Many enslaved people working on plantations within the coastal region, particularly the tidewater areas, would be familiar with the world of fishing. “Most planters employed slaves to catch fish and harvest shellfish. Slave watermen guided their masters on recreational fishing trips and wielded the nets that provided the salted fish rations that were standard fare in the tidewater slave diets. The largest planters often designated at least one slave to fish routinely, while their less prosperous neighbors diverted house servants or agricultural laborers more occasionally to the seashore or riverbank to catch fish for both the slave quarter [if they had any] and the big house [or small cabin].” 

The type of fish selected by the enslaved for their consumption included food items such as “menhaden, eels, saltwater catfish, blue crabs” and various turtle species. They chose species undesired by slaveholders. This not only prevented much competition but also suspicion of theft. If the enslaved ate different types of seafood than slaveholders, then they could not be accused of stealing from the slaveholders. 

As it was rare to find any white man without a boat on the coast, it was equally rare to not find coastal residents without access to fishing gear. However, these were mere causal fisher people and not large fisheries. 

The largest fisheries were found on the lower Neuse river in the area of New Bern. In this area, slaves fished and captured a variety of seafood for these fisheries, for example, “A good season could supply ample food and fertilizer for the entire year.” 

The most serious fishing industries in North Carolina were found on the Almberable Sound and its connecting rivers. Second to the Almberable Sound were those working on the Pamlico Sound connecting rivers. The size of the catches [on the Almberable Sound] dwarfed the state’s other fishing industries. It was also gang labor, which was closely supervised, market-driven, and export-oriented. The Albemarle seiners comprised the largest commercial fishery in the South prior to the civil war.

The major fisheries on the Albermarle Sound depended upon the labor of enslaved and free black laborers. These laborers handled mile-and-a-half-long fishing nets to catch rockfish, shad, and herring for these big fisheries. 

Once caught, big fisheries sold the fish to other states and the West Indies. Merchants shipped thousands of barrels of North Carolina fish annually. During the major herring season in the Albemarle Sound season, thousands of African Americans labored with large fishnets (seine) to capture fish. They worked for both big fisheries and independent fishermen. Moreover, thousands of whites were also out doing the same thing. Fishing was a big thing. 

It was important for big fisheries to take advantage of the New Year’s hiring season. Finding labor was not easy; in particular, finding men to do all of the labor onshore and offshore was difficult. Thus, men and women were employed. As men mostly focused on capturing fish, women cut and cleaned the fish.

Unlike other industries such as mining and railroads, logging preferred enslaved people and the labor of free blacks as opposed to that of enslaved laborers. The reason for this preference was that slaveholders did not provide enough consistent labor for fisheries. Planters would also be reluctant to hire out slaves because it gave slaves more mobility than experienced on the plantation. In fact, “local hiring out contracts often specifically prohibited slaves from fishing, usually as the only occupational prohibition in the contracts.” 

Slave fishers had a great deal of mobility and, like in the further inland, skilled and urban slaves such as slave fishermen learned more of the structure of life in North Carolina. This type of societal education far exceeded that of most field hands and that of poor whites. 

Fishing was critical to enslaved people on the coast and those who lived near a body of water that supplied aquatic animals. Slaves who did not fish as their occupation often fished to supplement their diet, which they did when they could. Alternately, some enslaved person fished to rest and relax. 

Slaveholders, generally, did not reject slave fishing, even though it was a sign of slave independence. In fact, much like enslaved people who gardened and sometimes sold surplus items to slaveholders or local markets, slaves did the same with their surplus fish. They used the money to create savings and make an attempt to buy their freedom. On the other hand, others would spend it on things not readily available to enslaved persons, ranging from clothes, pigs, or alcohol. 

In places such as Newbern, Edenton, Wilmington, Elizabeth City, Washington, or any other river town near the coast, it would not have been a strange sight to see black watermen selling fresh or saltwater fish or oysters. 

Working in oyster beds in places such as “Sladesville, Portsmouth, Bay River, SouthPort, Beaufort, and Hunting Quarter,” black watermen would sell the oysters they collected to local “taverns and hotels.” Railroads also expanded their markets. 

