Great Dismal Swamp maroons
The Great Dismal Swamp maroons were freed and escaped slaves who inhabited the marshlands of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina. Although conditions were harsh, research suggests that thousands lived there between about 1700 and the 1860s. Harriett Beecher Stowe told the maroon people's story in her 1856 novel Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. The most significant research on the settlements began in 2002 with a project by Dan Sayers of American University.
The Great Dismal Swamp spans an area of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina between the James River near Norfolk, Virginia, and the Albemarle Sound near Edenton, North Carolina. The swamp is estimated to have originally been over 1 million acres (4,000 km2), but human encroachment has destroyed up to 90% of the swampland. Today, the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge is just over 112 thousand acres (450 km2).
In all likelihood, the words "Maroon" and "Seminole" share the same etymology in the Spanish word cimarrón, meaning "wild" or "untamed". This word usually referred to runaways or castaways and is ultimately derived from the word for "thicket" in Old Spanish.
The first African slaves brought to the British colonies in Virginia in 1619 came on a Dutch ship. At the time, slaves were treated similarly to indentured servants, becoming free with the passage of a certain period of time. Others gained freedom by converting to Christianity, since the English of that time did not typically enslave Christians. Slave labor was used in many efforts to drain and log the Great Dismal Swamp during the 18th and 19th centuries. Escaped slaves living in freedom came to be known as maroons or outlyers. The origin of the term "maroon" is uncertain, with competing theories linking it to Spanish, Arawak or Taino root words. Maroonage, runaway slaves in isolated or hidden settlements, existed in all the Southern states, and swamp-based maroon communities existed in the Deep South, in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Maroonage in the Upper South was largely limited to Virginia and the Great Dismal Swamp.
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