved access to water (Westmacott 1992).

In this research, one farmer on the county groundwater committee, says that he

manages to get the moisture he needs without irrigation. Another farmer on the soil and

water committee does not irrigate and does not have a problem with water. Rainwater

provides the water source for their farm enterprises.

Farm Equipment and Machinery

Animal labor instead of machinery using fossil fuels supplied the energy needed

on the farm in the beginning and well into the 1950’s and I960’s. In places near Ohio in

northern Kentucky mules still provide power for the sorghum milling. One farmer said

his grandfather farmed using mules and plow farming.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Another farmer remembering what it was like in the fifties said that horses and

mules were the farm animals used to work the plows. Teams of two and four horses

provided the draft animal labor (transcripts). One interviewee said:

Tractors became important after 1930. Horses just disappeared after WW 2. Hilly section where blacks lived. No tractor. Blacks got killed trying to operate tractors on the hilly terrain.

Nowadays these farmers use modem machinery. One farmer has had his tractor

since the 1960’s. He had a manure spreader in the 70's then and they would have to

spread manure.

Today, most of these farmers use tractors, field cultivators, manure spreaders, and

planters. However, in the planting season they often use hand labor to transplant or plant

new seeds. One farmer who uses tractors still likes the hand method for planting:

We each had 24 plants in a flat and we planted 3 flats. It had to be just right We had to pinch the leaves. Hand touch is what made the vegetables grow. He would watch a little and say next time honey put it little deeper in the ground ok. He was not overbearing in other words. He would say ok, alright He would say, isn't this fun.

Planting bv the Signs There was no overwhelming practice of planting by the signs, fifty percent (50%)

plant by the signs and the other fifty percent (50%) do not. By and large the older

farmers plant by the signs.

One woman in her seventies said,

They used to plant by the moon. By the light of the moon, by the dark of the moon, they would say, Certain things you plant by the light and some by the dark. Beans bloomed all summer long but they had nothing inside them because she planted on the wrong sign. I learned right then after I planted by the wrong sign.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Want to plant my potatoes by the dark of the moon, they stay down in the ground. Used to call it superstitution.

One woman farmer said her grandmother raised her and her grandmother used to

plant only by the signs o f the moon.

Other natural related beliefs are centered around the signs. Mrs. C. said even

having surgery you should see where the moon is.

If the moon in knee, chest surgery is ok but if moon in head, then bleeding will occur. Not good to have surgery when moon in that part of the body.

Communal Values

One farmer said,

Farmers are self-sufficient and they deal with other farmers. Farmers pool together. If your neighbor wants to borrow your plow, you’ll loan it to him. Farmers pool together.

Another farmer said, in contrast,

A farmer wouldn’t ask another farmer for help. He’ll say I’ll buy that farm from you, if there is one farmer down in financial problems.

One farmer felt responsible to his community by giving food away and insuring the

vegetables he produced were healthy for human consumption. A chemical spin happened

in the area near his farmer. He dug up his crop for the whole year. His wife says during

the interview:

My husband said he can't give them vegetables to my people. He dug up his crop one year when there was a chemical spill in the area over his fields. Tomato grown too big, something wrong. He wouldn't do it These chemicals done came over and settled down on this stuff. Black people been mistreated long enough. I'm not going to give that stuff to my people.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The same fanner also gives away much of his produce. The wife of farmer tells me

another story about his generosity and sense of community being reciprocated:

The girl who does my hair tells a story about when she used to live in the projects. She said Mr. used to come out and everybody was afraid of him. They loved him but they were afraid of him. And he would have bags of greens, and he would over fill the bags. He would drive up in his truck and we could come out there and we wouldn't have any money and we would stand back. After he got finished selling, he would say “Come her gal and take this bag and go on.” He would give you bag and say, “ take this, squash, and go and feed those babies.” They knew when he came they was going to have food. By the middle of the month their food stamps would run out and it was all the mothers that ran to the truck when he was selling his produce in the project and he would give people food. He would never take food stamps. He figure if you had food stamps you needed them. He always gave away food. He would say, “I done made my money.” This is play to him. Then when I got sick, my hair dresser drove out here and would come out here and bring us lunch and dinner. The doorbell would ring and it would be her. She is a beautician now and registered nurse and that food made a difference for her. One lady had a whole bunch of kids and he would load up the truck and set it on the porch, wouldn't leave no note, just sit on it the porch. He might admit to and he might not. Everybody that came to the house, he would give them something when they left the house.

One farmer said: In this family we divide among each other, it keeps spreading. We share food with the family and other people around. [He showed me three long deep freezers full of food, and appeared quite proud to say that they had a lot o f food]

While attending a family reunion, a woman in her 40's says she remembers a tradition

where they used to bring the food and serve it in a wagon. They do not do that anymore

someone said but they still have the wagon.

Many of the community churches were built on land donated by a land owning

fanner. The community church was built by members of the community who were

carpenters, laborers, brick layers. This gave the community a central place.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T said that every community had a center point, especially a church and then a school. They built a general store out of the old church. The community built the church in 1932. The laborers who built the church were the farmers, those who were carpenters, they looked for the best price on lumber. His great grand father donated the land and his uncle donated the land for die cemetery.

Africanism

Looking through the pictures from the farm visit, I became curious about the

guinea fowl (Figure 1) on one of the farms and wanted to confirm the spelling of the

guinea fowl. I consulted Webster at first and it suggested a West African origin, the

guinea fowl. I consulted Shaw et al. (1993) and discovered that the guinea fowl is the

only fowl from West Africa. This is a West African bird related to the pheasants, raised

for food in most parts of the world and marked by a bare neck and head and slanting

plumage speckled with white; any of several related birds of continental African and

Madagascar (Shaw et al. 1993).

M r. said:

We had 10 guineas at one time but the foxes got to them all and two left. Just like a watchdog they tell when a stranger comes around. They let a loud yell. Males took up here by itself. I picked up a couple of hens at sales. Have to trap them. My mother had them down south. They were other guineas they had red, and black and white ones. Red ones straight red, like a Rhode Island rooster. I have old time ones. My mother always said they get up in the tree, they roost high in the tree. If they see a stranger, they make a loud noise. They are good watchdogs. They don’t bite. They eat corn, just like the other chickens. If kids don’t mess with them, they lay 8 to 20 eggs, one does. They lay eggs on top of one another. They fly top of die house.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 1. Guinea Fowl from farm in Southern Ohio

His son tells me that the guinea meat is blue if you scare them before you kill

them. You have to sneak up on them and kill them to prevent the meat from being blue.

The guineas like to see themselves in the bumper of the car.

The guinea fowl (Figure 1) could be an example of Africanism, customs rooted

in Africa, on this black farm, albeit hundreds of years and numerous generations

removed, the keeping of this particular type of fowl could speak volumes about the

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. enduring traditions around aesthetics, food ways, and ultimately the nexus of between

these sustainable community values and biological diversity. For instance, this custom of

keeping an environment conducive for guinea fowl could signify that there may be some

symbolic representation associated with the guinea fowL, or for their environmental

usefulness e.g. pest management or for planting by the signs, or for traditional foodways,

or from an aesthetic perspective, the bird is of beauty, and there could be an aesthetic

value of having such an animal run freely on the land. All of the ideas could have been

contributed to the continuity and change that has made it possible for this particular

farmer to survive on his land.

The keeping of the guinea is evidence of the sustaining value of biological diversity

and tradition. The raising of the guinea fowl symbolizes an attempt to maintain tradition

while making for the possibility of maintaining other strategies which keep them tied to the

land I wonder how many other agricultural and environmental practices that Mr. Clark

pursues, as learned from his mother, has a direct African ecology based perspective and/or

tradition.

Also these farmers had various collections of discarded items— sewing machines,

broken glasses, tires. It has a certain farm aesthetic. This represents a re-creation of these

mechanical objects. The centrality of land can be seen in the recycling of organic and

nonorganic materials. The discarded items can be viewed as a metaphor for how

community is recreated and how sense of place becomes entangled with old and the

new. Rusty equipment on the farm may suggest a scrap yard to those less informed

persons but the materials are symbols of an integrated system for the farmers where

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. scraps are seen as symbolic of self-sufficiency as piles of disused materials awaiting

reuse as spare parts, materials for fences, pens or animal shelters (Westmacott 1992).

Farm utensils, animals, tools like rabbit traps, are developed as artifacts of a people

attempting to maintain self-sufficiency and self-reliance. Westmacott (1992) finds

similar materials recycled in the Southern states. African Americans utilize all things

even in the sense of adding an aesthetic. The old discarded items were for spare parts and

later use, the old cars too. Land provides a communication platform for recycling

tradition. The aesthetics of the piles of thrown away objects for some undetermined

future use finds meaning among the landscape of multiple frames within traditional

contexts and modem context In fact it is these items from modernity, sewing machine,

cars, and symbols of technology which will be incorporated into traditional and modem

uses.

Land as Tradition

A) “Farming’s not a job, it’s a way of life.”

B) “Farm is hard work, but if you like it it's not like work at all, if you live it.”

In the words of two of the study’s informants, farming is a way of life and has

been the lifeblood to countless families and rural communities. Farming as a way of life

has not only provided the mechanism for subsistence for those agriculturalists and their

families, farming has kept much ecology based African traditions vibrant. Being on the

land, has meant that valuable agroecological knowledge and wisdom is passed on. Food

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. production has been the vehicle by which elders have passed local ecological knowledge

and perspectives. Owning land was the key strategy for family and community

development.

Reasons why they farm

These farmers state that land is important from a family perspective and they gain

peace of mind living off the land. “Nothing better than farm living, peaceful, away from

the hustle and bustle.”

On average, the farmer who keeps the family, all the other siblings who move

away to urban areas, is the one that loves to farm. These farmers don’t just approach this

endeavor as a business, they love it.

One other farmer when asked why he became interested in fanning when his

other siblings went off to the city, said he liked it and stayed home, and he liked it more

and more.

One farmer responded when I asked him since he was raised in Cincinnati how he

became interested in farming.

I was raised up in the city and liked cats and dogs. I said if I could get out in the country I could raise some animals. 1 started farming in 1943.

Another farmer who started farming in the 1950’s says, “I came here to grow

some potatoes, some beans, a few tomatoes, small stuff.”

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Land and Kinship

Most of the farmers in the sample, who are third generation farmers had their

farms before WWIL The farm remained in the family because land was important

African American farmers have had an attachment to land beyond its capital value. The

values placed upon land ownership and stewardship were not based upon a materialistic

perspective but included kinship issues, spiritual, religious, and community aspects.

As the research revealed from the Washington County data, family was important

to community development The community was a complex mixture of interlocking

series of kin ties which supplemented other relationships. In Washington County, the

early black settlers were members of ten to twelve core families. The tri-county area is

actually more relevant to view the full picture of settlement. Over the contiguous

counties of Morgan, Athens, and Washington, farm families built communities. In the

Gallia and Highland areas, the fanners are also related.

The women feel strongly that it is important to have land. Two women from the

old family said that land is theirs and they can pass it down to their children. The woman

said it is important to me. “This is ours, it’s mine. You have to have a love for it to stay

on the farm. I loved it. It is important to have land. Would like to hold on to it. Want to

keep it in the family.” Once a member of a kinship group had inherited land, he or she

was likely to keep the land. The family farm was an asset for the farm children and

passed through inheritance. In the Ohio sample of farmers, they owned their land and

made provisions for the land to be farmed by one member of the family, female or male.

