Great Dismal Swamp Maroons

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Fugitive Slaves in the Dismal Swamp, Virginia (painting by David Edward Cronin , 1888)

Great Dismal Swamp Maroons were maroons , released and escaped slaves , who settled in the Great Dismal Swamp marshland in Virginia and North Carolina . Although they had to live in harsh conditions, researchers believe that thousands of them lived there between around 1700 and 1860. Harriett Beecher Stowe told their story in 1856 in her novel Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp . The most significant surveys of the settlements began in 2002 with a project by Dan Sayers of American University , Washington .

location

The Great Dismal Swamp stretches over an area of ​​southeast Virginia and northeast North Carolina between the James River near Norfolk, Virginia , and Albemarle Sound near Edenton, North Carolina. The original size of the marshland is estimated at over 4,000 km², but human influences reduced the area considerably. Today the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge is just over 450 square kilometers.

history

Osman , a Great Dismal Swamp Maroon (Print by David Hunter Strother, 1856)

The first African slaves to reach the British colonies came to Virginia on a Dutch ship in 1619 . At that time slaves were treated similarly to indentured servants , they were released after a certain period of time. Others gained freedom by converting to Christianity, as the English of the time did not keep Christians as slaves. Slave labor was used to drain the swamps in the 18th and 19th centuries. Escaped slaves were referred to as maroons or outlyers . The origin of the word maroon is uncertain, various theories trace it back to Spanish, Arawak or Taíno . There were maroons in isolated or hidden settlements in all southern states. Maroon settlements were found in Alabama , Florida , Georgia , Louisiana, and South Carolina . Further north they were only found in the Great Dismal Swamp.

Since the beginning of the 18th century, Maroons lived in the Great Dismal Swamp, both slaves who had bought their freedom and those who had escaped. Most of them settled in the higher and drier parts of the swamp. Others used the swamp as a gateway to the Underground Railroad to the north.

Herbert Aptheker stated in Maroons Within the Present Limits of the United States as early as 1939 that “about 2000 negroes, fugitives or their descendants” (Negroes, fugitives, or the descendants of fugitives) lived in the Great Dismal Swamp. A study that appeared in 2007, The Political Economy of Exile in the Great Dismal Swamp , found that thousands of people lived in the swamp between 1630 and 1865, Native Americans , Maroons, and sewer workers. This made it one of the largest maroon settlements in the United States. Some maroons spent their whole lives in the swamp, braving the difficult conditions, insects, poisonous snakes and bears.

In literature and art

In 1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem The Slave In Dismal Swamp . In six stanzas the poet describes the “hunted Negro”, mentions the bloodhounds and describes the conditions in which hardly a human foot would step or a human heart would dare to pass (“where hardly a human foot could pass, or a human heart would dare ”). The poem may have inspired the painter David Edward Cronin , an artist from the Düsseldorf School of Painting , who served as an officer in the Virginia Civil War and witnessed slavery, for his painting Fugitive Slaves in the Dismal Swamp, Virginia (1888).

In 1856, Uncle Tom's Cabin author Harriett Beecher Stowe published her second anti-slavery novel, Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp . The title character is a Great Dismal Swamp Maroon, who preaches against slavery and moves slaves to flee.

research

The Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study began in 2002, led by Dan Sayers, an archaeologist in the anthropology department at American University . In 2003 he carried out the first excavations in the swamp. In 2009, in partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, a research program was initiated to investigate the influence of colonialism and the slave economy on the maroon settlements in the swamp, as well as the societies before contact with Europeans. There had been no scientific research at the Great Dismal Swamp before Sayer's efforts. The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded the project in 2010 with the "We The People Award" of $ 200,000.

A permanent exhibition was set up in autumn 2011. 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. "(These groups are very inspiring. As the details unfold, we are gradually after being able to show how people have the ability as individuals and groups to take charge of their lives, even under depressing conditions.)

Movies

  • Escape from Slavery: The City of Hope ; 50-minute documentary film by Andreas Gutzeit for ZDF (United States 2017)

literature

  • '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)
  • The Political Economy of Exile in the Great Dismal Swamp by Daniel O. Sayers, International Journal of Historical Anthropology, Vol. 11, No. March 1, 2007 (available on JSTOR)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge ( English , PDF; 106 kB) In: The Great Dismal Swamp and the Underground Railroad . Fish and Wildlife Service. September 2003. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Digging Up the Secrets of the Great Dismal Swamp ( English ) Popular Archeology. May 15, 2011. Archived from the original on January 14, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 11, 2012.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / popular-archaeology.com
  3. ↑ a b c d Freedom in the Swamp: Unearthing the Secret History of the Great Dismal Swamp ( English ) Physorg. May 16, 2011. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
  4. ↑ Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge ( English ) In: About us . Fish and Wildlife Service. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  5. ↑ Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge ( English ) In: Welcome! . Fish and Wildlife Service. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  6. ^ Colonization ( English ) National Park Service. Retrieved February 12, 2012.
  7. ↑ a b Great Dismal Swamp ( English , PDF; 136 kB) Fish and Wildlife Service. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  8. ^ Maroons in the Revolutionary Period 1775–1783 ( English ) Public Broadcasting System. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  9. ^ A b Marion Blackburn: Letter from Virginia: American Refugees . In: Archaeological Institute of America (Ed.): American Institute of Archeology . 64, No. 5, September – October 2011. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
  10. ↑ Tim Lockley: Runaway Slave Communities in South Carolina ( English ) University of London Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved February 11, 2012.
  11. ↑ a b c d e Bill Bartel: Escaped slaves may have lived in Great Dismal Swamp ( English ) In: The Virginian Pilot . January 29, 2012. Retrieved February 11, 2012.
  12. ↑ a b c d John Tidwell: The Ghosts Of The Great Dismal Swamp . (PDF) In: American Heritage Magazine . August 2001. Retrieved February 11, 2012.
  13. ^ Herbert Aptheker: Maroons Within the Present Limits of the United States . In: Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc. (Ed.): The Journal of Negro History . 24, No. 2, April 1939, pp. 167-184. JSTOR [ https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 2714447 2714447]. doi : 10.2307 / 2714447 .
  14. ↑ Daniel Sayers, Burke, P. Brandan; Henry, Aaron M .: The Political Economy of Exile in the Great Dismal Swamp . In: Springer (Ed.): International Journal of Historical Archeology . 11, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 60-97. JSTOR [ https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 20853121 20853121]. doi : 10.1007 / s10761-006-0022-2 .
  15. ^ Maroon in the United States ( English ) New York Public Library - The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Retrieved February 4, 2012.
  16. ↑ What were a few Routes Along the Underground Railroad? ( English ) National Underground Railroad Freedom Research Center. Archived from the original on October 18, 2011. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 4, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.freedomcenter.org
  17. ^ The Slave in the Dismal Swamp ( English ) A Maine Historical Society Website. Retrieved March 14, 2012.
  18. ^ Fugitive Slaves in the Dismal Swamp, Virginia ( English ) New York Historical Society. Archived from the original on April 15, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 10, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / emuseum.nyhistory.org
  19. ↑ Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811-1896 Dred; A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. In two volumes. Vol. II ( English ) University of North Carolina. Retrieved February 11, 2012.
  20. ↑ Partnerships: Great Dismal Swamp Archeology Field School ( English ) Fish and Wildlife Service. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  21. ↑ The Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study ( English ) In: Anthropology Summer Field Study . American University College of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
  22. ↑ Tom Breen: Swamp Holds Clues About Runaway Slaves ( English ) Daily Herald. July 5, 2011. Retrieved February 6, 2012.