Clippings from the Virginia Gazette, Edenton Gazette, and other periodicals contained bulletins promoting the capture of self-emancipated Black people who had fled into the Dismal. 17, no. Producer Sharif Youssef spoke with Eric Sheppard, who lives in Carollton, Virginia and runs Diversity Restoration Solutions, a company that leads tours to the Great Dismal Swamp; Professor Dan Sayers, a historical archaeologist at American University and a leading expert on the Great Dismal Swamp (Sayers also authored the book A Desolate Place For A Defiant People:The ArchaeologyOf Maroons, Indigenous Americans, And Enslaved LaborersIn The Great Dismal Swamp); and Dr. Sylviane Diouf, a historian of the African diaspora and and author of Slaverys Exiles, The Story Of The American Maroons. The amber-colored water is preserved by tannic acids from the bark of the juniper, gum and cypress trees, prohibiting growth of bacteria. Their plan was to harvest timber and to drain the swamp and use the land for farming. [viii] Upon entering into fugitivity in the Dismal, Black Maroons likely learned a lot about the swamp and survival in it from Indigenous people in the area who had generational knowledge of it. Florida: University Press of Florida, 2014, pp. Lake Drummond is a freshwater lake situated at the heart of the Great Dismal Swamp. In 1763, they purchased 40,000 acres of swampland. It became an important waterway after the construction of the Great Dismal Swamp Canal completed around 1805. [vi] For a better explanation of the presence of still enslaved laborers in Dismal Maroon communities, see Chapter 4: The Documented Great Dismal, 15851860 in Sayers A Desolate Place for a Desolate People, especially pp. Although conditions were harsh, research suggests that thousands lived there between about 1700 and the 1860s. But like many other wetlands, it has an important ecological role and is home to many animals and species. The water of the swamp is unusually pure, thanks to the tannic acid produced by the juniper, gum and cypress trees, which inhibits the growth of bacteria in the water. For millions of years before the Swamp was formed, it was under the sea. Location and Contact Information + Leaflet Open Street Map Washington was a major investor in the Great Dismal Swamp Company, a company that attempted to colonize the swamp by draining it and transforming it into farmland. When that proved impossible, the company turned to harvesting timber from the swamp. Lumbering continued in the Swamp and by the 1950s the last 20,000 acres of virgin timber were removed. Some had timber-supported roofs complete with trap doors that hid all traces of their presence. Some even lived in tiny underground shelters that they dug out in wild areas near plantations. Encyclopedia Virginia946 Grady Ave. Ste. I grew up singing it. Eventually, he recovered and managed to buy his freedom in 1833. Copyright 2007-2023 North Carolina Ghosts. The girl was buried in the depths of the Dismal Swamp. The waters can be deceptively deep and impossible to climb out of, and over the years many lives have been lost beneath its waters. The most likely source for this unique name comes from the Native Americans and Europeans. Colonies were established on high ground in the swamp, where crude huts were constructed. In May 1763, George Washington made his first visit to the Swamp and joined with several other prominent Virginians and North Carolinians to form two syndicates known as the Dismal Swamp Land Company and the Adventurers for Draining the Great Dismal Swamp. For millions of years before the Swamp was formed, it was under the sea. Comment *document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a21890194f43356b3f1408634bd95b19" );document.getElementById("f2cdbea93c").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This is one of our most frequently asked questions at the Welcome Center and we enjoy enlightening others on this topic. Today, descendants of Maroons and Indigenous people in the Dismal are doing the work to have their ancestors and the Dismal cared for. Mon. But archaeologists have found evidence that people were living in the swamp long before that. The Great Dismal Swamp measured twenty-two hundred square miles. 4755. In the early 1760s, entrepreneurs started the Adventurers to Drain the Great Dismal Swamp, to which Washington belonged. Designated a national wildlife refuge in 1974, the Great Dismal Swamp also contains unbroken stretches of cypress and cedar forest that house sensitive wildlife populations, including many endemic species. A "blue" phase occurs near Yakutat Bay, Alaska, and a nearly white population on Gribble Island, British Columbia, and the neighboring mainland. Recently, the ballad took on a somewhat odd second life. How did the "Dismal" Swamp receive its name? Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The rare Virginia Least Trillium blooms discretely off the beaten path. Dismals, as Europeans referred to, were common terms for swamps or areas where water stood for long periods of time. 13 parks and monuments that celebrate Black history, New Pullman and Honouliuli monuments a reminder of the importance of bedrock conservation law, 10 extraordinary Native American cultural sites protected on public lands, a miserable morass where nothing can inhabit, I felt safer among the alligators than among white men, (now the oldest still-operating canal in the nation, Over 200 species of bird spend at least part, peatland that is able to sequester 33 times more carbon, Learn more about the Great Dismal Swamp and what were doing to ensure its protected for generations to come, Great Dismal Swamp an irreplaceable hub of Black and Indigenous history. 1793 Work on the Dismal Swamp Canal began. The magnets have collected hundreds of micro-artifacts that shed light on questions surrounding how much the outside world intruded on communities deep in the swamp. Black crown, nape and moustachial stripe border white cheeks and side of neck. Elusive mink dart around the flooded forest floor. In the U.S., maroon communities formedall across the country. But despite its appearance as an untouched, primordial landscape, the swamp has a long and complex history of human settlement and exploitation. Prothonotary warblers bounce along branches in the forest. Upon his death in 2000, an libretto for an opera based on Moore's poem and written to be performed by hand puppets was found among his papers. 2020 Virginia Humanities, All Rights Reserved . Enslaved laborers dug the canal by hand, a backbreaking feat that took about twelve years. Sayers, Daniel O. By and far, there are very few manufactured goods that have been found, showing how self-functioning the communities were. Dr. Sylviane Diouf, a historian of the African diaspora, says subterranean maroon shelters were often ingeniously constructed. All maps, graphics, flags, photos and original descriptions 2023 worldatlas.com, The Different Types Of Caves And Cave Systems, Protecting the World's Wetlands Gains Momentum. The swamp, said Marcus P. Nevius, author of "City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856, was "both a place of slave labor's exploitation and a place . Professor Sayerss research suggests that maroon communities of the Great Dismal Swamp began to disperse aroundthe Civil War. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); 99% Invisible The Great Dismal Swamp holds the largest known collection of archaeological artifacts in the continental United States from Maroon colonies. If you find any errors in this article, please reach out to [emailprotected]. Take a moment to interact with them. 1763 Lake Drummond charted by George Washingtons surveyor This expansive area wasn't made a National Refuge until the 1970s. We invite you to learn more about Indians in Virginia in our Encyclopedia Virginia. Rather small black-and-white woodpecker with longish bill. Lake Drummond and part of the Great Dismal Swamp are protected by the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, which was established by the Dismal Swamp Act of 1974. In 1973, Union Camp donated its Virginia swamp holdings to the Nature Conservancy which, in turn, deeded it to the Department of the Interior for creation of the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Enslaved Black people who have escaped bondage are rendered in the foreground. The swamp has a lot to offer, from nature paths to exhilarating activities in and around Lake Drummond. The swamp covers about 190 square miles today, but at its peak, before parts of it were drained and developed, it was around ten times bigger, spanning roughly 2,000 square miles of Virginia and North Carolina. Eric Sheppard agrees. Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp. 1814 First recorded passage of a vessel other than a shingle flat A lot of important African American history has been neglectedby our education system, he says. 1830 North West Canal completed 1805 Dismal Swamp Canal began limited through navigation for flat boats Explore the, A Desolate Place for a Defiant People: The Archaeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp. Today the presence of these communities is commemorated in the recently-added Underground Railroad pavilion located on a trail near the Great Dismal Swamp National Park headquarters in Suffolk, Virginia. Even though the average depth of the lake is only six feet, its unusually pure water is essential to the swamps survival. The Great Dismal Swamp was known to the Algonquin people for thousands of years. The adventurers quickly learned that the process of emptying the Swamp was huge and abandoned that portion of their strategy to focus on lumbering. They found ways to exist and build outside of a state apparatus and exhibited a praxis of freedom that was opaque to white society and their philosophies of freedom, citizenship, and assimilation. Privacy Policy & Terms of Service. Within this milieu of communities, naturalists will encounter a wide variety of organisms ranging from carpenter frogs to black bears. George Washington visited the Swamp and formed both the Dismal Swamp Land Company and the Adventurers for Draining the Great Dismal Swamp with numerous other famous Virginians and North Carolinians. These many different histories all intermingled in the swamp, with economies of trade and exchange created and flourishing far beyond the reach of European or American control. But the cultural and natural treasures of the Great Dismal Swamp lack full protection, and threats like climate change and encroaching development are set to jeopardize them further. Such islands could each house a few dozen maroons. Services 1952 Lake Drummond dried up there was no water in the Canal. self-emancipated: People who have freed themselves from slavery, usually by running away or purchasing their freedom. 