The Great Dismal Swamp—former hiding place for refugee slaves

The Great Dismal Swamp situated near the Atlantic Coast at the Virginia/North Carolina border once reached over 2,000 square miles in size. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, refugee slaves hid out in the swamp in several communities known as the Great Dismal Swamp Maroons. Archaeologists are not uncovering its hidden secrets.

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Deep in the Swamps, Archaeologists Are Finding How Fugitive Slaves Kept Their Freedom

By Richard Grant; Photographs by Allison Shelley

Smithsonian Magazine

September 2016 Issue