Land no longer was fragmented or divided equally. Land remained intact In one family,

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the first name was passed on to the male family member that would inherit the land.

There were four generations of sons with the first name.

Most African Americans, in the second and third generations received land

through inheritance. Today, the family farm passes to the offspring that is most

interested in farming. In most cases there was a male heir who loved to farm. In the

current context, farmers who have daughters are considering the daughters who are

interested as likely candidates to inherit the land. In a few cases the land will likely go to

the daughter to farm with the family.

Households constitute the primary unit of production. Larger community has

altered over time. Communal settlements of villages were formed by extended families.

Members of various households often belonged to the lineage of one of the earliest

families into the area and the extended family provided labor at one time. In the absence

of that labor, however, family is still important That idea was verbalized in many ways.

Everybody helps out on the farm.

Every body pitches around the farm, the whole family. We had seven rows of green beans and the wife and I had three rows and the girls had a row and it took us 8 hours but we did it together. The family did it. The transplanting machine, the family works that together. We put in 3000 cabbage plants. When we were young and grandma used to bring us food in the field, we put the playpen on back of the truck and we all eat out there. Farming was a family thing.”

Our youngest daughter attends private school. Both me and my husband cook supper. We all help out when it is needed. Have to be flexible.

The daily operation of the farm is done by me 90%, and my wife and children help out some. We sell vegetables to the farmer's market We have 2 acres of vegetable and 7 gardens with different crops. The daughters help with hay and with fence building. My three daughters all can drive tractors and can load hay.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Centrality o f Land

Land provided the foundation for development of schools/churches, festivals,

family reunions. In all of the farm communities where there were large numbers of black

farmers, there was always a church and a school. The one room church eventually served

as the school. When the resources became available, the community built a separate

school. The community was sustained through this continuous relationship with the land.

Land has intrinsic value as a place of sustained identity because no boundaries

separate the past from the present, and the natural from cultural. The discontinuity of

time and space was reworked into the continuity of community and place. Therefore, the

individual's identity as a member of the group is sustained through the community's sense

of place and identity in the natural and cultural environments.

One woman related the land as being near to God:

I have learned a lot living on the farm. I learned that land is a near God as you get You have to try to keep it It is important for the family and a means to other things now more than ever.

As well, traditional agricultural knowledge was passed down because they

occupied the land. These farmers had an advantage of being able to utilize energy

efficiently and produce healthy livestock and produce.

Access to land facilitated an isolation and resistance from hardships of

oppression. Spatial patterns emerged representing the newly emancipated arrangements.

The spatial distribution of their homes was a symbol of freedom. They lived on their own

land and desired to keep the land they were bom on.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. One farmer who wanted to buy the same land he grew up on expresses:

In Alabama my grandmother had 800 acres in Clayton County; all kin in the Carver county. In 1955 I went back and tried to buy my father's farm and land. But the white person who was selling it would not let any one from the same family buy more than 50 acres, he said they were to break it up. I wanted the whole thing, I wanted what my daddy had. The man told me I could buy some other land but I wanted the land I was bora on. We never sold his grandmother’s land.

Were the traditions surrounding land utilization an expression of cultural identity?

Were the processes of change that facilitated the development of farming communities

rooted in the intrinsic value of land? Traditions are dynamic. Traditional processes

facilitated the innovation and reinvention sustained the community through the link to a

traditional agricultural knowledge based in African traditions and beliefs. African based

knowledge of local ecology, water, soil types, along with customs endured for three

hundred fifty years of slavery and survived well into the subsequent generations into the

21st century. These Africanisms were simultaneously places of resistance and links to

the past. We find these places of resistance represented by the placement of homes near

the road and the recycling of discarded items; bricolages of things from the past.

Homes placed near the road

In my research in Ohio, the homes of farmers were placed near the road. This

placement invited the community on to the land. These spatial patterns can be viewed as

the material manifestations of collectivization strategies to sustain identity and

community. Conversations, which developed from sitting and observing the garden,

provided channels for transmission of knowledge and the retelling of the oral histories.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The front yard becomes an extension of the home. Extending the house to outside can be

as a metaphor for extending relationship between humans and nature. Although the

swept yard was not found in Ohio, farmers remember their mothers sweeping the yard in

past One farmer said his mother would sweep from the back door all the way to the barn.

He does not practice this nor does his wife practice sweeping the yard. Again, the

particular phenomenon of the swept yard was not evident in the study.

Cemeteries. Churches. Schools

One farmer said that his great grand father donated the land for the church and his

uncle donated the land for the cemetery. The same land has been in the family since

1842. The original 1500 acres now down to 225 acres. The original land was decreased

through inheritance patterns, “when someone got married and they gave them 50 acres or

her 100 acres there and over time the land” acreage decreases.

In some case blacks in some counties purchased land back in the 1860’s and

1870’s from rich land owners who were friendly to blacks and allowed blacks to

purchase land. All the farmers always paid back the loans (Burke 2000).

I attended a family reunion and one of the family who says that it bothers him when

academics asks why they settled there, meaning people of color. He says that we settled

for the same reasons the whites settled, the land was here. We knew the land. My people

came in the early 1800s and came back because they could move around on the land. I

saw the headstones of two of the family’s patriarch one bom in 1787 and the other bom

in 1822.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 6

AGRICULTURAL KNOWLEDGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL/ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

The old ones before us knew things. Many of them were so spiritual that The creator told them things through visions, ceremonies, and prayer. The creator taught them about interconnectedness, balance, and respect The old ones experienced these things and told us we are all children of the same God. We all lived under the same natural laws. Every human being, every animal, every plant, every insect, every bird, we are all the same in the eyes of God. -- DonCoyhis

African Knowledge and American Agriculture

Accounts of African American agricultural knowledge— past or

contemporaneously is lacking in research literature. Today's black farmers have inherited

a distinctive African American rural material culture rooted in African based farming.

However, because of the ethnocentric focus o f geography, archaeology, history, and other

disciplines, there have been few earnest attempts to recognize and acknowledge any

agricultural contributions of blacks in early American history. Archaeology seems to

have just recently begun to recognize the inventiveness of African designs and

knowledge. For example, Ferguson (1992) notes that the wattle- and-daub and thatched

and clay-walled African huts once viewed as primitive are being recognized as ingenious

and ecologically appropriate for the local natural environment The huts are made of

local materials, comfortable in hot climates, and when cold the central located hearth

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. warms the whole house, and smoke from the fires drives away mosquitoes (Ferguson

1992). There have even been those critics who would view any exegesis into African

architecture as an oxymoron (Ferguson 1992). Needless to say, many gaps exist in the

current bodies of literature regarding African American rural material culture.

Anthropologists have studied black culture from the earliest black anthropologist

from Haiti, Antenor Firmin to (Melville Herskovits, Zora Neale Hurston, St Clair

Drake, Jean Price-Mars, Sidney Mintz, Richard Price, John Gwaltney, Norm Whitten,

Sheila Walker, and Faye Harrison to name a few). Others, nonanthropologists have

studied blacks in gardening and agriculture— Vera Banks, Calvin Beale, W.E.B.Dubois,

John P. Davis, Robert Zabawa, Robert Browne, Joel Schor Valerie Grim, Richard

Westmacott, among others. A small body of work examines the ethnoecology or

ethnobotany of blacks in America (Grime 1976). Archaeologists have studied black

ethnoecology and artifacts, Ferguson (1992), Catts and Custer (1994), Fairbanks (1984).

However, not one of these works frames the farming practices of African

American agriculturalists within the context of sustainable agriculture nor takes with any

regards their local ecological knowledge. One study documents the ecological

perspectives of a small sample of African-American gardeners and a few farmers in the

South regarding: a) irrigation systems, b) seed acquisitions, c) care of soil, and d) pest

management (Westmacott 1992). In their archaeological excavations, Catts and Custer

(1990) found that areas where African-American farmers and laborers occupied had more

wild fauna and varieties of flora than nearby areas of other ethnic groups in New Castle

County, Delaware in the late 1800's. The authors maintain that based upon the low

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. quality items supplemented by foraging, "opportunistic collecting" they relied upon a

variety of wild products, many of which had limited commercial value, and low quality

cuts of beef, pork, and sheep. While these vestiges of traditional foodways— plant and

animal varieties— represent cultural identity, these foodways could be simultaneously

enhancing biodiversity in their particular agricultural areas.

In the story of the midwife Onnie Logan, an oral history recorded by Clark

(1991), Onnie Logan indicates multitudinous crop and livestock diversity on their

Alabama farm around the 1920's. Onnie Logan, raised on a farm in western Alabama,

remarks that they always had three mules, two horses, eight to ten milking cows, a yoke

of ox, goats, turkeys, guineas, ducks, hogs, sheep, chicken (Clark 1991). They had three

big gardens, string beans, butter beans, turnip greens, English peas, sweet potatoes, Irish

potatoes, okra, and three different kinds of squash, peach orchard, and even growing rice

in the swamp area. Onnie Logan states that her family made little money from farming

but they made a living (Clark 1991). The Logan's farm epitomizes diversity in the

varieties of crops and livestock.

In the narrative ofSara Brooks (Simonsen 1976), Sara Brooks describes the

farming practices of her father Will Brooks. Will Brooks managed a small farm in

Alabama. He owned his land and was a respected member of his community and a

church deacon. Mr. Brooks created hunting contraptions, fishing baskets, comhusk

brooms, and chewing gum from local materials. The area around the Brooks' was also

replete with wildlife.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Interestingly, Banks (1986) notes that black farming areas have more unused land

which she views as a negative thing (Banks 1986). Banks (1986) suggests Black farmers

had a higher percentage of cropland not harvested or grazed, just idle and that low output

per acre and low intensity of use of existing land resources contribute to the poor

economic condition of black farmers (10). In fact, what I suggest is that they maintain

idle land to keep the forest around the farm for hunting, gathering, and for sacred

reasons. Without the cultural and ecological contexts, many do not understand the land

management strategies of Black farmers.

Westmacott's (1992) study reveals the beliefs about the sacredness of nature still

influences cropping practices and irrigation practices. "Sadie trusted, like many others,

that the Lord will send water when he gets ready. This belief was held very strongly: if it

did not rain, that was God's will, and one should not complain. But Sadie believed you

must also work the soil” (Westmacott 1992:78). “Careful attention was paid to the

straightness of rows, uniformity of crops, and the well-cultivated soil" (Westmacott

1992:92). Almost all the gardeners felt that it was their duty to take care of the soil

(Westmacott 1992). One woman recounted hauling soil back to the garden in a

wheelbarrow after it had washed away in a big storm (Westmacott 1992). The farmers

produced manure, which some gardeners used to maintain soil fertility, although most

gardeners purchased fertilizer. Those farmers and gardeners in Westmacott's (1992) study

expressed concern that all was not well in the environment but expressed this within a

localized, not globalized context (Westmacott 1992:95). Westmacott (1992) found that

those small farmers and rural residents expressed concern for environmental quality and

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. particularly over the use of agricultural chemicals. Many thought store purchased

produce was unhealthy because o f the herbicides and insecticides (Westmacott 1992).

These concerns can be traced to over three centuries of ecological perspectives and

knowledge base steeped in the values of conservation and communality.

