Underground and at Sea: Oysters and Black Marine Entanglements in New York’s Zone-A

Abstract

This article offers a pre-history of New York’s Zone-A (flood zone) through analysis of 19th Century Black mariners and their relations with aquatic life. Before European colonisation, New York was one of the most oyster-rich habitats in the world, but reefs were exhausted in just two centuries of settlement. A focus on Black life in the marine trades highlights the ways in which Black work at sea was mediated by desires for freedom on land. This article considers how marine entanglements have assisted Black fugitivity, liberation and community empowerment in 19th Century waterfront communities, but also how the extractive relation to life in the aquapelago ultimately exploited both human and non-human life, reflecting inter-species interdependencies, endangerment and habitat loss under colonial capitalist policies in Zone-A. Considering the intersection of environmental and social justice, this paper models the importance of historicising the liminal space between land and sea, for advancing ideas about race, nature and value in plans for ‘resilience’ in New York’s Zone-A.