The first enslaved Africans brought to the British colonies in Virginia in 1619 arrived on the frigate White Lion, a British privateer ship flying under a Dutch flag. The approximately 20 Africans, from the present-day Angola, had been seized by its crew from a Portuguese slave ship, the São João Bautista.[2][3] The enslaved Africans in British North America were legally deemed to be indentured servants, since slave laws were not passed until later, in 1641 in Massachusetts and in 1661 in Virginia, for example.[4] As servants, they were entitled to freedom with the passage of a certain period of time; they were also allowed to purchase freedom.[5] Others gained freedom by converting to Christianity, since the English of that time did not typically enslave Christians.[6] Slave labor was used in many efforts to drain and log the Great Dismal Swamp during the 18th and 19th centuries.[7] People who escaped slavery living in freedom (and their children) came to be known as maroons or outliers.[8][7][9]
Maroonage, self-liberated Africans in isolated or hidden settlements,[9] existed in all the Southern states,[10] and swamp-based maroon communities existed in the Deep South, in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina.[11] Maroonage in the Upper South was largely limited to Virginia and the Great Dismal Swamp.
The origin of the word maroon is uncertain, with competing theories linking it to Spanish, Arawak or Taino root words.[12] In all likelihood, the words maroon and Seminole share the same etymology in the Spanish word cimarrón, meaning "wild" or "untamed". This word usually referred to self-liberated Africans who escaped enslavement and is ultimately derived from the word for "thicket" in Old Spanish.[13]
At the beginning of the 18th century, maroons came to live in the Great Dismal Swamp.[14][15] Most settled on mesic islands, the high and dry parts of the swamp. Inhabitants included people who had purchased their freedom as well as those who had escaped.[16] Other people used the swamp as a route on the Underground Railroad as they made their way further north.[15] Some formerly enslaved lived there in semi-free conditions, but how much independence they actually enjoyed there has been a topic of much debate. Nearby whites often left maroons alone so long as they paid a quota in logs or shingles,[16] and businesses may have ignored the fugitive status of people who provided work in exchange for trade goods.[12]
Herbert Aptheker stated already in 1939, in "Maroons Within the Present Limits of the United States", that likely "about two thousand Negroes, fugitives, or the descendants of fugitives" lived in the Great Dismal Swamp, trading with white people outside the swamp.[17] Results of a study published in 2007, "The Political Economy of Exile in the Great Dismal Swamp", say that thousands of people lived in the swamp between 1630 and 1865, Native Americans, maroons and enslaved laborers on the canal.[18] A 2011 study speculated that thousands may have lived in the swamp between the 1600s and 1860.[14] While the precise number of maroons who lived in the swamp at that time is unknown, it is believed to have been one of the largest maroon colonies in the United States. It is established that "several thousand" were living there by the 19th century.[19]
Fear of slave unrest and fugitive slaves living among maroon population caused concern amongst local whites. A militia with dogs went into the swamp in 1823 in an attempt to remove the maroons and destroy their community, but most people escaped.[20] In 1847, North Carolina passed a law specifically aimed at apprehending the maroons in the swamp.[8][12] However, unlike other maroon communities, where local militias often captured the residents and destroyed their homes, those in the Great Dismal Swamp mostly avoided capture or the discovery of their homes.[14]
The Chesapeake, the Nansemonds, the Recharians, and the Merrians are all Native American tribes that had connections to the swamp in the 17th century.[21] The presence of hunting bolas indicates that the area may have served as a hunting ground as far back as 5,000 years ago.[16] Native American communities were already in existence in the swamp when the maroons began to settle there.[14] Because leaving the area could lead to recapture, the inhabitants often used what was readily available in the swamp, even recycling tool remnants left by Native Americans.[22]
Since the maroons had few possessions, the few small artifacts that have been recovered have given historians little insight into their day-to-day lives.[15][22] To date, excavation has yet to find any human remains. According to Sayers, historical archaeologist at American University who has led research on the maroons of the swamp, it is possible that the acidity of the water disintegrated any bones which may have been left behind.[15] The Tuscarora tribe resided in the swamp in the early 1700s.[21]
Some maroons were born to those who escaped slavery and lived in the swamp for their entire lives despite the hardships of swamp life: dense underbrush, insects, venomous snakes, and bears. The difficult conditions also made the swamp an ideal hiding place, not just for the formerly enslaved but also for free Africans, enslaved Africans who worked on the swamp's canals, Native Americans, and outcast whites such as criminals.[11][15][23] Maroons are known to have often interacted with enslaved Africans and poor whites to obtain work, food, clothes, and money. Some maroons plundered nearby farms and plantations, stole from anchored boats, and robbed travelers on nearby roads;[20] those caught were tried for murder or theft.[10]
In 1768, George Washington's brother, John posted an advertisement that his man Tom had run away, likely to the swamp.[24] Some maroon communities were set up near the Dismal Swamp Canal, built between 1793 and 1805, which is still in operation. These maroons interacted more with the outside world than those who lived in the swamp's interior, and had more contact with outsiders once canal construction began. Some took jobs on the canal, and with increased contact with the outside world, some people living in the swamp eventually moved away.[12][15] During the American Civil War, the United States Colored Troops entered the swamp to liberate the people there, many of whom then joined the Union Army. Most of the maroons who remained in the swamp left after the Civil War.[8][12]