From the sixteenth century onward, Africans who ended up either in the West

Indies, Brazil, Caribbeans, or other places, applied their ethnobotanical understanding of

the universe, soil, and water (Grime 1979). They constructed massive agriculture

projects, among them the extensive rice fields of South Carolina (Ferguson 1992; Camey

1993; Camey & Porcher 1993). African women transported various herb seeds by

braiding the seeds into the comrows in their hair (Walker & Singleton, 1999).

Nonetheless, be it the seeds which were transported in the com rows of women's hair or

the knowledge transported in the minds and memory of the African people surviving the

middle passage, it contributed to development of the America's first industry —

agriculture, including tobacco, rice, and cotton and provided the knowledge base for

future generations of African descendents on the farm land. When the first West

Africans departed the slaveships throughout the various American coasts, but in

particular in the South, they entered a stark wilderness in the New World— large trees,

murky swamps, and tropical forest, nothing which resembled the subsequent agricultural

infrastructure. African based knowledge and skill, part of a cultural milieu which

cultivates a cooperative relationship with the natural environment, launched the rice

economy in the Southern states (Camey 1993; Camey & Porcher 1993). In South

Carolina, for example Camey (1993) and Ferguson (1992) assert that West Africans

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. fashioned rice fields out o f dank swamps and sheer ingenuity (Camey 1993; Camey &

Porcher 1993; Ferguson 1992; Wood 1974 & 1975). Carney’s (1993) research suggests

that without the knowledge, expertise, and labor of the first West Africans into South

Carolina, there would not have been much of a rice economy to speak of let alone

document.2 The earliest African engineers of these rice fields designed the agricultural

framework for first wealth for the rice planters in South Carolina to emerge. The dikes

and sluices engineered by the Senegambians required knowledge of gravity, water

pressure, soil types, and construction design. The Europeans that migrated to the New

World did not have the knowledge or skills to produce rice from these lowland swamps

(Camey 1993). Only the Africans from the Senegambia region possessed the knowledge

and skills to accomplish harnessing the natural resources from an otherwise untillable

terrain and create a billion dollar industry. Within a span of fifiy years Africans had

worked in the water and muck with nothing but shovels, hoes, and baskets and had built

an earthwork on the Middleburg plantation greater in volume and canals than the

Egyptian pyramid at Cheops (Ferguson 1992). The only basis for economic wealth in

the South Carolina low country was the rice cultivation ingenuity of the West Africans.

Camey (1993) suggests that prior to Wood (1974; 1975) the role of Africans had

been downplayed and the credit given to imaginative planters for the success of the

South Carolina rice economy. However, with the work of Ferguson (1992); Camey

(1993), and Camey & Porcher (1993), new light shines on an otherwise overlooked

account of the role of Africans in building the South Carolina rice economy.

2 See Camey, Judith A. 1993 From Hands to Tutors: African Expertise in the South Carolina Rice Economy for an in-depth discussion on this role o f West Africans and the rice economy. 163

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ferguson's (1992) research illustrates the resourcefulness of Africans in the New

World in making pottery and the presence of Africanism in the archaeological artifacts.

By necessity slaves were forced to make their own tools, eating, and serving utensils.

Ferguson felt inclined to rename Colono-Indian Ware, originally coined by Noel Hume,

to Colono-Ware. Ferguson (1992) claims that Colono-Ware describes the ware found

and created on Colonial period slave sites. Therefore, the Colono-Indian Ware category

appeared too broad for some of the artifacts Ferguson (1992) examined. The Colono-

Ware category includes all low-fired, handbuilt pottery found on colonial sites (19).

Creolizations, which occurs because of colonization, accounts for the fact that the pottery

did not replicate exactly the pottery made in West and Central Africa. The circumstances

and the natural environments were much different from those in Africa. The colonial

experience affected the techniques of manufacture, the form, of this handbuilt pottery.

Although women and men pottery makers formed the bowls similar in design and shape

to European bowls, their use was distinctively African. In other words, the form —the

appearance— looked European but the structure —how it was used — illustrates its

Africanism (Ferguson 1992). Artifactual evidence from geographic locations from West

Indies to Virginia indicates that Africanism survived on the slave plantations in pottery

making knowledge (Ferguson 1992). The culturalization process of melding tradition

with the modem had taken root on the slave plantations in the form of these artifacts.

Knowledge and traditions carried forward from Africa, of local ecology, water,

soil types, and gravity—along with other traditions have endured. In Vlach's (1993)Back

o f the Big House, he suggests many forms of Africanisms survived on the plantation.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. These surviving forms can be seen as forms of resistance. Anthropologists describe a type

of African American placement of homes on the plantation (Vlach 1993; Orser & Nekola

1996). Vlach (1993) characterizes the planters' and slaves’ spatial arrangements during

the plantation era and suggests that guiding the planters in setting up their estates was a

highly rational formalism.

The world was, in their view, suitably improved only after it was transformed from the chaotic natural condition into a scene marked by a strict, hierarchical order. The planters' landscapes were laid out with straight lines, right-angle comers, and axes of symmetry, their mathematical precision being considered as a proof of individual superiority (5).

For the slaves, the apparent order of the planters was resisted. Instead they

placed their small homes in an asymmetrical order. Moreover, Vlach (1993) notes an

"alternative territorial systems" created by the African slaves and appropriation of space.

The paths along the alternative territorial systems created meeting places in the woods.

Along the alternative territorial pathways, out of the view of slave-masters, the slaves

were able to escape through this system and visit other plantations, observe festivals, pray

and worship, and enjoy a sense of freedom away from the master's watch (Vlach 1993).

In essence these were examples of the reinvention process. Also, the creation of the

slave landscape was a strategy for survival (Vlach 1993) The slaves shaped the

environment to meet their needs and in doing so created a sense of community. The

spaces they created worked within the limitation of the local ecology and served to

bridge them to the past, present, and to other communities of slaves. These appropriated

spaces undermined the presumed absolute power of the slave holders. They used the

plantation and their personal quarters to create and recreate themselves. The kitchens

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. were claimed by the cooks and the loom house by the weaver (Vlach 1993). By

occupying the space and claiming it as their own, they resisted total control and formed a

sense of community out of resistance. They set up their own gardens, and occasionally

constructed African style homes and placed their homes as they preferred, not based on

formality (Vlach 1993). They arranged their homes so that social interaction could take

place. The central yard was a common place where people did their collective chores,

while children played (Vlach 1993). This allowed members of the slave community to

be nurtured and more than anything begin to develop the distinctive African American

culture. So as much as the slave-master might have imagined his rule to be absolute, it

was not (Vlach 1993).

These enslavement circumstances created the necessity for those in the slave

community to become innovative and resourceful. The selection for continual innovation

meant the survival of those innovators and their offsprings. The availability and access to

gardens and areas where they could raise livestock was the precursor for first generation

of Black farmers afier slavery.

Ohio Black Farm Knowledge

This research indicates that African American farmers living in Ohio possess over

30 years of farming experience, from a minimum of six years to over eighty years. Their

knowledge was gained through growing up on the farm and learning from grandparents

and parents. Ohio’s African American farmers have been equipped with know-how about

the use of organic matter to gain productivity from crops. Their knowledge of their local

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ecosystem and ecological perspectives has been kept alive by the generational ties to the

land.

Sources of Knowledge

Their knowledge of soil, local plant and animal life, and where they received their

farming knowledge was of interest to the research. Over half of the sample indicated

that they received their information about how to improve the soil from elders,

grandparents and parents. Farmers gathered knowledge from trial and error.

One woman stated: “You have to learn what to do with wild variety of raspberries

to make them flavorful.”

A woman said you have to watch other people, through books, that’s how she

learned about the farm.

One woman said of her husband, that he knows how to grow fruit trees.

One son of the farmer in his 30’s, a fourth generation farmer said he learned some

agriculture from taking FFA classes in school. During conversations with the family, I

asked his seven year old son if he wanted to do farming he said that he wants to live on a

farm when he grows up. Already this seven year has gained knowledge of the local plant

and animal life as well as how to manage soil and farm animals.

Results indicate that these farmers have a good knowledge of local crop

suitability. All agreed that there are certain crops not suitable for certain environments.

Examples include:

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. • We couldn’t grow barley or durum wheat in this geographic location. Alfalfa can

be planted anywhere. Some high in acidic level.

• Depends, com needs quite a bit of nitrogen, blueberries quite acidic.

• Evergreen tree farming, not suitable for this area.

• Cantaloupe needs sandy soil.

One family matriarch says:

I know some of the things from the old people. There were a lot of older women, they showed me different things about how to cure things from the plants. It’s important to know things. The fact that they know it, and we are in the community. Somebody might need to know the information.

These fanners stated that they can identify several native species of plants and

animals from the local forest that are used routinely for cooking or other materials.

Seventy percent (70%) can identify plants used for cooking but they all can identify

native species of plants and animals that are not consumed. They know about the local

vegetation and animal life.

“My son [a farmer] knows every tree and bug in the woods.”

Most agreed that they received their knowledge from elders, grandparent, or

parents about how to recycle and how to manage the farm. The most common source of

farming knowledge was the grandfather and grandmother or other older person. In

general, knowledge came from the elders, the generation of grandparents. This highlights

the value of grandparents for passing on knowledge. It appears that the grandparents are

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the conveyors of farming knowledge more so than the parent One in-depth interviewee

said he grew up with his grandparents on their farm.

One farmer stated that his farming was influenced by local knowledge not

necessarily knowledge that is black specific.

One 89 year old farmer said you have to know when to plant He knew about

farming, how to handle animals, knew what they were going to do. He learned by

working on the farm.

One farmer said that he used to help people on the farm, bale hay and help with

animals, which is how he learned to farm.

A 70 something year old woman says one of her sons who lives away, calls her

and ask her to tell him different stories. He said to his Mom tell me some more things. I

want my kids to know.

I asked one in-depth interviewee whose family has been in the same land for over

two hundred years what one thing that he had been passed on from his great great

grandfather and continued to be passed on about farming or about how to take care of

land?

They taught me that you can live off the land. Primarily they taught me that you can utilize what you have to the fullest potential. If you have lumber why import bricks. If all you got is dirt then pile it up and build something.

The pillars of this knowledge base were the Black farmers who learned from their

grandparents how to plant seeds and protect the fragile skin of the earth, the soil, in the

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. process. The same knowledge that survived the middle passage informs today’s farmers,

working with soil, using everything from the environment to send back to the land, and to

not overuse the land, all practices rooted in the soil conservation.

Ecological Perspectives

Other ecological perspectives included: recycling organic matter, natural rhythms,

livestock production. One certified organic farmer, who was raised in Ohio, said he is

always looking for environmentally friendly ways to farm. He knows the importance of

biological diversity and healthy soil.

One farmer in his 30’s indicated how important it is to pay attention to the

changes in the environment.

Nature changes, the environment is forever changing. When you pick up the rhythms of the environment you see it does changes, although humans can’t detect it, the environment changes.

An example of how ecology and community expressed in this statement from a

young farmer from an old family of farmers:

I see myself as a steward of the land. Only black fanners feel like that. Huge farmers are white and with 1000+ acres and they are chemical farmers who use heavy chemicals to achieve their goals. They ought to do sharing and let each other plant rotational crops in each other's field. Sharing is important

Recycling Organic matter On my first visit to one in-depth interviewee, I noticed the buckets of com husks

and potato peels in the kitchen next to the waste basket The wife informed me that they

give the com debris to the cows and the she cooks the potato peels and gives to the pigs.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The same family recycles everything back to the earth. Feathers from the chicken are

eaten by the hogs. They recycle grapefruit peels by cutting them up and putting them in

the garden. All of the farmers that I visited used the organic matter for fertilizer and put

it back in the garden or back in hum animals. One farmer family said that they boil the

egg shells and chops them up and feeds them back to the chickens because it makes the

shells harder and makes their coats shinier. This family had large varieties of chickens

which they acquired by ordering them from different feed stores or through catalogs.

