Fleeing To Dismal Swamp, Slaves And Outcasts Found Freedom

[Blue_Tires]

Most Americans know about the Underground Railroad, the route that allowed Southern slaves to escape North. Some slaves found freedom by hiding closer to home, however — in Great Dismal Swamp.

The swamp is a vast wetland in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. In George Washington's time, it was a million acres of trees, dark water, bears, bobcats, snakes and stinging insects. British settlers, who first arrived in 1607, believed the swamp was haunted.

By 1620, some of their slaves may have overcome that fear to find freedom there.

Hidden Islands Of Resistance Communities
Daniel Sayers has been working for more than a decade in Great Dismal Swamp; here, in 2011, he displays a fire-cracked rock from a dig site. His new book pieces together the stories of those who once lived in settlements scattered on patches of dry land in the swamp. i

Daniel Sayers has been working for more than a decade in Great Dismal Swamp; here, in 2011, he displays a fire-cracked rock from a dig site. His new book pieces together the stories of those who once lived in settlements scattered on patches of dry land in the swamp.
Steve Helber/AP

Today, 112,000 acres of swamp remain, and archaeologist Daniel Sayers has explored many of them. He's found large islands where escaped slaves settled.

"When you're walking through a thousand feet of the briars and the water, the mosquitoes are eating you alive, sweating bullets, and you're almost exhausted, and then suddenly your foot's no longer squishing in the peat but now it's walking on dry ground and crunchy leaves — it blows your mind," Sayers says. "You can't imagine people not living there."

He's now written about life on these islands in a new book, A Desolate Place for a Defiant People. He believes 10 generations of escaped slaves lived here, along with Native Americans who'd been driven off their land and whites who were shunned by mainstream society.

Since 2003, he's found thousands of artifacts during Great Dismal Swamp digs. In his laboratory at American University, he unwraps several: bits of clay tobacco pipes, nails and traces of at least a dozen cabins, along with what could have been an arsenal — a place where Sayers found gun flints and lead shot.

"Make no mistake about it. These were resistance communities. They weren't going out there because they loved swamps," he says. "They were going out there because they were living in a very brutal and oppressive world of enslavement and colonialism."

http://www.npr.org/2014/12/28/373519521/fleeing-to-dismal-swamp-slaves-and-outcasts-found-freedom

[drray23]

1. nice article.

I live a few miles from it. My property backs the asimoosick swamp which is about 20 miles nort of the great dismal swamp. Its a great place to hike and do bird watching besides being loaded with historical significance. Every time we are there i am left imagining how horrible the plight of these people were.

[Blue_Tires]

5. I've never heard of the the Asimoosick...Is it on the VA or NC side?

[drray23]

9. its a small swamp on the va side next to franklin nt.

[drray23]

10. of course it would help

If i did not make a typo. Its assamoosick .

[Blue_Tires]

13. oh, ok....I'm in Virginia Beach...

[jwirr]

2. As I read this I kept thinking about the stories of Native American's who took the fleeing slaves

into their communities. Many of us run into this in genealogy. I want to read his book. Thank you for the history.

[BainsBane]

3. Cool

There were thousands of maroon communities throughout the Americans, particularly in Brazil, where they were called quilombos.
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/quilombo-brazilian-maroons-during-slavery

Palmares was the most famous and lasted for over 100 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmares_%28quilombo%29

A number of maroon communities were also located in Florida.

[NOLALady]

4. There were maroon colonies

in Louisiana as well.

My ancestors, Octave Johnson (Monde) along with his wife, escaped to a maroon colony. He survived about 18 months before joining the Union regiment.

http://www.freedmen.umd.edu/OJohnson.html


Testimony by a Corporal in a Louisiana Black Regiment before the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission

[New Orleans February? 1864]

Deposition of Octave Johnson, Corporal Co. C, 15th Regt. Corps d'Afrique.

