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  • Was The Great Dismal The Only Maroon In North America?

    Any society that embraced slavery necessarily spawned Maroons. As history documents, people want to live free, no matter the hardships that entailed. Throughout the Caribbean and South America, Maroon communities developed beyond the reach of authorities. In Jamaica, where the government’s armed forces were few, a large and vibrant Maroon community thrived openly.

    In North America, the challenges were more significant for self-liberated individuals to establish free communities within the South. Research indicates that the further an enslaved person was from Northern free states, the slimmer the likelihood of successfully escaping. Enslaved located in border states to the North were more likely to be able to move to freedom along the Underground Railroad. Recent analysis further concludes that over 70% of successful escapes happened via water routes.

    The Great Dismal was not the only Maroon in North America. Documentation and research indicate that there were over fifty Maroon communities at some point before the end of the Civil War. None approached the size of the Great Dismal, and some existed only for a short period of time. Whether a remote Appalachian location or other swamps that dotted the South, people sought any opportunity. Outside of New Orleans, which was ruled by the Spanish prior to the Louisiana Purchase, Jean Saint Malo led a band that at times exceeded one hundred. This group was aided at times by the pirate Jean Lafitte (see his smiling image above). In another case, a creative individual dug a bunker near his former owner’s plantation and lived underground for years with the assistance of nearby slaves.

    The creativity and risks taken never cease to amaze me. Their stories need to be more widely understood and act as beacons to us to resist current challenges to our civil liberties.

  • Alligators in the Great Dismal Swamp

    alligator physical characteristics and U-shaped snout in Everglades

    The 1791 community in the Great Dismal Swamp that I wrote about (“Escape To The Maroons”) fought for survival from any number of dangers. Whether the threat of bounty hunters seeking to return individuals to slavery or the swamp’s natural conditions were more dangerous is debatable. Whatever the swamp’s risks, living free made the challenges worth taking on.

    One of the questions I get is how Dismal Swamp residents dealt with the alligators. Since travel in that environment often required wading through water, weren’t gators a menace?

    In my research, I found conflicting information about the presence of alligators in the Great Dismal Swamp. Some sources indicated the creatures occupied the southern areas of that swamp, while others reported that the conditions were too cold during winter. In the end, I relied upon the Ranger who hosted me at the Great Dismal Refuge. She sided with the sources that stated it was too cold. (Keep in mind that alligators are cold-blooded, and maintaining their body temperature is critical for survival.) The Ranger did add that with climate change warming the planet, alligators are gradually moving north and can now be found in Southern North Carolina. She believes that the current Federal Refuge will have alligators in the future.

    So, in 1791, while there were many threats that could easily kill a Great Dismal resident, alligators were not on that list. Snakes petrify most people, and twenty-one different varieties occupy the Great Dismal. Even if only three are poisonous, meeting a water moccasin while wading was, and still is, to be avoided. Black bears, wild boars, wild cattle, and more creatures could also kill in 1791. Then there were accidents that occurred while carrying out day-to-day tasks, such as foraging for food or chopping wood. Don’t forget the swarms of mosquitoes and biting flies that spread disease, such as malaria.

    My awe continues to grow when I consider the daily challenges faced in the Great Dismal. Maroons made the ultimate statement of people determined to refuse bondage and live free. 

  • Did Maroon Residents Celebrate Christmas?

    As my book and posts have highlighted, simply surviving in one of the worst environments in North America was a constant struggle for Maroon residents. While some self-liberated individuals chose to live close to the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, they traded the risk of capture for opportunities to, at times, to access established communities and resources.

    The vast majority of the over 2,000 Great Dismal Swamp residents chose the safer option of residing deeper within that morass. That meant limited access to basic manufactured items such as cooking kettles, axes, hammers, nails, and other tools that colonial pioneers relied upon. It was illegal for merchants to trade with Maroon residents, though some did at great risk. Without enough basic tools and materials, the ability to grow food and hunt was limited. For security reasons, those residing in the swamp who had a few guns would resist shooting them to minimize the risk of discovery. Instead, techniques such as traps and arrows had to be employed. That meant a greater likelihood during the winter months of not having enough food. With food shortages, who had the resources to celebrate a holiday?

    While it might not have been universal in all Maroons, my research indicates that many Great Dismal Swamp communities did celebrate December’s biggest holiday. Determined to live free, these people knew the importance of celebrating community. At the time I write about, 1791, fewer first-generation slaves were arriving from Africa. By the end of the eighteenth century, most of the slave population was second- or third-generation. Those people had resided in North America long enough to be exposed to Christianity, and many accepted it. Some slave owners thought mandating Christianity would help keep those in bondage more accepting of their situations.