One farmer said they used to recycle peanuts back into the ground:

With peanuts you’ll lose some of the peanuts. If you have hogs, hogs can eat the peanuts. My land tasted like peanut butter.

Anything that is manure goes on the field. A pig died and I put that in the ground. Anything that rots goes back on the field.

These farmers also recycle organic matter back to the fields. They use all

manures, eggshells. Even watermelons that are not used are plowed back under “We

grew watermelons and what we don’t use we plow back under.”

One farmer combines egg shells and fish heads to replenish the soil.

Mr. said we take everything we got and it comes back to the table.

Natural Rhythms These farmers by and large prefer not to use chemicals for the foods they produce

for their own consumption or for the market

When you see a chicken bone that dark that means that they used chemicals, when you see a chicken bone that white, that is a pure chicken. We give chickens shell com. You can give them land mash, a chemical, but that’s not good for the people who eat chickens... What goes into the chickens you eat it. 171

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Many of them subscribe to the natural rhythm of their farm animals. One 92 year old

farmer tells me,

With fowl there are months when chickens don’t lay eggs also Months you can raise crops and months you can’t Chickens don’t lay eggs all times of the year. You can give them something to lay all time of the day and year. Molting is when chickens lay eggs. They can lay 12 to 13. If you put a light on the chickens they can lay 40 eggs a month. But if you do that chickens won’t last that long. Like a battery if you bum it all the time the battery is going to get used up quicker. If you let a chicken just do it natural it‘s body can rest If their body can’t rest they don’t last long. Hogs and cows the same way. There are times when they have babies... A farmer who raises beef to sell when it’s time to have calves will go the Vet and will give his cows something to make them have two calves instead of one. But if you let them have two calves she won’t last that long... You don’t milk a cow until two weeks after she has had calves. She won’t give much milk if you do and she isn’t ready because she has to feed her new calf.

This farmer indicates that he is concerned with chemical free food and natural

rhythms. This is an attention given to the care of the animals as well.

One farmer said, “Farmers took care of their horses, took care of their hooves,

never overworked them, and fed them.”

Care of animals and not utilizing chemicals for cash crops or subsistence crops.

Another farmer says that they produce cattle naturally and have done so for generations:

We had 100 hogs on 10 acres when I was growing up. We didn’t use chemicals then. I grow cows without steroids. I use soybean meal which is high in protein. I make sure I get products that do not have steroids. Several families named the animals. One farmer had named his cow Linda. He

would call Linda and tell her to bring the other cows. She would come and the other

cows would come single rile behind.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Generally speaking, these farmers harnessed the natural energy and natural

rhythms to produce food of high quality and large size. One farmer told me,

My brother H. won awards at the county fair. Me and my brother grew big cabbages and tomatoes. It was in the newspaper and we received awards. My tomatoes they write them in the books.

These farmers understood how to maintain and harness energy with the natural

rhythms of the environment and the available labor. Yet they used the natural alongside

some chemicals based products.

Local Biodiversity

Indicators of local biotic diversity include information about wild life and plant

life around the farm. One woman said: “Around here there are deer, rabbit, wild turkeys,

raccoon, possum, coyote, and snakes.”

Another woman said: There are a lot of wild deer on the farm. She said the

rabbits run wild on the farm. One man said that people come hunting on his land all the

time. This is an indication of the wild life, in particularly wild deer.

Another indicator of local biological diversity is the amount of land idle in just

woodland or forest land. This undisturbed land could be providing corridors of

biological diversity.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Women As Knowledge Keepers

In the data regarding herbal and natural wisdom, women appear as the major

keepers and conveyors of fanning knowledge and wisdom. Nyoki Wane (2000), in her

article about the women in Kenya, discusses the role of women as the bearers of the

knowledge. Wane explains that women’s knowledge is highly valued. “The women’s

knowledge of and connectedness to the land was rooted in their many years of

experience” (Wane 2000:64). This research had similar findings.

One farmer talked about his mother’s knowledge of local herbs for healing

different health problems.

My mother made medicine for her high blood pressure—garlic and whiskey. They used to go in the woods and get different herbs. Ginseng is one root they used to get from the woods. The snake root up there that’s good. Mullein, the male and the female, that long plant with spikes. I can take the female and it can do something to me and you can take the male and use it.

During an in-depth interview one wife of a farmer gave me a couple of recipes

from herbs to help with diabetes.

Take flowers from cactus in bloom and after bloom take off blooms, the green part good too. Helps with diabetes. Cactus when flower blooms after it begins to die, a stem connected to sticky part of the cactus, cut this open, take green cactus; scrap the sticky things off, let it boil, slimy keep rinsing until not slimy, then eat that. Com silk, let it dry out and make a tea. Silk part of com husks good for diabetes.

One farmer, who knows how to deliver babies, learned from watching through

the keyhole when his mother and grandmother were delivering babies, said that midwife

information is sacred. His mother didn't tell him how to deliver a baby. He watched and

he learned it himself.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. My grandmother was a farmer and a midwife; my mother learned from her mother. Let them know how you going to treasure the information.

Some of these farmers learned about farming from their mothers. Two farmers

had mothers who were also midwives.

Role of Women

The division of labor among the in-depth interviewees and the survey sample was

fairly consistent with the literature about women on the farm (Sachs 1996). Women

gather herbs from the forest, bale hay, drive tractors, mend fences, cook and can food,

tend to the children, and do all the housework. "Women do it all,’ in the words of male

and female respondents.

One interviewee, when asked about the role of women on the farm, said

responsible for gardening, it was hers the garden. She took on ironing and was over the

housework. Gardens, chickens, animals around the house, housekeeping, and canning.

One woman in the study who lived and farmed in one of the early black farming

settlements told me her husband passed two years ago. They sold the family farm of 160

acres. She and her husband lived on 65 acres he had from a young boy. She doesn’t work

on the farm. The government pays her a sum each month not to grow certain crops. Her

husband took care of all the farming business. He didn’t want her to do anything on the

farm. She helped him bale hay. He had his farm before WWII. His family was a farming

family and the part they sold was the family part. She keeps a garden in the back. Her

house sits near the road away from the farm area. Her husband planted com, tobacco,

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and soybeans. He also planted wheat She said that over the last 20 years, things don’t

grow like they used to. Rabbits don’t taste the same. The tenants that rent her land now

use chemicals to spray for pests. She said that rabbits and a lot of wild deer on their

farm. She occasionally goes into the forest to pick blackberries and hickory nuts.

Women do what needs to be done on the farm according to one wife.

We do what needs to be done around the farm. Don't have brute strength, I can put up hay. One time we had an all girl hay baling. . . Each field has to be done twice a year, May and Oct with hay. You want the fields clear. We all know how to drive the tractor. If s easy to drive a tractor. . . I made a decision about baling the hay because my husband was working late one day and it was about to rain. If he's not here, got to make the decision. I can build fences, chase cows, and deliver sheep. I had to deliver a baby for a young sheep who didn't have sense enough to know what to do. I called a neighbor to help with the sheep delivery. I had to bottle feed the baby sheep. This I learned when I went to the library and got a book about delivering sheep. . . I normally can beans, and berries.

What I know I teach to the kids. We teach her too, the middle daughter said. Mom agreed that the daughter teaches her things. She taught me how to feed the cattle when T. was out one day.”

Husband says, “Women wear more than one hat Purchase parts, doctoring with livestock and kids, and bookkeeping. The wife is always busy, cross country, with her kids involved in different activities, softball.”

I stay organized by the calendar and the refrigerator or white-board. I put everything on refrigerator post-up or calendar. Sometimes it's 12 midnight before I get to bed. Because of the chores and laundry I get 4 to 6 hours a sleep a night

These women on the farm are involved in many activities in the home, on the

farm, church and school.

I was able to interview three generations of females in one family, including the

family matriarch.

She used to bring hay with wagon loads. Horse would pull up, big fork, of hay,

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and I would get down on that block of hay and ride it down. I only weighed 100 lbs. [she describes how they used to get hay and she would be the main person involved in lowering the hay onto the bam for storage, or something] I loved it on the farm. I wouldn't live in a small town.

Every day of the week I used to cook a big breakfast, made my own butter, my own jelly. Women were the boss, doctor, lawyer, mother, extra hand.

Dianna is a fulltime secretary at Citgo. What she does on the farm is

handle the computer system and the paperwork. She is also supplemental coach

for three sports, softball, track, and cross country, although her children are not

in all of those sports she has been doing this for a long time and enjoys it She is

superintendent of the Sunday school.

The 16 year old daughter of a farming family wants to be a veterinarian. She is in

Future Farmers of America (FFA) in her high school and part of her school project for

FFA was to raise some chicks. She said. They do not like that term farmer, they use

vocational agriculture. She knows how to drive the tractor, bale hay, and drive trucks.

What appears to be happening is that the daughters are acquiring the knowledge

and they continue to pass it on to the next generation.

ETHNICITY

One of the most significant questions for the research, was the idea that their

farming practices were related to their heritage not as tradition but as a sense of racial or

ethnic identity, as an African American farmer. This particular idea was not

conclusively enlightening. Thirty percent (30%) strongly agree, and twenty percent

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (20%) agree that the heritage informed their farming practices, the other fifty percent

(50%) disagreed that this was the case. One farmer in his forties said he was influenced

by local practices not necessarily black specific knowledge.

One of the major goals was to understand and therefore operationalize the idea of

racial identify and discover the identifiable aspects of such as related to farming

practices. Interestingly, since there were significant amounts of interracial relations in

the family history, the idea became meaningless. There have been centuries of

intermarrying among whites and blacks in rural Ohio. O f the families interviewed, at

least 40% were involved in the interracial marriage. In one family that had five children,

three sons and two daughters, all of them married outside their race.

Interracial marrying could be seen as an adaptation strategy by men to raise

families who could be free. One key informant told me that if a man married a white

woman, then their offspring would be considered white. One large family in southeast

Ohio has relatives who have slightly modified the spelling of the last name and are

passing for white in the Southern States. Some of the families who have intermarried do

not want to be identified as black.

One informant said that once the family started marrying white, the sons in most

cases continued to marry white. I recalled that earlier in my research in an in-depth

interview with a family, they showed me their family pictures. They have five god- sons

who are White American. They have two god-sons who are Black American. The wife

said she doesn't see black or white. The husband said he never thought about how many

white or how many black god children, He repeated it, and “I never thought about it

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. before that they were black or white. I never thought about it.” I became intrigued by the

idea that racial categories are meaningless for a family that is composed of many races.

The only black farmers for eight counties

Mrs. W. said they were the only black farmers for counties. Her husband has

deceased and someone else is doing the farming. She, like the other women on the farms

I have interviewed who are survivors, rent part of the land out to other farmers, white

farmers. When she and her husband farmed, they used to rotate, beans, com, wheat,

sugar beets, tomatoes. All the food was for the market. They opened their field to the

public to pick their own. You have to have a contract to grow up here: tomatoes,

cabbage, pickles. There is a factory here that does cabbage for sauerkraut. She says,

“We don't irrigate but we get the water we need.” She feels that the cities are taking

over the land.