I was born in New Orleans; I am 23 years of age; I was raised by Arthur Thiboux of New Orleans; I am by trade a cooper; I was treated pretty well at home; in 1855 master sold my mother, and in 1861 he sold me to S. Contrell of St. James Parish for $2,400; here I worked by task at my trade; one morning the bell was rung for us to go to work so early that I could not see, and I lay still, because I was working by task; for this the overseer was going to have me whipped, and I ran away to the woods, where I remained for a year and a half; I had to steal my food; took turkeys, chickens and pigs; before I left our number had increased to thirty, of whom ten were women; we were four miles in the rear of the plantation house; sometimes we would rope beef cattle and drag them out to our hiding place; we obtained matches from our friends on the plantation; we slept on logs and burned cypress leaves to make a smoke and keep away mosquitoes; Eugene Jardeau, master of hounds, hunted for us for three months; often those at work would betray those in the swamp, for fear of being implicated in their escape; we furnished meat to our fellow-servants in the field, who would return corn meal; one day twenty hounds came after me; I called the party to my assistance and we killed eight of the bloodhounds; then we all jumped into Bayou Faupron; the dogs followed us and the alligators caught six of them; “the alligators preferred dog flesh to personal flesh;” we escaped and came to Camp Parapet, where I was first employed in the Commissary's office, then as a servant to Col. Hanks; then I joined his regiment.

Testimony of Corporal Octave Johnson before the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, [Feb.? 1864], filed with O-328 1863, Letters Received, series 12, Adjutant General's Office, Record Group 94, National Archives.

Published in The Destruction of Slavery, p. 217, and in Free at Last, pp. 408–10.

I interviewed a GGDaughter of his before she died. She gave me another version of the above deposition. Octave Johnson told her the story when she was a child. It seemed that he "cleaned up" the deposition. He told her that he was going to be killed as he had already been beaten. She then described the scars on his back.


By the way, Octave's brother also escaped. I have never found the circumstances of his escape, but he ended up in Massachusetts where he joined the 54th Mass. of the "Glory" film.

[JustAnotherGen]

6. Thank you very much for sharing this

[1StrongBlackMan]

7. Knowing ones history is an empowering thing ...

Thank you for sharing.

[BainsBane]

8. It's great to have that testimony from your ancestor

Is that something your family always knew about, or did you research the genealogy?

[NOLALady]

11. It was one of those coincidences.

The "you can't make this stuff up" coincidence.

A friend was researching for his book about the 1811 Slave Revolt in Louisiana. He offered to look up info for my ancestor, Octave Monde, when he went to the DC Archives. While at the archives he met one of the authors of "Free at Last" A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the Civil War.

For some reason, the author began to tell my friend about an Octave Johnson from Louisiana. The author loved the story, he said he started each semester with the story of Octave Johnson. When my friend returned he told me that he was sorry that he couldn't find any info about my Octave Monde. I said, try Octave Johnson. You should have seen his face! Everyone that I interviewed knew him as Octave Monde. But, he showed up in later Census records as Octave Johnson.
My friend didn't say anything to me. But, he went back to DC and found the pension files for Octave as well as his brother, Aristide Monde.

To say that I was overjoyed when I saw the files is an understatement!

So, at a family gathering I opened my book and began to read the passage. Thankfully, the eldest of the clan happened to be in town. As I was reading, she began to correct me, and added to the story. It took me a moment. I stopped reading as I realized how she learned about the story. She misinterpreted my silence, as I was just staring in awe! She said, "Do you think I'm lying? He TOLD me they were going to KILL him. I SAW the SCARS on his back!" Dang! I was fighting for control. I was trying so hard to not lose it!

He also told her that it was his wife who made their escape possible. But, he did not give any details. I have used my imagination.

Also, both brothers survived the war, but each believed the other had not survived. My GGrandMother described in the pension files about their joy upon finding each other some years after the war.

I have a picture of him.

[BainsBane]

12. Wow. That's amazing

What a fantastic coincidence. And then to discover your family had an oral history that supplemented the written documents your friend found. It's wonderful to see history have such a direct and personal impact on someone.

[rbrnmw]

14. thank you