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(#5) Members Of The Community Emerged From The Swamp To Fight In Wars Over The Years
The maroons living in the swamp didn't just hide out there, afraid of being seen again. They emerged from their island cabins to fight in wars against the people who enslaved them in the first place. There are records of them fighting in Lord Dunmore's Royal Ethiopian Regiment during Lord Dunmore's War in 1774 (a pre-Revolution skirmish between Lord Dunmore, then the Governor of Virginia, and the Mingo and Shawnee tribes in what is now the Ohio Valley.)
Maroons also fought for the British during the Revolutionary War, and they fought for the Union during the Civil War.
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(#8) Historians Tended To Overlook Maroon Communities In Favor Of Researching The Underground Railroad
A – potentially implicit or unintentional – racial bias formed among historians who studied slavery in America prior to the Civil War. This bias heavily favored white people's involvement in freeing enslaved blacks, which led to plenty of scholarship on the Underground Railroad – and very little on the maroon communities. After all, the people who formed those communities freed themselves, with little outside help.
Because of this, until recently, maroon communities haven't really been widely studied, and the average person hasn't heard of them.
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(#1) The Dismal Swamp Maroon Community Started In 1680 And Was Dominated By Escaped African American Slaves
Archaeologists who've studied the area believe that escaped slaves found refuge in the Great Dismal Swamp starting around 1680, back when America was still a British Colony. The community thrived and grew between then and the Civil War, when the slaves were freed and could join society.
It was dominated by African Americans during this period, although Native Americans, white indentured servants, and others fleeing standard societal norms lived there as well.
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(#12) The Swamp Community Was Abandoned, But Not Before Its Members Attacked The Confederates In The Civil War
During the Civil War, guerilla fighters from the swamp community attacked Confederate troops in North Carolina, leading the Carolinians to try to find their base deep within the swamp. The guerilla fighters prevailed, as did the Union Army, and once the war ended and the slaves were freed, the people who made up the swamp community left their hiding places.
After years of attempting to stay out of sight, they were finally freedmen and women.
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(#4) People Also Lived On The Outer Edges And Canal Areas Of The Swamp
Despite the fact that most historians and archaeologists believe that the main part of the maroon community lived on the islands deep within the swamp, there is evidence that some were brave enough to remain on its outskirts. The outer edges of the swamp had rougher terrain, as well as a series of canals that workers dug to control the water in certain parts.
The people living in these areas are believed to have been mostly Native Americans, who didn't need to hide from slave catchers.
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(#3) They Lived On Islands Concealed In The Swamp Where Slave Catchers Couldn't Find Them
The maroon community formed on islands well-hidden deep within the swamp. In fact, it was so well hidden that even historians and archeologists didn't know about it for decades. There was no way of finding the dry ground, until they stepped onto it and realized that it was firm underfoot. The main island that the community lived on consists of 20 acres of mostly dry land – a refuge within the swamp.
Slave catchers, too afraid of walking through the swamp, never ventured there to look for escaped slaves that had a bounty on their heads.
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Since the 18th century, countless blacks were trafficked to the southern regions of the United States. Here, black slaves do not exist as independent humans, they were regarded as the property of the plantation owner. A large number of blacks worked hard to do heavy work every day, and were abused by plantation owners, which aroused the resistance of some black slaves, they fled the plantation and hid in the woods or swamps near the plantation.
The Great Dismal Swamp has also become a sanctuary for generations of African-American communities. For centuries, fugitive slaves have been hidden in a vibrant and self-sufficient community and eventually escaped slavery. The random tool introduced 12 facts about the life of escaped slaves who live in a swamp.
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