First there was quail and pheasants. Very few small animals left [sign of diminishing biodiversity]. We have moles; grubs are back in the ground. They follow the food supply. Don’t lose a bit of produce. Just dangerous when you are walking because they make tunnels there.

Her husband learned farming from his father. She says since they were have been

there, over 50 years, there have been three to four black farmers but they are not there

now. She and her husband got their land from a white woman who was upset at her

family and decided to sell it to black farmers. They were able to stay there as long as

they didn’t step on anyone’s toes.

Once we had a field of pickles that was flooded by the neighbor’s water system. We plant to the seasons. As a woman, I did whatever needed to be done. Kids

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. were helping on the farm, everyone pulled together. The family owned the farm. We had chickens, we picked pickles by hand. I baled hay. I kept the house together. I was the typical farm woman, did everything had to be done.

She worked at a factory, and other women at the factory lived on the farm too. She said

that both she and her husband worked off-farm. They worked on the farm on the

weekend. She said her grandkids grew up in the city. Her granddaughter is 17 years old

now, she can drive a tractor. She said that the girls in the family love it on the farm and

drive the tractors. When I pass they will have the farm.

Participant Observations from Multi-racial Family Reunion

During this family reunion, I was able to explore the obfuscation of race and racial

categories. There is a degree of interracial marrying beyond the occasional.

Phenotypically, it appeared that I was at the family reunion of various ethnic groups,

Italian, Spanish, Native American, Turkish, or Jewish. There were individuals that if

you looked at them based on stereotypical traits, e.g. hair texture, skin color, facial

features, by all standards 3/4's of this family would be considered either White

American, Native American, Italian, Jewish, or a mixed blood people. I have never

experienced such different shades of the spectrum in one family in my life. It made me

realize the foolishness of racial categories. This family fits no category, not even the

biracial ones because they are triracial—black, white, native American, melungeons.

These connections are not acknowledged enough. Throughout the North and South,

Native American and Black marriages flow deep in history.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. During the dinner, I noticed the elders sat underneath the shade tree during the lunch

meal.

I was fortuitously assisted by a member of the family who became a key informant

during the reunion. She no longer lives in Ohio. According to her, everybody is related.

Looking at the headstones in the cemetery I saw the names of the original families that were

classified as colored by the 1900 census. On the headstones, I noticed the same names of the

original families I first encountered during my archival research of Washington County. The

spelling of the last names varies from an addition or deletion of one letter in the name.

Throughout the course of the day, I observed members of the family walk through the

cemetery in groups and solo, looking at the different headstones. I imagined what they might

feel from a spiritual, psychological, and economic perspective to walk on the ground of their

ancestors who walked the same ground as far back as 1800. I pondered how it must feel to be

able to claim some ownership and sense of place on the land that their patriarchs and matriarchs

owned for over two centuries and still remains in the family. Sense of pride stems from their

long descent and history on their land and makes it impossible for them to select a category of

black or white. This old family is not amenable to racial categorizing. The categories may be

meaningless aside from the sense of heritage tied to the land.

A.H. took me to the cemetery to show me the oldest headstones. One of the family

patriarch’s buried there was bom in 1787, another bom 1822. J.B. originally owned 900

acres in the Sunshine Ridge. In walking through the cemetery, I noticed the two patriarchs

had the tallest headstone in the cemetery.

181

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. My informant during the reunion said that at one time it was not illegal for black and

white to marry. If a black man married a white woman, their offspring were considered free.

The country had to the change that policy after there were no longer slaves being imported.

Then the classification changed from mixed blood to mulatto and to colored She said in one

family during a census in the early 20th century, all the members of the house were considered

white but a decade later, they were classified as mulatto or colored

Except for one of my interviewees, the family matriarch, the other remaining

matriarchs appeared white or Native American, short and solid looking women. There were

approximately 200 people at the Crawford Reunion. At Westland Church grounds I observed

the different offspring clustered in areas. My informant pointed out to me that one group of

twelve to fourteen people. She and I walked back to the family dinner house. Then we walked

by an older man and she said to me, I know they are the so and so. She seemed to be able to

tell from the speech patterns. She seemed clear that they were black, but that she had other

mixes too. She and her daughter went to predominantly black prestigious female private

institutions. Even though when she was growing up they moved away from the farm, every

weekend they would load into the car and come back to the Ridge.

Younger woman, who appeared to be in her forties, sat on the front porch next to me

during dinner said she remembered coming back as a young girl on the weekends and she

recalled the taste of soil in her mouth. They had not paved the main road when she was

growing up and by the time they got to the house she had a mouth full of dirt and she didn't like

that and she didn't like visiting there in the country because of that.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For these two women, the memories were kept alive, the tradition of the land was kept alive a

long as the land was there, they could come back to the farm during summers, on the weekends, durii

family reunions, and reinvent themselves through the farm experiences and they no doubt brought

knowledge of the places they have come to claim as home away from the farm. They were able to

come back and visit the sense of place on the land as mixed people, not black or white, but tri-racial;

Melungeon, he said they were considered Melungeon or Guinea. They did intermarry when they wer

from W. Virginia. “As a group you stayed with you own. Especially in the Appalachian, thafs how v

did.”

If there ever was a time when I stepped out of the color zone, it was during this reunion. Thi:

family represents a multitude, a rainbow of ethnicities. Yet, the irony was that the rainbow was creat

out of the need to mix the old with new in order to adapt to the social environment With all the

intermarrying in this family’s past and present, today the young daughters both chose partners who at

white, I wonder how race will continue to be shaped and be lived in the present For another family i

Appalachian, all five of the sons and daughters married white. There is significant interracial marriag

in Ohio rural communities. In some areas, in deep Appalachia, it seems almost uncommon for black

to marry blacks.

Heritage

One farmer who had four to five generations of being the only “colored” says that his

farming is not related to heritage as black because he has been the only one. His farming was

influenced by local knowledge not necessarily black specific. “Since we have been the only

family in the area for several generations, we have begun to farm like the local white farmers.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. We have always lived around white people.” No doubt the speech patterns of this farmer,

conducted on the telephone, reflect an individual who has adapted to the local language and

customs.

Farmers still feel heritage in the church. Thomas was talking to me about the family

church and it losing its population. There are only 12 people attending now and 8 of those are

his family. He said he fears that the church will die away. No one wants to go other than the

family because of the connection with blacks. There is a church but it is not related to their

church. Churches and cemeteries represent a sense of heritage.

Language

I would not repeat the telephone survey portion in the future. The problem with

the telephone survey was that I wanted to see the person and the farm. Moreover, the

language dialect gave me few clues to determine right away if I was speaking with an

African American. Neither the intonation nor the nuances of black speech were present

in many of these farmers. An interesting correlation and one that actually became an

artifact of the research was that those with the most distinct black vernacular were the

ones who practiced the most traditional farming. It was upon later reflection that I began

to notice this pattern. Language patterns may mirror farm strategies in the case of ethnic

minority status.

What became clear, with regard to heritage, ethnicity, and language was that there

was a messiness in trying to describe the bounded black farming experience in Ohio

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Memories are priceless and fragile. Ill-conceived, aggressive introduction of crop varieties and agricultural technologies weather and erode not only the biodiversity on which sustainability in large part depends but also the very fabric of cultural adaptability that allows diversity to flourish (Nazarea 1998:1)

This dissertation explored the idea that farm management strategies may emanate

from concerns around caring for soil. This dissertation examined the cultural continuity

of traditions around fanning. These fanning ways link people to a past body of

knowledge and perspectives, representing culturalization processes. In this research, I

offer an anthropological analysis of African American fanning traditions and beliefs.

Additionally, this study explores the development of farming settlements while

highlighting the centrality of land for farmers marginalized by their race and others’

prejudices. The aim of this research was to shed light on relationships between

agricultural traditions and ecological perspectives. Because of a lack of support from

institutional agencies these farmers, like small scale farmers worldwide, became

casualties of the modem structure of agriculture. Nonetheless, their knowledge survived

the different phases of settlement development and family land inheritance. They

innovated and at the same time they maintained the basic values of communality and

sustainable agriculture.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The survival of ideas around what land signifies, suggests a centrality of

the sense of place of land within cultural, ethnic, and environmental

perspectives. Ideas about what soil, water, crops, animals, organic matter,

material bricolages, and land inheritance patterns represent affect production

strategies of farm operators. Beliefs about land stewardship affect the ways in

which people approach agriculture. What this research revealed was a pattern of

beliefs about soil. No matter where these farmers were located within the state,

and no matter if they were framed within a centralized fanning community at

one point in time or whether they always existed as the only black farmer in a

county, they exhibited similar beliefs about how to steward the land. As well,

the sense of recycling the organic and the inorganic represent patterns of beliefs

about how to reuse materials to recycle their usefulness. Reusing discarded

materials represents innovation, refitting what would appear to be useless into

something useful. These farmers have been directly involved with the production

and protection of biodiversity by virtue of their land use patterns, e.g. recycling

organic matter. These small- scale, traditional, farmers may be an alternative,

indispensable source of cultural capital for promoting sustainable

agroecosystems.

Among these Ohio black farmers, new techniques and new information

sources became incorporated into their practices. However, the essential

perspective which informs their farming strategies is culturally specific in some

ways and in others not Patterns of belief around recycling organic matter, soil

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. management, and biologically diverse mixed fanning systems speak to one type

of traditional approach which can be recognized as rooted in African ways.

However, because many of these farmers were the only black farmers for several

generations, they practiced fanning similar to the majority of white farmers

around them. It is clear as Kroeber (1948) proposes, the essential core of

information rests on a continuum of bi-directional information exchanges and

information flows. It is also clear that these fanners represent banks of valuable

wisdom for improving soil quality. Interestingly, they incorporate modern

equipment and soil testing into their strategies replacing some more traditional

indicators. They use tractors and other modem equipment and have done so

several generations. No longer do they rely only on draft animals. They have

innovated and incorporated the modem use of fossil fueled equipment with their

fanning strategies. They were not stuck in the technological past.

Even though they innovated with farm equipment, they were not able to

compete in the main with other farmers. One could argue that their sustainable

fanning traditions and farming perspectives remained intact because of their

marginalized status. Lacking any capital base and economic supports, these

farmers existed on the edges of the mainstream agriculture. They never “caught

up” in the commodification processes and therefore their developmental

trajectory represents what happens when farming strategies alone cannot

maintain viable operations.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. While their fanning strategies represent sustainable systems, it is clear

that these strategies speak largely to the land owners’ sense of place in the

natural surroundings. Farming perspectives take on a cooperative and

regenerative nature when land is not seen as commodification strictly. Not

viewing land as a commodification, but as a place for building family, income,

and community structures speak to surviving basic values. An essential part of

their farming strategy has been soil management through knowledge passed on

from elders, e.g. grandparents and parents. Although the settlements have

diminished, their soil knowledge is still vibrant and functional. Given the

similarity in paths of development of the early farming towns, and the similarity

in attention to soil management, there is reason to attribute these practices to the

culturalization of specific knowledge around land management Essentially

surviving through the practice of staying on the land, a continuum of experiences

informs their knowledge today.

