Black Placemaking under Environmental Stressors Dryland Farming in the Arid Black Pacifi c, 1890–1930

Abstract

Dry farming, or techniques of cultivating crops in regions with domineering dry seasons, was central to Black agricultural life across the Black diaspora, but especially in the Black Pacifi c. Ecologically, the Black diaspora transformed semi-arid ecosystems in both the Atlantic and Pacifi c. However, there is a dearth of Black narratives that draw on the ecological and botanical relationships held with the land. Th rough a collaborative botanical and historical approach that blends historical ecology and botany, we evaluate how Black placemaking occurred despite arid climatic stressors and as a result of ecological and cultural knowledge systems. Highlighting Black agricultural life in Costa Chica, Mexico and Blackdom, New Mexico, we argue that people and plants made cimarronaje (or collective and situated Black placemaking) possible in the Western coasts and deserts of Mexico and New Mexico through botanical knowledge systems of retaining water and cultivating a life in water-scarce environments