Black contribution to American botany, horticulture deeply rooted
The first Black Botany Week was hosted by the Botanical Society of America last week. Though still in its infancy, the initiative took aim at the lack of African American representation in botany and horticulture. By inviting people to share their stories, experiences and careers, the online movement aimed to inspire this generation and the next. African Americans have been cultivating and growing as a form of rebellion for hundreds of years — a tradition that is alive and well today.
Enslaved people carried seeds, cuttings and knowledge to the New World and somehow, despite a full day of backbreaking labor, found time to cultivate their own gardens on the plantations where they were held. At Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Memorandum Books recorded 60 years of accounting. In them are hundreds of instances of the Jefferson household’s purchases of garden produce from the plantation’s enslaved people. The same is true of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. The ledger entries provide a window into times when gardening and cultivation were one of the few means of autonomy and income generation available to slaves. The purchases of offseason vegetables, supported by archaeological excavations, also prove that African Americans had a vast network of root cellars with effective cold storage. Historical varieties of African American herbs and vegetables are now available in curated collections by seed companies such as D. Landreth and True Love Seeds, if you want to try your hand at culinary history. (bit.ly/seedsafric andiaspora)
Understandably, the sting of forced labor and later oppressive practices of sharecropping (and discriminatory USDA loans) caused a mass exodus of African Americans from the farm. In Virginia, of the 44,000 farmers in the commonwealth, only 1,800 are African American. The National Black Farmers Association works hard to recruit the next generation of farmers by providing scholarships for agriculture, and there has been a nationwide surge in urban farming initiatives. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly 15% of the world’s food is grown in an urban setting, providing food for 700 million city dwellers. Urban farming has taken root in Hampton Roads and throughout the U.S. as a means to address food insecurity and food deserts.
Dianne D. Glave explores the development of distinct African American styles of agriculture and horticulture in a Journal of Environmental History article, “A Garden So Brilliant with Color, So Original in Its Design.” Glave explains, “African American women were the creative sources of gardening in their communities from slavery to the early 20th century. By using yards in different ways, women took possession of them. They manipulated and interpreted the spaces for sustenance, comfort, joy, and sometimes profit.”
Swept yards, work areas and vegetable gardens inhabited fluid areas around the house. Ornamentals were chosen for easy propagation or selfseeding properties, and many plants were gifted by friends or family. Transplanting desirable plants, such as wild roses, azaleas, dogwoods and native flowers from nearby woodlands, was common practice. African American gardens more often mimicked nature, rejecting Euro-American control.
Like Edmond Albius and his vanilla vine, George Washington Carver’s crop rotation and Marie Clark Taylor’s studies on light, African Americans have made significant contributions to botany, agriculture and horticulture throughout enslavement and following segregation and discrimination. With clear intentions, the history of Black contributions and their modern-day participation in the plant sciences will continue to have time in the sun.
In Full Bloom is a weekly feature from Allissa Bunner that focuses on sustainable gardening, environmental stewardship and related community news and initiatives. Bunner can be reached at acbinfullbloom@gmail.com.