Knowledge is essentially tied to beliefs and values. As a whole, African

American farmers’ knowledge is rooted in beliefs recognizing environmental

limitations and valuing biological diversity. Even if their knowledge is not part

of a black specific tradition, there exists a sense of pride on the local land.

Moreover, African American farmers have historically been connected to

agricultural land through a sense of place. Therefore, factors such as aesthetics,

community and the sacred, figure prominently in their land use and resource

management strategies. Considerations o f family and community are important

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in their land stewardship. Their generational presence on the land represents an

adaptive strategy. The persistence of this knowledge passed down from elders

about the soil has the trappings of a culturalization process. Knowledge passed

on through the generations, represents the continuum of the past, glue that binds

people to modem land management perspectives. Some members of the family

take up the land and pass it to the next generation.

Because these farmers recycle their organic farm matter, they regenerate the local

soils through the use of organic matter. Most soil scientists feel that organic matter is the

key to promoting the biological diversity, environmental quality and plant and animal

health (Magdoff 1992; Bezdicek et al. 1996). Many African American farmers utilize

ethnoecological knowledge to sustain the biodiversity of their local ecosystems.

Extensive mixed agriculture promotes crop diversity and rooted in the traditional

foodways, provides food and cover. The farmer that leaves wheat stalks on the field as

cover for the soil strengthens the soil and provides healthy zones for vegetation and

wildlife in and around the farming communities.

Among small farmers, it is seen as debasing to harm the soils (Nettings 1993).

Moreover, a diversity of crops keeps the entire household unit involved in farming

(Netting 1993). Smallholders carry out sustainable farming operations while producing

greater yields than larger scale conventional farmers (Netting 1993). Smallholders on

small plots of land, employ various natural strategies to their fanning (Netting 1993).

Tenants do not work as hard as those with land owning rights (Netting 1993). They have

highly sustainable production farms because they have permanent rights to the land.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Since the farmers own the land and pass it down to their children, they steward the land

over the long term and regard their stewardship as part o f the legacy of the family’s roots

in that particular plot of land (Netting 1993).

Similarly, this study data suggest that black farmers use manure fertilization, crop

rotation, crop diversity, and soil management to produce high yields and to maintain land

that will be passed down. The farmer who told me that he and his brother used to win the

state ribbons for largest tomatoes and other vegetables only used combinations of

livestock manures. The size of their tomatoes and other products exemplify the size of

products yielded from organic fertilizer. These farmers not only plant with organic

products, they strongly feel that there are particular times to plant Also, these farmers

have informed me that you cannot plant when the ground is too wet. These data reflect a

people with a cultural tradition tied to care of the soil. Soil has meaning for its intrinsic

value and land is not viewed as a commodity to be traded. Similar to the smallholders in

Nigeria, land that is owned is passed down and stewarded in particular ways. The people

of these early Ohio African American settlements expressed their environmental values

through their relationship with the land and the community. Land represented something

to maintain, dignify, and steward in regenerative ways. Considerations of family and

community became important in their practices and stewardship. If this land is to be

handed down and valued as a vehicle for independence, care had to be taken with it

Zabawa's (1991) research involving a longitudinal study with African-

American farmers from South-Central Alabama, suggests the existence of a

strong relationship between agriculture and land ownership. He finds that land

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ownership is of critical importance if Blacks are to remain viable in agriculture.

Lack of access to land has been a key reason for the "economic

underdevelopment" of African American farmers (Zabawa 1991:66). Land

owners descending from the first generation of Southern landowners enjoyed a

stability and longevity of residence (Zabawa 1991). Loss of land included the

loss of independence and lack of self-sufficiency and participation in social,

political, and economic arenas (Zabawa, 1991).

Not only does the decline impact the individual farming family but when African-

American farmers lose their land in most cases the surrounding communities or

settlements vanish as well. Albeit a small scale farm operation, black farmers contribute

profoundly to thriving and vibrant African-American communities. The community

churches and schools were the bedrock of collective memory for people who cherished

stability and a place to call home. Historically agriculture has been a primary industry of

rural America. With the decline in number of farmers, the agricultural linkage to the

general economy has changed (Brown et. al. 1994). With the decline and almost

disappearance of black farm owners and operators, a valuable resource is missing from

the rural community.

Moreover, as long as 1 and was accessible, information could be transferred to the

next generation of land stewards. These farmers did not see themselves as commercial

farmers fixed to the profit margin. These operators see farming as a way of life.

Intergenerational farming knowledge and perspectives stayed the course of time and

crossed spatial and temporal boundaries. Farming was tied to a sense of survival. From

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the beginning until now, those who have kept the tradition, love the land as the core of

the community and family.

While the preponderance of these data indicate lack of surviving all black

community structures, e.g. churches, schools, aid societies, etc, the knowledge base

related to food production remain encoded in farming traditions and beliefs. Now, these

farmers attend mixed churches. These particular farming strategies suggest not

necessarily a monolithic or homogenous group all farming the same way, but represent a

persistent body of information which has survived and coexists along side modernity.

Netting (1993) uncovered much evidence to support the wisdom, efficiency of

systems, and indispensability of local smallholders in Nigeria. Other farmers have

utilized crop rotation, Japanese, German, Amish, African, Brazilian, Mexican, and Native

Indians (Altieri 1987: Moles 1989; Andah 1993; Pena 1999; Hunn 2001). Culture is tied

up in the land. The traditions are rooted in the land. As long as they could keep the land,

they could pass on the traditions, even as traditions changed through time. However, the

basic concepts were tied to a sense of place on the land. What is evident is that if these

Black farmers are no longer on the land those traditions will fade away. Undoubtedly the

basic values will remain as Westmacott’s (1992) study finds that even those who no

longer farm, still garden in an ecology based manner.

The particular ecology based perspective was of interest to this research.

Therefore, this study did not investigate market processes or any of the classical “stages

of modemization,, or rural industrialization development issues. An unfortunate

shortcoming of this study is that it does not explore the myriad of politicized issues

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. related to black land loss, a theme commonly echoed in the interviews. However, I plan

to explore some of those political issues in later research. Nonetheless, this study speaks

to the general development of black farming communities in Ohio, the agricultural

knowledge and perspectives carried forward from generations, aspects of that knowledge

related to Africanisms, the mechanisms by which these knowledge and traditions were

carried forward, and the centrality of land as a resource for community stabilization and

development.

The pathway to settlement development for black farming communities was

fueled by practical considerations for survival and subsistence. The farming strategies

and knowledge were only as useful as the access to land allowed. Underlying historical

processes including the institutional and social disparities did not allow for the total self-

sufficiency of these early communities. However, for almost sixty years many all black

farming and nonfarming settlements in Ohio provided the population base to support

large areas of African American agriculturalists.

Conglomerations of economic, political, social, and environmental delimiters

comprise the total environment in which African American farmers have had to operate.

Historically African American farmers in Ohio have never had the benefit of set aside

programs for land distribution. Moreover, once they battled to acquire farmland, the

battle was just as hard to keep the land they attained.

In spite of the hardships and unfair treatment from those in their local areas, they

always shared with others and felt a responsibility to provide healthy food to their

families and community. These farmers have gained wisdom and knowledge through the

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. various life experiences and were the most generous and compassionate people I have

ever met I marveled, during the post-interview reflection stage, at how generous these

African American farmers have been in spite of the treatment they endured.

Sustainable Agriculture Values

Sustainable agriculture values are stewardship of the land, communal versus

individual perspective, social democracy, tradition, a sense of place, knowledge to

maintain, and efficient utilization of labor. We must safeguard the knowledge keepers

and the biological heritage as well. When people are on the land, they preserve the past,

albeit as part of the modem, in ways that can only be done while living on the land.

An agroecological perspective suggests a need to mix the modem with the

traditional and to practice agriculture within local ecological limitations. This research

discussed why genetic diversity is important, and why tradition and land reflect the ways

in which people utilize culture to adapt to a changing landscape. Tradition is way of

maintaining the knowledge base and making it available for those in the future. As much

as tradition is a fluid concept it allows for the survival of the past The land has to be

available as a resource. The basic values and beliefs are there because of the farmland. If

the land is no longer available the agroecological and ethnoecological relationships will

diminish for lack of material and symbolic contexts and constitutive agents.

Recommendations

Volumes of literature exist about the deleterious effects of modem farming.

Ironically, with the growing body of knowledge and the accompanying awareness of the

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. problem, there does not seem to be a public response from those involved in agriculture

industry or citizens in general. What appears to be the trend is further hybridization of

monocultures of crops, species, and worsening of the water, air, and soil quality due to

current large scale food production systems. The ideological framework in which modem

farming is based assures a short term, nonenvironmentally sustainable approach.

A move toward a sustainable agriculture will involve shifting the dominant goals

from industrial productivity to recognizing the importance of small farmers and cultural

diversity (Soule and Piper 1992; Prugh et al. 1995: Nazarea 1998). The biological

problems of agriculture cannot be separated from the socioeconomic problems of

inadequate credit, technology, education, and political support (Altieri 1987). Altieri

(1987) contends that social complications, rather than technical ones are likely to be the

major barriers to sustainable agriculture (Altieri 1987). Moreover, given the

environmental complexity of each farming system, sustainable agriculture must be site-

specific (Altieri 1987:198). These farmers operate small-scale farms and promote the

"natural capital" of local ecosystems through their recycling of organic matter and crop

rotations. These farmers have been directly involved with the production and protection

of biodiversity by virtue of their land use patterns.

Food production is profitable but farmers receive little of this profit (USDA

1998). The gap between what farmers receive and what consumers pay for food is

widening (Agriculture Fact Book 1997). In 1980, farmers received 37 cents of every

consumer dollar spent on food (USDA Report 1998). Today, they receive only 23 cents

(Agriculture Fact Book 1997). Monopolistic agriculture allows major

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. processors/retailers to increase this price spread; this bankrupts independent fanners

while allowing agribusiness to buy small farms, monopolize agricultural production, and

eliminate competition (Vogeler 1981; Peterson 1997). The food sector of the US

economy is second only to the pharmaceutical in terms of return on investment

(Hefifeman 1997).

More importantly, modem business agriculture results in loss of

biological diversity (Magdoff 1992; Norgaard 1987; Altieri 1987; Prugh et al.

1995). This is because of reliance upon genetically uniform crops and livestock.

In general, modem agriculture, particularly mega-farming is antagonistic to the

natural environment Modem, mega-agriculture destroys the natural capital and

genetic diversity upon which human evolved (Prugh et al. 1999). Diversity

among farmers means diversity of cropping systems, culture, traditions, and

landowners (Nazarea 1999; Hunn 1999; Pena 1999). If cultural variability is

missing, knowledge systems and information about adaptation are lost (Nazarea

1998; Hunn 1999: Pena 1999).

Can black farmers impact the problem of agriculture? African American

farming practices representcultural capital, a type of knowledge about the local

ecology. These farmers, generally small-scale operators, promote the "natural

capital” of local ecosystems through their recycling of organic matter,

intercropping, and keeping idle land. Moreover, African American farmers have

historically been connected to agricultural land through a sense of place.