    So, for many, Christmas Day was a highlight of the year. Food was hoarded, an animal might be sacrificed, and alcohol fermented from a variety of plants shared. Hymns and circle dancing celebrated the joy of being together in freedom. And the birth of Christianity’s savior brought hope of one day being delivered from a society that tolerated slavery.

    I was taught from an early age to be thankful for what our family had and to share throughout the year with those less fortunate. This year, with too many minorities in America forced to stay hidden to avoid increased immigration enforcement, the parallels to the conditions of the Maroons is striking. With this year’s celebration of Christianity’s savior, who brought messages of brotherhood and tolerance, as the Maroons experienced, stay hidden, and celebrate quietly.    

    Available from all booksellers

  • One Of My Many Writers’ Dilemmas

    “Rumors abound of people entering this quagmire, never to be seen again. Stories pass down about phantom graveyards that appear and just as quickly vanish. The image of a lost lover’s canoe may drift in the distance.

    Ghosts wander and inspire writers like Edgar Allen Poe. Storms build quickly, turning a capricious environment more fearsome. It is marshland gone wild, all matted and impenetrable. Never intended for man, nature rules this place. In 1791, can desperate people be anything other than secondary players if they choose to enter?”

    The above is an excerpt from the Prologue in “Escape To The Maroons.” I spoke in an earlier blog how the swamp had to be as much a character in the story as the protagonist.

    So, I drafted the Prologue to paint the extreme conditions. What to do with the Prologue soon became one of the many issues I had to resolve as the book evolved. My working process required three years from initiating research to holding the first advanced reading copies in my hands. Many ask how many drafts the book went through. I never kept score, but if you guess more than thirty revisions, I believe it easily exceeded that number.

    Of the generous people who looked at early drafts, along with my paid editor, suggestions about the Prologue were all over the board. “You should start with Chapter One and engage the reader immediately with the action.” “Get rid of it. You have more than enough descriptions of the swamp in the story.” “Maybe at the end of the book, if at all.”

    In my energy industry career, there were many instances where decisions were not clear-cut. But usually, a consensus would emerge. That never seemed to be the case with the Prologue. So, as the parade of revisions evolved, the Prologue was in, then out, drafted in various formats, then in again, then out.

    In the end, I went with my gut. I included it in the very first draft for a reason. From my perspective, readers needed to understand the topography before introducing any characters. The swamp’s extreme environment spoke volumes about the price the self-liberated were willing to pay in their determination to live free.  

    This was just one of a myriad of decisions any author must resolve. If you’ve read the book, what do you think about the Prologue? I’d love to hear.

    Available at bookstores everywhere

  • In Escape To The Maroons, Why New Bedford?

    Without giving too much away, there is a spot in my recent book where I reference New Bedford, Massachusetts, as a site where fugitive slaves often fled. That’s the town where I grew up. The city has a fascinating history. Because of whaling, it was once among the wealthiest cities in the world. Over the years, it evolved into a rough-and-tumble blue-collar town where fewer than 50% of residents had a high school diploma. Being the largest fishing port on the East Coast today, it’s still tied to the sea.

    Prior to the end of the Civil War, New Bedford was known to bounty hunters as the Gibraltar of Fugitive Slaves. Early New Bedford had a heavily Quaker population that held strong abolitionist beliefs. When slave hunters were spotted entering the city, the town’s church bells rang in alarm. The involvement of all churches indicates it was more than Quakers who were committed to the abolitionist movement. For those hunters bold enough to try, I’ve read some very un-Quaker-like behavior that quickly sent the unwanted on their way.

    The most famous self-liberated man to take refuge in New Bedford was Frederick Douglass. Once he escaped from Baltimore, bounty hunters pursued him. Because of the Fugitive Slave Laws passed by the federal government, once he reached anti-slavery New York City, Douglass was still not safe. With assistance, he fled on a train to Newport, Rhode Island. There, two leading New Bedford leaders whisked him by carriage forty miles to his new home. As a way to confuse pursuers, they convinced the fleeing man to change his name from Frederick Baily, to Douglass.

    Douglass’ family soon joined him. Locals assisted in providing employment to support his family and his children’s education. Douglass also honed his own writing and speaking skills. After his first public presentation at an abolitionist convention on Nantucket Island, he became a leading voice nationally for the movement.

    During my research, I discovered this hidden history that, to my memory, was never taught in the public education I received. Inserting New Bedford into my book brought a newfound pride for my roots. Now I appreciate the downtown cobblestone streets that I trod on were constructed by committed abolitionists standing in opposition to racist federal laws and working to shield the newly free. And down the hill on the waterfront, those newly arrived earned wages for the first time since arriving in shackles to North America.

