The Great Dismal Swamp

Guest: Dan Sayers, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at American University; Director of the Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study; author of “A Desolate Place for a Defiant People: The Archaeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp” Enveloped by swamp land, mosquitoes, brush, and sweltering heat, the Great Dismal Swamp harbored a hidden maroon community of runaway enslaved people, Native Americans, and others who established a free society that lasted for centuries. Capitalizing on Whites' fear of swamps, these maroon people lived for generations in a land apart, yet within the borders of Virginia and North Carolina.