For more than two centuries, a hidden society existed in one of the most unforgiving landscapes in the American South. In this episode of Southern Mysteries, explore the remarkable history of the Great Dismal Swamp maroons, one of the longest-lasting acts of resistance to slavery in American history. Through historical records, firsthand accounts and modern archaeology, this forgotten chapter of Southern history reveals how an entire community survived in plain sight and why so few people have heard their story.
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Episode Sources
- “The Hidden Black Society They Don’t Teach You About” — In the Margins, PBS. Overview of the Great Dismal Swamp maroons, including interior, fringe and canal communities; the stories of Harriet Jacobs, Venus and Jack; the canal labor economy; and the Easter Conspiracy.
- “The Great Dismal Swamp” — 99% Invisible. Podcast episode exploring the landscape, history and archaeology of the swamp’s maroon communities.
- “Tom Copper’s Rebellion and Great Dismal Marronage” — National Park Service. Detailed history of Tom Copper, Mingo, New Begun and the alleged Easter Conspiracy of 1802.
- “Anthropologist Daniel Sayers on the Maroons Who Found Freedom in the Great Dismal Swamp” — National Endowment for the Humanities. Interview about Sayers’ archaeological research and the evidence of long-term maroon settlements.
- “The Dismal Swamp: One Road Out of Slavery Took You Straight to the Boggiest Place You’ve Ever Been” — National Endowment for the Humanities. Background on the landscape, archaeology and people who sought freedom inside the swamp.
- “Deep in the Swamps, Archaeologists Are Finding How Fugitive Slaves Kept Their Freedom” — Smithsonian Magazine. In-depth account of Daniel Sayers’ excavations and the evidence uncovered at interior maroon sites.
- A Desolate Place for a Defiant People: The Archaeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp — Daniel O. Sayers. Archaeological study of Indigenous occupation, enslaved labor and maroon resistance within the swamp.
- Dismal Freedom: A History of the Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp — J. Brent Morris. History of the maroons and the ways they created independent lives beyond white-controlled society.
- City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763–1856 — Marcus P. Nevius. Study of temporary and long-term escape, informal labor networks and the connections between maroons and the swamp’s commercial economy.
- “A History of the Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp” — Virginia Museum of History & Culture. Program featuring historian J. Brent Morris and his research into the swamp’s maroon communities.
- “Gabriel’s Conspiracy” — Encyclopedia Virginia and Virginia Humanities. Historical overview of Gabriel’s planned 1800 uprising near Richmond.
- “Letter from Mosby Sheppard to James Monroe, Aug. 30, 1800” — Encyclopedia Virginia and the Library of Virginia. Primary-source warning sent to Virginia’s governor after the planned uprising was revealed.
- “Testimony in the Trial of Gabriel, Oct. 6, 1800” — Encyclopedia Virginia and the Library of Virginia. Surviving testimony from Gabriel’s prosecution.
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl — Harriet Jacobs, available through Documenting the American South at the University of North Carolina. Jacobs’ firsthand account of her escape from slavery and the time she spent hiding in a swamp.
- Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America — Moses Grandy, available through Documenting the American South. Firsthand account of slavery, waterway labor and the economy surrounding the Great Dismal Swamp and its canal.
Episode Music
Out of the Mines, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.