    Today, New Bedford’s local news reports on the latest raids by ICE. As in Douglass’s time, many local organizations are working hard to assist and protect those targeted. While New Bedford continues its long history of supporting the unfortunate, there is no Gibraltar in that city today.      

    Available at all bookstores.

  • You Managed To Escape, But Where Do You Even Go?

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    More than one reader has contacted me asking how I managed to explicitly portray the Great Dismal Swamp in “Escape To The Maroons.” Since that was my intent, I’ll take the compliment. But after visiting the place, I don’t know that any writer can truly describe how extreme surviving there must have been.

    When I traveled to Virginia and spent a day touring the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, a Ranger drove me around to show me several highlights, including Lake Drummond. Today’s footprint of the swamp is significantly smaller than during the 1791 period I write about. Commercial interests have encroached along the borders by filling in wetlands. Inside the still massive swamp are roads, walking trails, and canals. Swarms of mosquitoes and other biting insects, twenty-one kinds of snakes, and a variety of predators still abound. When working in the field during spring, the Ranger told me that she had to wear two Tyvek suits and fully cover her face. Due to springtime mosquitoes, on a warm day, she would be soaked in twenty minutes.

    At the end of our tour, I headed away, parked the rental car at a random spot, and took off walking. Quickly, I was slogging through patches of water, pushing aside bushes, and seeing nothing but miles of the same as far as my eyes could see. The same topography confronted fleeing slaves. Likely with a bounty hunter on their tail, in what direction should one even go? There were mosquitoes back on the plantation, but here they are so thick that at times it’s hard to see through their cloud. How does one begin to find anyone in this 2,000-square-mile morass?

    It didn’t take long before I was back in the car, blasting the AC, and scratching my bites. What first attracted me to the story of these amazing people had just been reinforced, and today’s conditions are not nearly as foreboding as in the pre-1800s.    

    Take your life today. Could things ever get so desperate that you would consider fleeing to a place like the picture above? Maybe you are carrying a sack with some spare clothes, a bit of food, a water gourd, and perhaps a hatchet you stole.

    At that moment, what might anyone feel and think facing that endless expanse? To escape the brutality of slavery, what choice was there other than to walk ahead? Some died before they found people to help them? Somehow, the network of Maroon residents and Indigenous Natives often found new runners and took them in. As one Maroon resident said about that first step, no matter how bad it looked ahead, this place meant freedom.

    In my book, the Great Dismal Swamp had to be as much of a character as any of the individuals I wrote about.

    Paperback: https://geni.us/RM5o

    Ebook: https://geni.us/eRthZgH

  • A Blog From Mike

    Since I started writing after retiring from the energy field, one message from all the publishing guides and experts who offered advice was consistent—write a blog. As someone who is generally overwhelmed by the myriad of material that comes at me via the world-wide web, I don’t read many blogs. So, my reaction was, do I need to add to others’ inboxes?

    Now you can see that I’ve succumbed. What pushed me over the edge was the strong reviews and support “Escape To The Maroons” is getting. Numerous readers have followed up with questions or to learn more about those amazing people.

    That’s been powerful for me to hear, since the subjects I settle on are important to me. While I seek to discover little-known stories of forgotten people or events, with that comes a responsibility to represent the characters I write about honestly and respectfully.

    For example, take Iva Toguri, “Iva: The True Story of Tokyo Rose.” What did she do to deserve the events no one foresee? Raised in Southern California and wanting nothing more than to be an All-American girl in the country she loved, political circumstances ruined her life. As one judge in today’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stated in a session where I spoke, what she experienced was likely the greatest travesty of justice ever by that court, bar none.

    How can I not do my best to present each character central to my books fairly? But best of all, with this responsibility comes fun for me to discover their stories.

    As some of you know, I earned my undergraduate degree in History. My parents expected that I would become a High School Teacher, but that job lasted only one year. I had to get full-time tennis out of my system (still working on that). Then Graduate School, and a stumble into the energy field, which was most rewarding. Yet, over the years, I yearned to have the opportunity to delve into little-known stories and translate them into historical fiction. I feel most fortunate to be where I am right now.

    So, I am going to blog and see how it goes. If you have feedback, please send it my way.

    Next time, I’ll share something interesting that a long-time friend shared with me. All my best… Mike Weedall

    PS—By the way, that’s a photo from a recent biking trip Sue and I did in the Netherlands. Seeing my reaction to that promotional ad sews more doubt that the tennis bug will ever set me free.   

    Ebook: https://geni.us/eRthZgH

    Paperback: https://geni.us/RM5o