1764 Dismal Swamp Land Company chartered This self-guided, digital heritage trail includes more than 20 outdoor interpretive signs and monuments, parks, waterways and museums. 2. The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge sprawls across more than 112,000 acres in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. The Adventurers soon realized, however, that the task of draining the Swamp was enormous and gave up that part of their plan to concentrate on lumbering. Published Sep 17, 2021 The Dismal Swamp may have an off-putting name, but it's home to a diverse ecosystem with plenty of hiking and waterway trails to explore. Click on an image thumbnail to load it in the main area. There are dangerous animals in the swamp, but also dangerous geography. They harvested several cypress trees for shipbuilding and cedar trees for shingles and other items. So with this long, complex, and dangerous history, it's not surprising that there are more than a few stories that have attached themselves to the swamp over the years. Smith, Sarah Stefana. Nevertheless, Maroon life was in no way easy or idyllic, as much of the security and sustainability they established in the Dismal was held alongside the insecurities brought on by outside threats and everyday needs.[viii]. Day, Thomas. White painters, like Thomas Moran, constructed similar depictions of the Dismal and its community members. Map is titled Dismal Swamp Canal connecting the Chesapeake Bay with Currituck, Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds and their tributary streams, by D. S. Walton, Civil Engineer, 1867. Courtesy of http://www.learnnc.org. Resident black bears take to their dens, emerging only occasionally on warm days. Sweet Music for Thomas Moore's The Ballad of the Great Dismal Swamp. The lake has a low nutrient content due to the leaching of acidic elements from nearby peat soils. He was enslaved in the region, born in Camden county North Carolina in 1786. The Union Camp Corporation, a paper company located in Franklin, Virginia, with substantial land holdings in the region, granted over 49,000 acres of land to the Nature Conservancy in 1973. It was beneath the sea for millions of years before the Swamp developed. This industry eventually led to the creation of the Great Dismal Swamp Canal to transporting the logs from the deep forests, and the canal remains the oldest man-made waterway in America still in use. [i] William Byrd II named the swamp as such after he surveyed it in 1728 a journey in which he saw a Maroon family and decided that it would only be useful for lumber harvesting, canal digging, and other destructive changes.[ii]. The Civil War isnt even two centuries ago. Today, the Swamp is part of the water resource catchment for the Hampton Roads region, home to more than 1 million people. In the late 1700s, Riddick Ditch was completed. Sayers says this speaks to the communities isolation and self-sufficiency. Feel free to, By submitting this form, you acknowledge that you have read the, Slave Hunt in the Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia, 1862. Some maroons lived in the woods while others lived in the mountains or swamps. In England in the ninth century, King Alfred based his successful resistance against the Vikings in the marshes of the Somerset Levels, staying on a patch of dry land called the Isle of Athelney, and later Hereward the Wake based his unsuccessful resistance against the Normans in the eleventh century from the Isle of Ely in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Called "great," possibly because of its size, it was called "dismal" because that was a common term at the time for a swamp or morass. Boaters traveling the interior passageway with a shallow draft might take the dismal swamp canal route, which runs parallel to US Highway 17, when heading south for the winter. He wrote, The Dismal is a very large swamp or bogg and a horrible desert, the foul damps ascend without ceasing, corrupt the Air, and render it unfit for Respiration. In contrast, George Washington visits the swamp for the first time in 1763 and describes the area as a glorious paradise abundant in wild fowl and game. The Dismal Swamp Company, founded by several elite colonists including George Washington, sought to use the labor of enslaved people to transform the swamp from a nearly impenetrable natural barrier into the location of a profitable venture. In 2003, several sites in the Great Dismal Swamp were added to the National Parks Service Network To Freedom, which recognizes 400 sites that were involved in the Underground Railroad. Great Dismal Swamp: A large marshy area that straddles the eastern section of the border between Virginia and North