Therefore, factors such as family, community affiliations, aesthetics, and religion

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. figure prominently in their land use and resource management strategies. Their

generational presence represents an adaptive strategy without relying upon

expensive additives. Manure fertilizer, crop rotation and intercropping are

answers to becoming independent without heavy reliance upon expensive

fertilizers. Indigenous farmers have developed techniques to improve and

sustain soil fertility by intercropping (Altieri 1987). The techniques have been

practiced for generations by African American farmers. If farmers are utilizing

local knowledge derived from years of practice, this unique environmental

knowledge, based upon the particular specific perspective of the population,

enhances food procurement systems and environment (Altieri 1995). Local

people's knowledge and perspectives are indispensable for the local ecology

(Conklin's 1954; Netting 1993). The ethnoecology of the African American

fanners illustrates cultural capital and indispensable for sustainable

communities.

Methods

Structured telephone interviews were a disappointment. They were not as

rewarding as the in-depth interviews for several reasons. First, I could not observe the

interviewee and needed the nonverbal nuances and other nonverbal clues. Although I did

record plenty of contextual data to aid in the interpretation of the structured data,

something was missing. I wanted to see the farms that they were talking about. Second,

in the several cases when I could not distinguish the voice or dialect as being African

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. American, I wanted to see how the person looked. Also, some of the interviewees would

rather I be doing a study about the problems the black farmers were having keeping their

farming business. Two men told me that they were disappointed that this was not a study

about the political problems that farmers have been having. I apologized and stressed

that ultimately this will help the political problems of farmers but from a different

perspective. I do not believe they appreciated that answer. In the future I would not

recommend telephone surveys for black farmers.

Giving Back

In 2001,1 organized the first statewide conference for Ohio’s black farmers. As I

mentioned in the methods section, I felt compelled to give something back. In keeping

with Kottak’s rebuke to anthropologists not to be neutral scientists standing on the

sidelines while people suffer, I organized the conference as a way to bridge some of the

gaps and create dialogues to discuss saving the remaining black farmers in Ohio. April

21,2001, at the Stratford Ecological Center in Delaware, Ohio, twenty five farmers from

around the state and over eighty people from agencies, institutions, organizations,

students, and interested citizens dialogued for one day about saving Ohio’s African

American farmers.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX A INTRODUCTORY LETTER

July 22, 2000

Dear Ohio Farm Operator My name is Gail P. Myers. I am a doctoral candidate in the department of Anthropology at The Ohio State University. I am currently working on my dissertation research project entitled: The Sustainable Farming Beliefs and Practices Among African American Farmers in Ohio. I would like to have your input in my study. At your convenience, I would like to conduct a telephone interview with you. Please call me at 1-800-484-6982 and then enter 8009. If I am not available when you call, feel free to leave a message on my answering machine and I will call you back. If you would be interested in participating in the project, I would be able to compensate you $20 for your time. I am working from a Minority Farmer's list and realize that you may not fall under the particular minority group in which I am trying to contact. If you have received this letter by mistake, I do apologize. However, if you are an African American farmer or if you know an African American farmer, I would truly appreciate your assistance with my dissertation research. I look forward to your call. Thank you in advance for your help.

Yours truly,

Gail P. Myers, ABD

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX B TELEPHONE INTERVIEW SCRIPT

Telephone Interviews:

Mr. or Mrs.______

My name is Gail Myers.

I am a doctoral candidate at Ohio State University. For my dissertation I am documenting the local environmental knowledge of African- American farmers in Ohio.

You are in no way obligated to participate but I would like interview you for my dissertation study.

The project is entitled: The Sustainable Farming Beliefs and Practices Among African American Farmers in Ohio

There are two parts of the study. First I am going to interview the black farmers in Washington county and I have also developed a questionnaire to conduct on the telephone with farmers outside of Washington county.

I believe that Black farmers have made great contributions someone needs to ask them about their experiences on the farm. The information you provide will be completely confidential.

If you would like to participate in the project, I would be able to provide a $20.00 compensation for your time. I expect the telephone interview will take between fifteen minutes and one hour.

Do you have any questions for me? Would you have time to complete the telephone survey now, would you prefer me to call you later, or mail you a questionnaire to complete and return to me?

Let me read the consent form to you and we can begin the interview.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX C CONSENT FOR PARTICIPATION IN RESEARCH PROJECT

I consent to participating in the project entitled:

The Sustainable Farming Beliefs andPractices Among African-American Farmers in Ohio

Ms. Gail P. Myers has explained the purpose of the study, the procedures to be followed, and the expected duration of my participation.

I acknowledge that I have had the opportunity to obtain additional information regarding the study and that any questions raised have been answered to my frill satisfaction.

Furthermore, I understand that I am free to withdraw consent at any time and to discontinue participation in the study without prejudice to me.

Finally, I acknowledge that I have read and frilly understand the consent form. I sign it freely and voluntarily. A copy has been given to me.

Date: ______Signed:______(Participant)

Signed:______(Gail P. Myers)

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX D BLACK FARMER QUESTIONNAIRE

Survey Number_

I'd like to start by asking some background questions about you.

D1. How many years have you been a farm operator? a) 1-5 b) 6-10 c)l 1-25 d)30+

D2. What generation of farmer are you? a. first b. 2nd c. 3rd d. 4th+ e. skip D3. In what county do you farm? ______D4. What is the size of your farm? a. 1-50 b.50-100 c. 100-200 d.200+ D5. Do you work on your farm: a. full-time 40 hours per week and more b. three-quarter-time 30 hours per week or less c. part-time 20 hours per week or less d. less than 10 hours per week or less e. not at all

D6. Where or from whom did you get your knowledge about how to operate a farm? a. grew up on the farm b. school courses c. elders who grew up on the farm d. siblings who are knowledgeable about farming e. extension agents f. Other

Next, I'd like to ask you questions about your farming patterns, please answer agree or disagree

PI. I plant at least three different crops in the same field? A D P2. I plant more than four different crops annually? A D P3. I practice crop rotation. A D P4. Most of the products are for market distribution. A D P5. We share or give away our vegetables. A D P6. We raise livestock? A D P7. Livestock provides fertilizer for our soil and crops. A D P8. Nature is the best fertilizer. A D

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with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PI 1. If agree, give one example:

Now, I would like to ask you some questions about your Irrigation Practices and knowledge of the local environment

IP1. Well water is my main source of water for irrigation. A D IP2. The local or regional watershed provides the main A D water source for my farm. IP3. I am interested in finding out more about issues affecting the watershed in my area. A D IP4. Lack of access to irrigation is a problem for me. A D IP5. I don't worry much about irrigation for my farm because I have my own system for getting water. A D

Those were the irrigation questions, now for the local environment questions. I would like you to answer, strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree.

LK1 I often gather plants and herbs from the local forest SA A D SD environment LK2 I can identify several native species of plants and animals from the forest that are used routinely for cooking or other materials. SA A D SD LK3. I can identify several native species of plants and animals from the area that are not consumed. SA A D SD LK4. Soil quality can be known from smell of the soil. SA A D SD LK5. I can tell the soil quality by the color of the soil. SA A D SD LK6. Over the last few years, the condition of the soil SA A D SD around the farm has gotten worse. LK7. Over the last few years, the condition of the soil SA A D SD around the farm has improved or stayed the same. LK8. My elders gave me information about how to SA A D SD recycle the soil on the farm. Example:

LK9. My elders gave me information about how to manage pests on the farm. SA A D SD LK10. I don't have a pest problem on my farm. SA A D SD

LK11. I generally use store purchased products to SA A D SD manage pests on the farm. LK12. I see my forming practices as being related to my SA A D SD heritage as an African American farmer.

2 2 0

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LK13. I mostly plant by the signs. SA A D SD [by the moon, seasons changing, etc.] LK14. There are certain crops that are not suitable SA A D SD for some types of soil. For example, ______

Now I have a few questions about activities you may be involved in agriculture. Please answer yes or no to these questions.

At any time during 2000,1999, or 1998 did you grow______any? DV1. Fruit, nut, or citrus trees Y N DV2. Vegetables, field crops, com Y N DV3. Grains, oil seeds Y N DV4. Dry beans, rice, or potatoes Y N DV5. Tobacco or hay Y N DV6. Grapevines Y N

At any time during 2000,1999, or 1998 did you raise or keep these livestocks? DV7. Horses, pomes, other equine Y N DV8. Fish in captivity Y N DV9. Chickens or other poultry Y N DV10. Rabbits Y N DV11. Bees for honey Y N DV12. Cattle, hogs, sheep or goats Y N DV14. Other livestock Y N

During 2000,1999, or 1998 did you grow or raise crops, livestock, poultry, or their products that were sold directly to individual customers through? Ml. Roadside stands Y N M2. Farmer's markets Y N M3. Pick your own Y N M4. Sales at your door Y N M5. Door-to-door Y N M6. Other,______During 2000,1999, or 1998 did you grow or raise crops, livestock, poultry, or their products that were sold to_____

M7. Contractors or Distributors YN M8. Farmer-owned Cooperatives Y N M9. Slaughterhouses, Canning, packing, or processing plants YN M10. Federal or state programs Y N M il. Other Y N

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Next, I'd like to ask you some questions about your experiences with extension offices. You many answer strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree or don't know. El. I have worked with extension offices in my area. SA A D SD DK E2. When I called extension for assistance my questions were answered to my satisfaction. SA A D SD DK E3. White extension agents provide the same service and attention to black farmers as they do for white farmers. SA A D SD DK E4. I prefer to work with black extension agents. SA A D SD DK E5. Extension agents keep me up to date with information about the latest technology in farming. SA A D SD DK E6. In general I am satisfied with the extension office in my area. SA A D SD DK

I'd like to ask you a little about your access to financial resources. For these questions would you answer strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree or don't know.

FI. Black farm operators have good financial resources to succeed in the farming business. SA A D SD DK

F2. White farm operators have good financial resources to succeed in the farming business SA A D SD DK

F3. I believe if I had to apply for loans to improve my farming business I would be approved by banks? SA A D SD DK

F4. If you got down in a financial crunch, you WOULD seek assistance from another black farmer first? SA A D SD DK

F5. If you got down in a financial crunch, you WOULD seek assistance from one or two white farmers first? SA A D SD DK

F6. If you got down in a financial crunch, you WOULD seek assistance from a black farm cooperative? SA A D SD DK

F7. The farmers cooperative approach is the best approach for black farmers to succeed in business SA A D SD DK

For these last few questions would you answer with agree or disagree F8. I am a member of a farmers' cooperative? A D

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. F9. I am a member of another farmer organizations? A D F10. What is the name of the organization?______FI 1. I have been approved for bank loans to purchase farm equipment A D F12. I have been approved for bank loans to make improvements on the farm. A D F13. I received payments in 1999 or 1998 for participation in a Federal farm program? For example, Disaster programs, soil conservation programs, Conservation Reserve Programs, Wetlands Reserve Programs A D

That's all the questions I have for you. Thank yon for taking the time to answer my questions about your farming business. Do you have any questions for me. Is there anything else you would like to add that I didn't ask about during the survey. If I have any other questions would it be okay for me to get back in touch with you? Thanks again Age: Gender:

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX E QUANTITATIVE CODEBOOK

D - Demographic D1 No. Yrs. Farming 1) 1-4 2) 5-8 3)9-12 4)15-25 5)25+

D2 Generation of Fanner l)lst 2) 2nd 3)3rd 4) 4th 5)skip

D3 County Coded by number

D4 Farm Size 1)1-50 2)50-100 3) 100-200 4)200-400 5) 400+

D5 Hrs. on Farm 1) FT 40 + 2) PT 25 + 3 )less 10 4) not al all

D6 Where Knowledge about farm 1)grew up farm 2)school courses 3)elders who grew up on farm 4) siblings grew up on farm 5)extension 6)other 1. used to help on a farm