There were dangers in collecting and gathering (harvesting) for oysters. It was also considered among the most dangerous labor activities for enslaved people. Oysters were often picked in the winter. Winter is shellfish season. This meant that they had to be out in the icy waters for extended periods. Most enslaved persons whose laboring duties were collecting or harvesting oysters rarely reached old age.

Enslaved and free blacks nearly monopolized the industry because of their knowledge of oysters and the hazards of gathering oysters. 

Being a fisherman sometimes required keeping the rivers clear of debris, and this too was very dangerous. “Dislodging the stumps required great ingenuity, deft boatmanship, and dividing skills. Bald cypresses have tenacious root systems and a resolute unwillingness to succumb to water rot and decay. Often referred to as the ‘wood eternal,’ cypress was the local wood of choice for shingles, canoes, and grave markers.” Unfortunately, removing stumps can be very dangerous. “Despite the dangers, African American divers removed as many as a thousand cypress stumps off a single fishing beach. Fishery owners customarily used rewards of brandy, tobacco, or special privileges to motivate the divers to work their hardest.” 

Coldwater and removing stumps were not some of several dangers. “Wind currents and weather made conditions on the water highly unpredictable. The cadence of the work shifted abruptly from almost unbearably intense labor to extended periods of tedium while waiting for clear weather or equipment repairs. At times, the seine seemed to take on a life of its own, writhing and turning until it risked sinking the boats. The fishermen continually had to adapt to new water conditions and improvise on the spur of the moment to recover stripped, mired, or drifting seines and ropes while losing as few fish as possible. Surrendering an entire seine, the product of six or more hour’s sweat, was an unthinkable loss.”

Even if slaveholders wanted to prevent slave fishing or gather shellfish, they rarely could. “A slave who earned, was granted, or stole even a half hour or his or her master’s time could collect mussels in freshwater creeks, terrapin or birds eggs in brackish marshes, or clams, conchs, crabs, and oysters on tidal mudflats.” 

Enslaved persons, in particular, professional fishermen, made their own fishing gear. “Hooks and weights could be made out of fish bones, floats out of gourds, trap walls out of rushes, and nets out of Indian hemp. They manufactured fishing weirs with wooden splits and stays, jerry-rigged crude seines by interlacing pine tops, and made fishing poles out of cane.” 

The skills and knowledge of the slave fishermen were on display during night fishing. Some enslaved learned to navigate using a compass and stars. The stars, sun, and moon were often the slave’s clock. 

Nighttime was a special time for enslaved people and sometimes they took to the waters at night. “Slave fishermen were renowned for catching jumping mullet by carrying torches at night ‘in their cypress canoes,’ a fishing method that was apparently borrowed from the Algonquians, and for catching song birds and waterfowl by blinding them with bonfires at night.”

This proves that the enslaved learned many secrets from the book of nature and others.

Enslaved people cannot take sole credit for learning from the book of nature. Some of the knowledge of the variations of the North Carolina coastal environment was derived from relationships with native Americans, who fished the coast of North Carolina for thousands of years. Likewise, enslaved people learned from native fishermen. From Native Americans, Cecelski writes, "Slaves learned what time of year to move onto the barrier islands to catch bluefish whose schools were so dense that they turned miles of ocean surface into a shimmering silver. They learned at what spring tide to scavenge salt marshes for the eggs of clapper rails and marsh hens, and at which midsummer moon to scour the Atlantic seashore for loggerhead turtle eggs.”

Both free and enslaved Africans borrowed and exchanged ideas about boating technology and boat making with native Americans. 

Devastatingly, this exchange would not last, as many native Americans were killed, forced out of lands, and some became “black” by mixing with African or Americans and/or white Americans.

The enslaved people in the coastal region became accustomed to a diet of fish and seafood, but they also used what they gathered for other purposes. For instance, shells were used to help build roads and footpaths, and oysters were sold and used as fertilizers. Innovation was the name of the game for many enslaved people. They could used “seaweed and marsh mud” for fertilizing their garden plots. They also used “fish skeletons for pins and combs,” “seabird feathers for pillows and blankets,” and used crab and turtles “carapace (shells) for bowls.”