Carolina. The swamp was home to Native American bands for over 13,000 years. Washington directed the surveying and digging of the 5-mile long ditch from the western edge of the Swamp to Lake Drummond, known today as Washington Ditch. Its humid and soggy, filled with thorns and thickets, teeming with all sorts of dangerous and unpleasant wildlife. Our new entry by Marcus Nevius on Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp explores the role of the Dismal as a place of petit marronage, in which individuals or groups of enslaved people self-emancipated and sought refuge in inhospitable terrain. The Great Dismal Swamp straddles many linesthe border between Virginia and North Carolina, the boundary between land and water, and the space between past and present. But hundreds of years ago, before the Civil War, the dangers of the swamp and its seeming impenetrability actually attracted people to it. 2008 Dismal Swamp State Park opens to the public Right off the bat, the Great Dismal Swamps name does it a disservice. Well explore the history of the Great Dismal Swamp as a place of enslaved resistance and rebellion and learn about current efforts to have the swamp designated a National Heritage Area, a place where historic, cultural, and natural resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally important landscape. The most famous legend from the Great Dismal Swamp comes from slightly north of the border in Virginia, where Lake Drummond stretches for five miles through the swamp. 106, no. The Great Dismal Swamp played several roles throughout history, such as being a common route for fleeing slaves, and has been mentioned in many works of literature as well. Janay Draughn is the MDC Dan Broun Summer Intern. Located in southeastern Virginia, the lone surviving remnant of a sprawling wetlands that formerly stretched over one million acres of coastal plain, the Great Dismal Swamp is now largely confined to 112,000 acres of wildlife refuge. Home to the precolonial polities of the Nansemond Indian Nation, the Great Dismal Swamp once served as a trade center for Native nations of the region, including the Algonquian-speaking members of the Powhatan Confederacy to the north, the Iroquian-speaking nations to the south, and the Eastern Siouan and Muscogean-speaking nations who transited from greater distances. Required fields are marked *. Closed: Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Years Day. Your email address will not be published. The story of marronage in the swamp largely ended after the Civil War and the abolishment of slavery. In this manner, why is it called the Great Dismal Swamp? national refuge stewarded by U.S. According to Native American legend, the ghost of "a deranged lover searching for his dead sweetheart"3 wanders its grounds. This practice of survival and impulse for revolutionary imagination still exists in Maroon communities, such as those in Suriname and Accompong Town, Moore Town, Charles Town, and Scotts Hall in Jamaica. These life-size models are displayed in three of the 16 galleries of the Mount Vernon Education Center. And while they have recovered thousands of artifacts from these settlements, theyve recovered very few manufactured goods from the outside world. In North Carolina, The Dismal Swamp State Park can be found off of US 17 is South Mills. Below are two literary representations of marronage, Maroons and fugitive. Some earned money by working for free black shingle makers, who hired maroons to cut logs. Weve posted it here: https://youtu.be/t0k8ZcLk_ZA, Your email address will not be published. JoinEncyclopedia Virginia on May 11 for a fascinating look at the Great Dismal Swamp: Past and Present, as we present a conversation with Marcus Nevius, author ofCity of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, and Alexandra Sutton Lawrence of the Great Dismal Swamp Stakeholders Collaborative. The water of the swamp is also unusually pure, due to high levels of tannic acids from the juniper, gum, and Cyprus trees, which produces an environment vastly different than the surrounding land. It exists today as one of the most ecologically sensitive and important areas on the East Coast, a natural carbon sink that plays a critical role in carbon sequestration, and as a repository of another type, holding the stories of the enslaved people who sought refuge in the swamp and claimed it as a place of resistance to slavery. She enjoys learning about the South and loves reading imaginative, Black Feminist, and experimental literature. One maroon named Tom Wilson said,I felt safer among the alligators than among white men.. Philbrook Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons. 126. Indigenous people, such as the Chesapeake, Nansemond, Meherrin, and Tuscarora tribes, likely fled to the Dismal in large numbers as a . The Dismal Swamp was the setting for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, but the book never achieved the same level of popularity as Uncle Tom's Cabin. This self-guided, digital heritage trail includes more than 20 outdoor interpretive signs and monuments, parks, waterways and museums.
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