“Wet and Unfit for Cultivation”: Racial Fantasy, Environmental Control, and the Viscous Archives of South Louisiana
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In 19th century south Louisiana, the effort to drain and control swampland was inseparable from the project of racial subjugation of enslaved Afro-descended peoples. Plantation owners constructed artificial levees to impose the rigid, static logic of capitalist agriculture onto the dynamic, alluvial landscape of the Mississippi River. This engineering effort created a perpetual crisis: flood control infrastructure designed to control wetlands was constantly challenged by the natural environment, rendering them unstable and porous. The conflict is explored through the concept of viscous archives—historical materials that resist easy categorization and reveal narrative and empirical absences—into which new possibilities for Black life can appear. This article explores two such archives: folktales told by enslaved workers and floods and empty pages of Louisiana swampland surveyors’ logs. The resulting historical record reveals a history of resistance and refusal and the cultural emergence of Black life from the very spaces designed for their containment.
Abstract
In 19th century south Louisiana, the effort to drain and control swampland was inseparable from the project of racial subjugation of enslaved Afro-descended peoples. Plantation owners constructed artificial levees to impose the rigid, static logic of capitalist agriculture onto the dynamic, alluvial landscape of the Mississippi River. This engineering effort created a perpetual crisis: flood control infrastructure designed to control wetlands was constantly challenged by the natural environment, rendering them unstable and porous. The conflict is explored through the concept of viscous archives—historical materials that resist easy categorization and reveal narrative and empirical absences—into which new possibilities for Black life can appear. This article explores two such archives: folktales told by enslaved workers and floods and empty pages of Louisiana swampland surveyors’ logs. The resulting historical record reveals a history of resistance and refusal and the cultural emergence of Black life from the very spaces designed for their containment.