Mike Weedall
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More than one reader has contacted me asking how I managed to explicitly portray the Great Dismal Swamp in “Escape To The Maroons.” Since that was my intent, I’ll take the compliment. But after visiting the place, I don’t know that any writer can truly describe how extreme surviving there must have been. When I traveled to Virginia and spent a day touring the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, a Ranger drove me around to show me several highlights, including Lake Drummond. Today’s footprint of the swamp is significantly smaller than during the 1791 period I write about. Commercial interests have encroached along the borders by filling in wetlands. Inside the still massive swamp are roads, walking trails, and canals. Swarms of mosquitoes and other biting insects, twenty-one kinds of snakes, and a variety of predators still abound. When working in the field during spring, the Ranger told me that she had to wear two Tyvek suits and fully cover her face. Due to springtime mosquitoes, on a warm day, she would be soaked in twenty minutes. At the end of our tour, I headed away, parked the rental car at a random spot, and took off walking. Quickly, I was slogging through patches of water, pushing aside bushes, and seeing nothing but miles of the same as far as my eyes could see. The same topography confronted fleeing slaves. Likely with a bounty hunter on their tail, in what direction should one even go? There were mosquitoes back on the plantation, but here they are so thick that at times it’s hard to see through their cloud. How does one begin to find anyone in this 2,000-square-mile morass? It didn’t take long before I was back in the car, blasting the AC, and scratching my bites. What first attracted me to the story of these amazing people had just been reinforced, and today’s conditions are not nearly as foreboding as in the pre-1800s. Take your life today. Could things ever get so desperate that you would consider fleeing to a place like the picture above? Maybe you are carrying a sack with some spare clothes, a bit of food, a water gourd, and perhaps a hatchet you stole. At that moment, what might anyone feel and think facing that endless expanse? To escape the brutality of slavery, what choice was there other than to walk ahead? Some died before they found people to help them? Somehow, the network of Maroon residents and Indigenous Natives often found new runners and took them in. As one Maroon resident said about that first step, no matter how bad it looked ahead, this place meant freedom. In my book, the Great Dismal Swamp had to be as much of a character as any of the individuals I wrote about.
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Remembering Courageous People Showing Us The Way
In these days of growing challenges to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs, it’s timely to look back in our history to mine lessons that could guide us to a more inclusive future. When I reflect on the struggles of minority populations, and specifically the Black community, in American history there is a period that stands out.
Prior to the end of the Civil War, Southern authorities and newspapers worked diligently to deny the reality of self-liberated slaves creating free, multi-generational, and self-sustaining communities in the South. Those locations were known as Maroons, and were part of any country that embraced slavery, e.g., Brazil, Haiti, and many more in the Caribbean and South America. Estimates are over fifty Maroons existed at various times in the American South, located in areas not easily accessible, such as mountainous or swampy terrains.
The largest Maroon in North America survived in southern Virginia and northern North Carolina--the Great Dismal Swamp. Before modern development and encroachment, that swamp covered an area the size of Rhode Island. Recent research estimates that over 2,000 individuals lived freely in one of the worst environments accessible to humans. Indigenous people who populated the Dismal for thousands of years before the first runaways arrived often worked closely with fleeing slaves to share knowledge and skills needed to survive in the swamp. Whether fugitive slaves chose to live alone or settled into larger communities, these amazing people built cooperative systems and a working economy to support themselves.
The basis for their economy centered on harvesting cedar trees and trading with white merchants willing to skirt the law. The most in-demand product was finished timber, such as shingles. Wood products harvested and produced by Maroon residents were typically of higher quality and undersold competing products produced by enslavers. This reality demonstrated how minorities could organize and govern themselves, which threatened the myths that authorities used to justify slavery. In attempts to suppress knowledge among slaves about Maroon successes, Southern governments attempted to deny the existence of Maroon communities. Where feasible, militias mobilized to stamp them out. Because of the vastness of the Dismal, Maroon communities deep in the swamp were beyond the threat of force.
Among the current President’s many recent directives, Executive Order 3431 directs the dismantling of information and exhibits at federal sites that recognize the courage and accomplishments of people who stood up to slavery. Displays and materials honoring the Maroons at the Great Dismal Swamp Refuge have been ordered for removal and will no longer tell the courageous stories of people who refused bondage to create a better future for their children.
Similar to the use of force against and suppressing information about Maroon communities in years past, today I see parallel efforts from the current administration by attempting to deny the value of programs that assist minorities harmed by long-standing barriers that are a product of the darkest chapter in American history. Just like those supporting slavery before the Civil War, this administration is determined to move against efforts that lead to a more integrated and healthier society for all citizens.
What can those who chose life with mosquito swarms and twenty-one kinds of snakes, versus any day back on the plantation, tell us today? We need to resist misinformation that claims DEI initiatives no longer have value and, in our local communities, fill the void created by the administration’s extreme actions. Initiatives with businesses, local governments, and educational institutions must continue to educate how a diverse society creates a stronger, more creative society. Just as the Maroon residents and their communities sacrificed for a better world for their children, the voices from years past cry out to us to resist, stay creative, and never give in to messages of darkness.