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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDeep in the Swamps, Archaeologists Are Finding How Fugitive Slaves Kept Their Freedom
These people performed a critique of a brutal capitalistic enslavement system, and they rejected it completely. They risked everything to live in a more just and equitable way, and they were successful for ten generations. One of them, a man named Charlie, was interviewed later in Canada. He said that all labor was communal here. Thats how it would have been in an African village.
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Marronage, the process of extricating oneself from slavery, took place all over Latin America and the Caribbean, in the slave islands of the Indian Ocean, in Angola and other parts of Africa. But until recently, the idea that maroons also existed in North America has been rejected by most historians.
In 2004, when I started talking about large, permanent maroon settlements in the Great Dismal Swamp, most scholars thought I was nuts, says Sayers. They thought in terms of runaways, who might hide in the woods or swamps for a while until they got caught, or who might make it to freedom on the Underground Railroad, with the help of Quakers and abolitionists.
By downplaying American marronage, and valorizing white involvement in the Underground Railroad, historians have shown a racial bias, in Sayers opinion, a reluctance to acknowledge the strength of black resistance and initiative. Theyve also revealed the shortcomings of their methods: Historians are limited to source documents. When it comes to maroons, there isnt that much on paper. But that doesnt mean their story should be ignored or overlooked. As archaeologists, we can read it in the ground.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/deep-swamps-archaeologists-fugitive-slaves-kept-freedom-180960122/#MffiDmtQXvR7hskz.99
malaise
(269,277 posts)Thanks
underpants
(183,007 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Loki Liesmith
(4,602 posts)The shout out to his Marxism seems a bit silly though.
ehrnst
(32,640 posts)To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, as the saying goes.
I like his ability to think outside the box, and the idea that archaeology is a form of activism - so long as we aren't projecting too much of our own need for a nail.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)But the piece could have been written without it, at no loss of comprehension.
Baitball Blogger
(46,776 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Really good! Thanks.
TYY
BumRushDaShow
(129,947 posts)and more is needed! Kudos for this.
Auggie
(31,230 posts)suffragette
(12,232 posts)Once you start looking at our history through an African-American lens, it really changes the focus. Maroons become much more significant.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/deep-swamps-archaeologists-fugitive-slaves-kept-freedom-180960122/#m72u6dIEjgG5iWvU.99
Very powerful.
Also important is how by being willing to search through a different discipline (or viewpoint) can lead to discovery.
That's happened here in the PNW, with the the Cascadia subduction zone being discovered and understood through examining geology, archeology and Salish oral and Japanese history together.
wildeyed
(11,243 posts)I hope they continue with the exploration on a larger scale. You would think that historians would be very excited to research this instead of chewing over things we already know so much about.