. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. steer by the compass or by any ; Nowhere was the magnitude of African-American influence on mari- time life greater than among the vast sounds and estuaries that stretch 100 miles from the Outer Banks into the interior of North Carolina. Between 1800 and 1860, blacks composed about 45 percent of the total popula- tion in the 19 tidewater counties. Their importance in boating and shipping surfaces again and again in newspa- pers, plantation ledgers, personal diaries, court records and travel ac- c
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. steer by the compass or by any ; Nowhere was the magnitude of African-American influence on mari- time life greater than among the vast sounds and estuaries that stretch 100 miles from the Outer Banks into the interior of North Carolina. Between 1800 and 1860, blacks composed about 45 percent of the total popula- tion in the 19 tidewater counties. Their importance in boating and shipping surfaces again and again in newspa- pers, plantation ledgers, personal diaries, court records and travel ac- counts of the day. By drawing on those sources, we can see how fugitive slaves and their collaborators, at sea and ashore, created an oceangoing route to freedom on the North Caro- lina coast. Charting this clandestine corridor up the Eastern Seaboard also reveals a broader layer of tidewater culture long concealed by popular images of magnificent and tranquil plantations. More than just black watermen com- posed the Underground Railroad in coastal North Carolina. Although wealthy planters and merchants held the reins of power, drafting and en- forcing the punitive laws, lowly watermen, slave stevedores, piney woods squatters, reclusive swampers and even slaveholders' wives and children defied those laws and forged a realm apart. This "underside of slavery" sustained tenuous pathways by which fugitives might pass from land to sea. Their conspiratorial acts represent a dramatic and untold chap- ter in the history of North Carolina. W f T e are fortunate to know anything about this "maritime Under- ground ; It was, after all, an illicit undertaking, a potentially capital crime that necessarily occurred only on the fringes of society. Few dared to leave written accounts of their in- volvement; most who were appre- hended had no day in court where their efforts might have been recorded. Historical documents understandably yield only the most oblique pass
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