The maroon communities in the Great Dismal Swamp were founded on persistence. The conditions in the swamp, whether that be the hot, humid weather, the deadly animals, or the bugs, made it a difficult place to live. These resistant communities would choose areas that were difficult to reach.[25] This allowed for many of these communities to live in peace and to live freely. Maroon communities would also use only natural resources they found in the Great Dismal Swamp to build structures, tools, and other resources. Other more settled communities in this time period would have left behind mass-produced goods, but because of the natural resources maroon communities used, everything marking establishment has eroded away.[25] Maroon communities succeeded in adapting to the ever changing environment and ecology of the Great Dismal Swamp.[26]
These communities disbanded for a number of reasons. When the American Civil War began, many people living in these communities left to fight for the Union.[25] Once the war was over and slavery was abolished, many left to find family and to move north.[25] The further development of the Great Dismal Swamp also led to the end of these communities.[26] Many free and enslaved African Americans worked with companies to develop the land in the swamp. The Great Dismal Swamp was drained to create fields.[26] The swamp was also cleared and graded to build roads.[26] By 1836, railroads were being built through the swamp as well.[26] After this construction in the swamp, a 22.5-mile interstate highway was built around the area. With increasing traffic through the area, the Great Dismal Swamp was no longer seen as a place that was "dismal", but more attractive to the people who could afford to visit, and commercial enterprises started to move into the area. Many tourists would come to see the swamp and use the water for medicinal purposes. Many of the free and enslaved people began to leave as the swamp was taken over by commerce and tourism.
While these communities eventually disbanded, these maroon communities represented opportunities for black resistance, initiative and autonomy.[27] Researchers have criticized the lack of acknowledgment of these communities, due to both the racial makeup of the community and because they left few artifacts for archaeologists to recover and study.[27]
According to American University researcher Daniel Sayers: "There were hardships and deprivations, for sure... But no overseer was going to whip them here. No one was going to work them in a cotton field from sunup to sundown, or sell their spouses and children. They were free. They had emancipated themselves."[27]
Today, the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge is just over 112thousand acres (450km2).[29] The swamp also includes Lake Drummond, which is about 3,100 acres (13 square km). The Great Dismal Swamp is now preserved and protected from further destruction by the Dismal Swamp Act of 1974 which included Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, and North Carolina's declaration of the Dismal Swamp State Park.
References in literature and art
In 1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem "The Slave in Dismal Swamp"[16] for his collection Poems on Slavery. The poem uses six quintain stanzas to tell about the "hunted Negro", mentioning the use of bloodhounds and describing the conditions as being "where hardly a human foot could pass, or a human heart would dare".[30] The poem may have inspired artist David Edward Cronin, who served as a Union officer in Virginia[31] and witnessed the effect of slavery, to paint Fugitive Slaves in the Dismal Swamp, Virginia in 1888.[32]
The Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study began in 2002 and was led by Dan Sayers, a historical archaeologist at American University's Department of Anthropology. In 2003, he conducted the first excavation in the swamp,[12][15] and in 2009, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (which manages the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge) and American University, initiated the annual research program titled the Great Dismal Swamp Archaeology Field School. This effort continues the work of the landscape study. It examines the impact of colonialism, slavery, and development on the swamp, especially on the self-sustaining maroon settlements in the swamp's interior. It also studies native lifestyles before European contact.[14][36][37] Prior to Sayers' efforts, no field research had been done on the Great Dismal Swamp maroons. Even today, the swamp is impenetrable in places; a research group gave up in 2003 because it lost its way so many times.[8] Sites deep in the swamp's interior are still so remote that a guide is needed to find them.[12][15] The National Endowment for the Humanities gave the "We The People Award" of $200,000 to the project in 2010.[11][15]
In fall 2011, a permanent exhibit was opened by the National Park Service to commemorate those who lived in the swamp during pre-Civil War times.[38] Sayers summarizes: "These groups are very inspirational. As details unfold, we are increasingly able to show how people have the ability, as individuals and communities, to take control of their lives, even under oppressive conditions."[14]
The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and from there to Canada. The network, primarily the work of free African Americans, was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. The slaves who risked capture and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the passengers and conductors of the "Underground Railroad". Various other routes led to Mexico, where slavery had been abolished, and to islands in the Caribbean that were not part of the slave trade. An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession, existed from the late 17th century until approximately 1790. However, the network generally known as the Underground Railroad began in the late 18th century. It ran north and grew steadily until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. One estimate suggests that, by 1850, approximately 100,000 slaves had escaped to freedom via the network.
