When European settlers arrived in North Carolina and North America, they didn’t stumble upon a vacant wilderness, but a land that had been settled by Indigenous people over 10,000 years prior.
The Lumbee, Coharie, Sappony, and many other tribes made a home in the shadow of longleaf pines growing over 100 feet high and over 2 feet in diameter. They fished the rivers of the coastal plains to feed thousands and navigated the knobby knees of bald cypress trees in their dugout canoes. They built a home on the swamp.
Ryan Emanuel is an associate professor of hydrology at Duke University’s Nicholas School for the Environment. He’s also a member of the Lumbee Tribe. His new book, “On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice,” shares stories of indigenous survival and connection with the land, especially in a changing, warming climate.
WFAE’s Zachary Turner sat down with Emanuel to learn what it means to be “on the swamp.”
This interview was edited for clarity and concision.
Zachary Turner: Let's start with the titular swamp. As a fellow swamp person, I grew up in and around the wetlands of central North Carolina, and I'm curious about your relationship with this particular habitat. So, tell me about your swamp.
Ryan Emanuel: The Lumbee River is surrounded by these gorgeous bald cypress swamps. They lie in the floodplain of the river. They're occasionally inundated with that rich dark water that's characteristic of rivers and streams in eastern North Carolina. And they have these beautiful knees that rise up out of the soil. So, “On the Swamp” definitely invokes the Lumbee River and the swamp lands that surround it.
But it's also just saying that we have in the Lumbee community that means around the neighborhood, around the community. Is so and so on the swamp? Are they around?
Turner: Would you mind describing for me briefly what is environmental justice to you?
Emanuel: When you put the “to you” on the end of that question, it changes the tenor of my response. When people ask me, “What is environmental justice?” I’ll often give them the Environmental Protection Agency's definition, which is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in environmental decisionmaking. But my perspective is it's about stopping the long-term pattern of harm that has been placed disproportionately on already marginalized communities.
The roots of environmental injustices in this region stem partly from colonialism. We have to tell that story, and we have to acknowledge the role of colonialism in setting up the disparities and patterns that we see alive in the world today. So, the book is about environmental justice through an indigenous lens, but it's bigger than that.
People who live in this region, who call themselves North Carolinians, need to understand the deep connections that the First Peoples of this region have to their homelands. So even if environmental justice is not a topic that you think you might be interested in, I would still encourage you to give it a read, because people will surely learn something about their home here on the East Coast.
Turner: Land acknowledgments are pretty familiar to most people today. But “On the Swamp” begins with a very different kind of land acknowledgment. It begins with the formation of North Carolina’s coastal plains, details the settlement of these lands by Indigenous people and concludes with a proclamation of the continuous occupation of Robeson County by Lumbee and other groups “since time immemorial.” Why did you feel like that was a necessary first step for readers in your book?
Emanuel: When you write or talk about indigenous peoples of this region — in particular North Carolina — to a broader audience, you have to be prepared to go back to the basics and teach people our history, our culture and all kinds of things about our long tenure on the landscape.
This is not unique to myself; most Indigenous people who are working in various professional fields have some version of this lecture that they’ll pull out of their pocket and recite at a moment's notice because we're used to people not knowing anything about us.
So, I wanted to get that out of the way [in] the introduction, and I decided to frame it as a reimagined land acknowledgment, since [that is] a concept that everyone's familiar with. I thought it was just a good way to critique that idea, but also, acquaint people with these beautiful places that we come from.
Turner: I had this question as I was reading your book because you begin with this land acknowledgment. Who were you writing to when you [wrote] "On the Swamp"?
Emanuel: The audience has actually changed through time. When I first started writing, I was writing to my grandmother, literally, who was staying at my house after one of the hurricanes in recent years. So, I would write sections of the book, read them to her at the dinner table, and she would give me feedback.
As time went on, a couple of other audiences emerged. One of those was other Indigenous peoples in this region who don't see themselves situated in the environmental policy literature or in public discourse about policy and environmental justice. I wanted the people that I come from and our neighboring communities to be able to see themselves reflected in these really important discussions about environmental justice, climate change, pollution and more.
As an educator, I also wanted to make sure I was writing for future decision-makers, so the people who were taking classes with me and with other environmental science and policy faculty today.
Turner: There are these practices that indigenous communities in North America have practiced for [millennia]. One example that comes to mind is controlled burns. [The practice] made a triumphant return after decades of federal fire suppression policy. How has this cropped up in your own work as a hydrologist?
Emanuel: In some respects, it's funny to watch folks in Western academic institutions catching up with things that indigenous peoples have known for a long time. But it's also a very serious issue, right? I want to do work that doesn't talk over Indigenous knowledges but helps to bring it to light in ways that are productive and constructive in questions about managing land and water in the 21st century. Obviously, we can't go back to the same kinds of controlled burns that my ancestors practiced hundreds of years ago for lots of different reasons. But there is a role for bringing fire back to a landscape. What does that look like? And how can Indigenous peoples have a leading role in bringing fire back?
Turner: Over the course of writing this book, what are some conversations that stuck with you that you've had with Lumbee community members about the environment?
Emanuel: I would say a couple of things. One, people today are very sensitive to issues around flooding in the community, and rightly so. They've had encounters with catastrophic floods twice in the past decade. We’re starting to think about our relationship with the river a little differently now.
We've always known that the river gives and takes, but this is something that we've never encountered before, either in living memory, recorded history or oral tradition — the types of floods that we've seen that accompany these climate-change-fueled hurricanes, for example.
The other thing that I would bring up is the impacts of industrialized livestock. A major topic of conversation in the communities today, unfortunately, is the smell that accompanies these livestock operations.
As they begin to pop up in more and more places around our homelands, it gets harder and harder to avoid that smell and the poor air quality impacts that come along with that odor.
Turner: As we're discussing the changing environment in 2024, is there a story that you can share with us about hope in a warming world?
Emanuel: I draw lots of hope and inspiration from the example of my friends in the Coharie Tribe. So, they have spent a decade now working to reestablish a good relationship with their namesake river in Sampson County. They're setting themselves up for a long-term role as managers and stewards of that river.
They're well positioned to have not just a seat at the table, but a driving voice in decision-making around the Great Coharie River and other places within that watershed. While their work today doesn't explicitly address climate change, the efforts that they have done around restoration, debris removal and establishing culturally-based ecotourism [have] really positioned the tribe to be a leading voice of advocacy for the river.
When we do have conversations about climate adaptation and climate resilience, they're absolutely ready to be part of those conversations if not lead them outright.
Turner: Ryan, thank you so much for joining me today. It's great talking to you.
Emanuel: Thanks, Zack. I really enjoyed it.
Turner: Ryan Emanuel is an associate professor of hydrology at Duke’s Nicholas School for the Environment. He is a member of the Lumbee Tribe, and his first book, "On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice," is available now from The University of North Carolina Press and select bookstores.