D7 - Gender 1)M 2) F D8 Age 1)30-40 2)40-50 3)50-60 4)60-70 5)70-80 6)80-90 7)90-100 224

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. P- Agricultural Practices PI plant three crops ) agree (2) disagree P2 plant four crops ) agree (2) disagree P3 practice crop rotation ) agree (2) disagree P4 prod, ffmarket ) agree (2) disagree P5 give away to neigbors ) agree (2) disagree P6 raise livestock ) agree (2) disagree P7 livestock fertile soil ) agree (2) disagree P8 nature fertile ) agree (2) disagree P9 compost ) agree (2) disagree P10 recycle nat res. ) agree (2) disagree P ll If agree 1. nitrog fertili 5. soy-hay 2. recycling 6. lime 3. manure 7. compost f/garden 4. rots IP - Irrigation Practices IP I well water main source 1) agree (2) disagree IP2 watershed source 1) agree (2) disagree IP3 interest in watershed issue I) agree (2) disagree IP4 lack access a problem 1) agree (2) disagree IP5 have own system 1) agree (2) disagree

LK Local Knowledge LK1 gather plants from local forest 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK2 identify plants & use f/cook 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK3 identify plants not consumedI) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK4 soil known fr/smell I) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK5 soil known fr/color 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK6 soil gotten worse 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK7 soil improv or same 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK8 elders info recycle soil 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK9 elders info about pest 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK10 no pest problem 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK11 purch prod, f/pests 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK12 farmng rel. heritage 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK13 plant by signs 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag LK14 crops not suit f/soil 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag

DV - Biological Diversity DV1 fruit, nut, citr tree l)yes 2) no DV2 veg, field crop, com l)yes 2) no DV3 grain, oil seeds l)yes 2) no

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DV4 bean, rice, potat I) yes 2) no DV5 tobac, hay 1) yes 2) no DV6 grapevines 1) yes 2) no DV7 horse, equine l)yes 2) no DV8 fish captivity 1) yes 2) no DV9 chicken, poult 1) yes 2) no DV10 rabbits l)yes 2) no DV11 bees 1) yes 2) no DV12 cattle, hog, goat 1) yes 2) no DV13 other livestck 1) yes 2) no 1. emu 2. wild deer

M Markets & Products sold directlvto Ml roadside stands 1) yes 2) no M2 farmer's markets I) yes 2) no M3 pick your own 1) yes 2) no M4 sales at your door 1) yes 2) no M5 door to door 1) yes 2) no M6other 1) yes 2) no M7 contrctor or distrib I) yes 2) no M8 farm-own cooperat 1) yes 2) no M9 slaugthse, can, pack, plants 1) yes 2) no M10 fed or stat progr 1) yes 2) no M il other 1) yes 2) no E- Extension experiences El worked w/exten in my area 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw E2 quest answer satsifact 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw E3 whit extnt same bl & wh 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw E4 prefer work w/blk exten I) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw E5 ext up date infor 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw E6 satisfied w/ ext off. 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw

F Finances FI Bl farm good financ resour 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw F2 wh farm good financ resour 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw F3 if need approve for loan 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw F4 seek assist bl farmer 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw F5 seek assist wh farmer 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw F6 seek assist bl coopera 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw F7 farm coopera best approach 1) strg agr (2) agr 3) disagr 4)strg disag 5) dn't knw F8 member of farm cooperat 1) agree 2) disagree F9 member farm organiza 1) agree 2) disagree F10 name of organiza 1) organic 2) farm bureau

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FI 1 approv fTloan equipm 1) agree 2)disagree FI 2 approv fTIoan improv farm 1) agree 2)disagree 3)dontknow FI3 recvd paymnts in 99-98, federal farm program 1) agree 2) disagree

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX F QUALITATIVE CODEBOOK

(1) Adaptations (ADAPTATN) (2) Africanism (AFRICNSM) (2 1) Guinea fowl (2 2) Swept yard (3) Barriers to farming (BARRFARM) (3 1) Race (3 2) Education (3 3) Cost (3 4) Violence (3 5) Structure of agriculture (3 6) USDA (3 7) Bank financing (3 8) Information access (3 9) Lack of resources (3 10) Distribution markers (3 11) Hard work (3 12) Cheat out of land (3 13) Poor (3 14) Sharecropping (3 15) Poor land (4) Local Biodiversity (LOCLDVTY) (4 1) Wild fauna (4 2) Wild flora (4 3) Trees (4 4) Birds (4 5) Lack of (4 6) Herbal plants (4 7) Knowledge of (4 8) Lack of knowledge of (4 9) Diminishing (5) Farm buildings (FARMBLDS) (5 1) Bam (5 2) Com crib (5 3) Garage (5 4) Silo (6) Changes (CHANGES) (6 1) Rural suburbia

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (6 5) Nature

(7) Church (CHURCH) (7 1) and school (7 2) Resistance (7 3) Lack of interest (7 4) Family church (7 5) Women’s role (7 6) Building (8)Community Aid Organizations (CMAIDORG) (8 1) Farmers Aid (8 2) Women organization (8 3) Historical (8 4) Catholics (8 5) Other fanners (9) Context Factors (CNXTFCT) (9 I) Local History (911) Washington County (9 1 1 1) Baxters (pseudonym) (9 112) Martins (pseudonym) (9 2) UGRR (9 3) Oil Wells (OILWELL) (9 4) Slavery (SLAVERY) (9 5) Northern migration (NRTHMIGR) (9 6) Racism violence (RACEVIOL) (10) Crop Diversity (CRPDVTY) (10 1) Lack of (10 2) and poultry (11) Decision making (DECISMAK) (11 I) Male (11 2) Female (113) Family (12) Demographics (DEMOGR) (12 1) Generation of farmer (12 2) Size of farm (12 3) Type of farm (12 4) Age of farmer (12 5) Gender of farmer (12 6) Years on farm (12 7) Birthplace (12 8) Blacks who own farms (12 9) Father occupation (12 10) Occupation (13) Education (EDUCATN)

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (13 1) Need of (13 2) Desire for (13 3) Importance of

(14) Role of the elderly (ROLELDER) (14 1) Leader (14 2) Low visibility (14 3) High visibility (15) Farm Equipment (FARMEQUP) (15 1) Loans for (15 2) Lack of (16) Foodways (FOODWAYS) (16 1) Gathering (16 1 1) Hunting (16 2) Food sharing (16 2 1) Family (16 3) Farmers market (16 4) Private Sales (17) Gardens and Yards (GARDYARD) (17 1) Has a garden (17 2) No garden (17 3) Yard art (17 4) Welcome guests (18) Heritage (HERITAG) (18 1) Farming practices (18 1 1) Not related (18 1 2) the only blacks (18 2) Lack of recognition (18 3) Tied to 1 and (18 4) Only blacks (19) Interracial relations (INTRRACE) (19 1) Marriage (19 2) Conflicts (19 3) Harmony (19 4) Organizations (19 5) Phenotypic differences (19 6) Triracial descent (19 7) Laws forbidding (19 8) Passing (19 9) Spanish fanners (19 10) Amish farmers (20) Irrigations (IRRIGATE) (21) Knowledge (KNOWLEDG) (21 1) Local knowledge plants

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (21 2) Local general (21 2 1) Livestock (21 3) Elder male (21 4) Elder female (21 5) son knowledge (21 6) daughter knowledge (21 7) From library (21 8) From neighbor (21 9) Importance of (21 10) Herbal cures (21 11) From agriculture classes (21 12) Grew up on farm (21 13) Elders (21 14) Helping out on the farm (21 15) Midwifery (21 16) Basket making (22) Access to land (ACCSLAND) (22 1) Blacks sell land (22 I 1) to family (22 2) Whites sell land (22 3) Land inherited (22 4) Lack of (22 5) Land passed down (22 6) Family land (22 7) Land and God (22 8) Love the land (22 9) Importance of (22 10) Blacks lose land (22 11) Blacks acquire land (22 11 1) Civil War (22 12) Generational pressure to keep (22 13) Land grant (22 14) Africa (22 15) Donate land (22 16) Defend land (23) Language (LANGUAG) (23 1) Whites sounding Black (23 2) Blacks sounding white (23 3) Language and Family ways (23 4) Taboo words (24) Off-farm work (OFFARMWK) (24 1) Men (24 2) Women (24 3)Effects of WWn

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (24 4) Wages (25) Agricultural practices (AGRIPRAC) (25 1) Intercropping (25 11) Strip fanning (25 2) Transplanting (25 3) Ridge tillage (25 4) Crop rotation (25 5) Natural rhythms (25 6) Chemical use (25 7) Polycultures (25 8) Orchards (25 9) Poultry (25 9 1) Taste (25 10) Africanisms (25 11) Livestock (25 12) Seeds (25 13) Farming hard work (25 14) Beliefs (25 15) Manure (25 16) Fences (25 17) Black farming white (25 18) Distribution markets (25 19) Plowing (25 19 1) Not good (25 20) Food taste (25 21) Farm attire (26) Pest management (PESTMGMT) (26 1) No pest problem (26 2) Problem (26 3) Crop loss (27) Recycle local resources (RECYLOCL) (27 I) Water (27 2) Soil (27 3) Animal waste for soil and crops (27 4) Plants for animals (27 5) Animal waste for other animals (27 6) Material goods (28) Soil (SOIL) (28 1) Health (28 2) Knowledge (28 3) Care for (28 4) Replenish (28 5) Deplete (28 6) Taste

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (28 7) Nitrogen (29) Traditions (TRADITEN) (29 1) Black fanning (29 2) White fanning (29 3) Planting by signs (29 4) Family (29 4 l)reunion (29 5) Community (29 6) Festivals (29 7) Cemetery (29 8) Friends bond important (29 9) Farmers (29 10) Land (29 1 l)Schoolhouse (29 12) Community leaders (29 13) Natural rhythms (30) Perceptions of USDA (PRCPUSDA) (30 1) Neutral (30 2) Positive (30 3) Negative (30 3 1) lack of response to loans (30 4) Extension agents (30 4 1) positive (30 4 2) negative (30 5) Natural Resource Conservation Services (31) Women (WOMEN) (311) Build fences (31 2) Bale hay (31 3) Drive tractor (31 4) Housework (31 5) Women do it all (31 6) Views about women (31 7) Change of life (31 8) Teen girl (31 9) Gardening (31 10) Midwifery (32) Farm labor (FARMLABR) (32 1) Family labor (32 2) Hired labor (32 3) Housework (33) Housing (HOUSING) (33 1) Condition (33 2) Arson (33 4) Location on land

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (34) Names (NAMES) (34 1) Surnames (34 2) Changes (34 3) First names (35) Reasons people farm (REAPEOFM) (35 1) Peaceful (35 2) Animals (36) Health problems (HLTHPROB) (36 1) Occupational hazard (37) Quality of life (QUALLIFE) (37 1) Long livers (38) Kinship (KINSHIP) (38 1) Extended family (38 2) Speak of love (38 3) Importance of (39) Sense of Community (SENSCOMM) (40) Ethnicity (ETHNICIT) (41) Researcher emotions (RSCHEMOT) (42) Settlement patterns (SETTPATT) (43) Take naps (TAKENAP) (44) Environmental hazards (ENVIPROB)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.