Slavery in the colonial history of the United States refers to the institution of slavery as it existed in the European colonies which eventually became part of the United States. In these colonies, slavery developed due to a combination of factors, primarily the labour demands for establishing and maintaining European colonies, which had resulted in the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery existed in every European colony in the Americas during the early modern period, and both Africans and indigenous peoples were victims of enslavement by European colonizers during the era.
The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was a law passed by the 31st United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers.
Henry Box Brown was a 19th-century Virginia slave who escaped to freedom at the age of 33 by arranging to have himself mailed in a wooden crate in 1849 to abolitionists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Gullah are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and culture have preserved a significant influence of Africanisms as a result of their historical geographic isolation and the community's relation to their shared history and identity.
In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th centuries to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called freedom seekers to avoid implying that the enslaved person had committed a crime and that the slaveholder was the injured party.
Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas and Islands of the Indian Ocean who escaped from slavery and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into separate creole cultures such as the Garifuna and the Mascogos.
The Great Dismal Swamp is a large swamp in the Coastal Plain Region of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, between Norfolk, Virginia, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina. It is located in parts of the southern Virginia independent cities of Chesapeake and Suffolk and northern North Carolina counties of Gates, Pasquotank, and Camden. Some estimates place the original size of the swamp at over one million acres (4,000 km2). As of 2022 the size of the Great Dismal Swamp is around 750 square miles.
The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1974 to help protect and preserve a portion of the Great Dismal Swamp, a marshy region on the Coastal Plain of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina between Norfolk, Virginia, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina in the United States. It is located in parts of the independent cities of Chesapeake and Suffolk in Virginia, and the counties of Camden, Gates, and Pasquotank in North Carolina.
In the British colonies in North America and in the United States before the abolition of slavery in 1865, free Negro or free Black described the legal status of African Americans who were not enslaved. The term was applied both to formerly enslaved people (freedmen) and to those who had been born free, whether of African or mixed descent.
The Black Seminoles, or Afro-Seminoles, are an ethnic group of mixed Native American and African origin associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma. They are mostly blood descendants of the Seminole people, free Africans, and escaped former slaves, who allied with Seminole groups in Spanish Florida. Many have Seminole lineage, but due to the stigma of having mixed origin, they have all been categorized as slaves or freedmen in the past.
A slave catcher is a person employed to track down and return escaped slaves to their enslavers. The first slave catchers in the Americas were active in European colonies in the West Indies during the sixteenth century. In colonial Virginia and Carolina, slave catchers were recruited by Southern planters beginning in the eighteenth century to return fugitive slaves; the concept quickly spread to the rest of the Thirteen Colonies. After the establishment of the United States, slave catchers continued to be employed in addition to being active in other countries which had not abolished slavery, such as Brazil. The activities of slave catchers from the American South became at the center of a major controversy in the lead up to the American Civil War; the Fugitive Slave Act required those living in the Northern United States to assist slave catchers. Slave catchers in the United States ceased to be active with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.
Timbuctoo is an unincorporated community in Westampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey. Located along the Rancocas Creek, Timbuctoo was settled by formerly enslaved and free Black people, beginning in 1826. It includes Church St., Blue Jay Hill Road, and adjacent areas. At its peak in the mid-nineteenth century, Timbuctoo had more than 125 residents, a school, an AME Zion Church, and a cemetery. The key remaining evidence of this community is the cemetery on Church Street, which was formerly the site of Zion Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal African Church. Some current residents are descendants of early settlers.
Slavery in Virginia began with the capture and enslavement of Native Americans during the early days of the English Colony of Virginia and through the late eighteenth century. They primarily worked in tobacco fields. Africans were first brought to colonial Virginia in 1619, when 20 Africans from present-day Angola arrived in Virginia aboard the ship The White Lion.
Moses Grandy was an African-American author, abolitionist, and, for more than the first four decades of his life, an enslaved person. At eight years of age, he became the property of his white playmate, James Grandy, and two years later, he was hired out for work. The monies Moses earned were collected and held until James Grandy turned 21. Moses helped build the Great Dismal Swamp Canal and learned how to navigate boats. It was that skill that led him to be made commander of several boats that traveled the canal and Pasquotank River, transporting merchandise from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to Norfolk, Virginia. The position allowed him to be better fed, shod, and dressed. Able to keep a portion of his earnings, Moses arranged to buy his freedom twice, and twice, his enslavers kept the money and held him in slavery. An arrangement was made for an honorable man to buy him, and Grandy earned the money to buy his freedom a third time, this time successfully.
African-American North Carolinians or Black North Carolinians are residents of the state of North Carolina who are of African ancestry. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, African Americans were 22% of the state's population. African enslaved people were brought to North Carolina during the slave trade.
William Grimes was an African American barber and writer who authored what is considered the first narrative of a formerly enslaved American, Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave, published in 1825, with a second edition published in 1855. Another revised edition was published by one of his descendants in 2008. Grimes escaped slavery by boarding on a ship called Casket, which sailed from Savannah, Georgia to New York City. He then walked to Connecticut from New York City to begin his life as a free man. Grimes lived in Stratford, Norwalk, Fairfield, Bridgeport and Stratford Point alongside New Haven and Litchfield, Connecticut following his escape from slavery. New Haven was where Grimes eventually settled to live out his final days.
The Chesapeake rebellion of 1730 was the largest slave rebellion of the colonial period in North America. Believing that Virginian planters had disregarded a royal edict from King George II which freed slaves, two hundred slaves gathered in Princess Anne County, Virginia, in October, electing captains and demanding that Governor Gooch honor the royal edict. White planters stopped these meetings, arresting some slaves and forcing others to flee. Although hundreds of slaves fled to the Great Dismal Swamp, they were immediately hunted down by the authorities and their Pasquotank allies.
Slavery was legally practiced in the Province of North Carolina and the state of North Carolina until January 1, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Prior to statehood, there were 41,000 enslaved African-Americans in the Province of North Carolina in 1767. By 1860, the number of slaves in the state of North Carolina was 331,059, about one third of the total population of the state. In 1860, there were nineteen counties in North Carolina where the number of slaves was larger than the free white population. During the antebellum period the state of North Carolina passed several laws to protect the rights of slave owners while disenfranchising the rights of slaves. There was a constant fear amongst white slave owners in North Carolina of slave revolts from the time of the American Revolution. Despite their circumstances, some North Carolina slaves and freed slaves distinguished themselves as artisans, soldiers during the Revolution, religious leaders, and writers.
African Americans are the largest racial minority in Virginia. According to the 2010 Census, more than 1.5 million, or one in five Virginians is "Black or African American". African Americans were enslaved in the state. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, African Americans were 18.6% of the state's population.
↑ Aptheker, Herbert (April 1939). "Maroons Within the Present Limits of the United States". The Journal of Negro History. Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc. 24 (2): 167–184. doi:10.2307/2714447. JSTOR2714447. S2CID149952831.
↑ Sayers, Daniel; Burke, P. Brandan; Henry, Aaron M. (March 2007). "The Political Economy of Exile in the Great Dismal Swamp". International Journal of Historical Archaeology. Springer. 11 (1): 60–97. doi:10.1007/s10761-006-0022-2. JSTOR20853121. S2CID143639907.
↑ "Maroon in the United States". New York Public Library– The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Archived from the original on April 10, 2011. Retrieved February 4, 2012.
1 2 Sayers, Daniel (2014). A desolate place for a defiant people: the archaeology of maroons, indigenous Americans, and enslaved laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp. Gainesville, Florida: Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. p.85. ISBN978-0-8130-5524-4.
↑ Daniel, Sayers (2014). A Desolate Place for a Defiant People: The Archaeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp. University Press of Florida. p.88. ISBN978-0813060187.
↑ "The Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study". Anthropology Summer Field Study. American University College of Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on January 20, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
"Running Servants and All Others": The Diverse and Elusive Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp, 1619–1861. (2007 Federal Jamestown 400th Conference: Voices From Within the Veil).
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