Category Archives: maroons

The Fugitive Slave Law – 1793

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I associated the Fugitive Slave Law with the Civil War. The truth is, however, the first iteration of the law was signed into effect in 1793, long before I would have guessed. It is important to remember that many of the founding fathers, including George Washington, were slave owners.

In Death in the Great Dismal,

when Rees and Lydia rescue their friends Tobias and Ruth, they were breaking the law. Although both Tobias and Ruth had both been born free in Maine, they were abducted and sold into slavery. (The slave takers frequently took any person of color, born free or not, for sale in the South. Occasionally, white children were stolen as well.)

Not only were escaped people subject to recapture, anyone who obstructed the slave takers were considered in violation of the law. Moreover, any child born to an enslaved mother was also considered to be enslaved. The prevailing custom was one drop of black blood meant that person was considered black, no matter how light-skinned. Rees and Lydia, therefore, could have been in serious trouble if they had been caught.

The full text of the Act is available from the Library of Congress (and online) in the Annals of Congress of the 2ndCongress, 2nd Session, during which the proceedings and debates took place from November 5, 1792 to March 2, 1793. 

The appropriate sections are 3 and 4.

By the end of the American Revolution all of the Northern states had abolished slavery or made provision to do so. (The United States abolished the slave trade in 1808.) However, fugitives could and were returned to the Southern states per the Fugitive Slave Act by men whose profession, if you will, was capturing escapees.

 This law was further strengthened in 1850 at the request of the slave states. One of the elements most annoying to Northerners was the three-fifths rule that counted every five slaves as three people and therefore gave the slave states much more representation in Congress. Although there were abolitionists prior to 1850, the revised law caused a tremendous increase in people who identified as anti-slavery.

The term Underground Railroad did not come into common use until the construction of actual railroads became widespread. An abolitionist newspaper published a cartoon in 1844 that pictured a rail car packed with fugitives heading for Canada. Use of ‘conductor’ and other railroad terms came into broader use after the 1850 law. 

Banjos in the Great Dismal Swamp

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In Death in the Great Dismal, one of my primary characters (Cinte) makes and plays and early form of the banjo. (The modern name; it had many others.)

The banjo came to America with the enslaved peoples, some scholars think by way of the Caribbean and the slaves imported by the Portuguese. In any event, there are over 60 similar plucked instruments, including the akonting, the ngoni, and the xalam, played in West Africa that bear some resemblance to the banjo. Early, African- influenced banjos, had a calabash or gourd body covered with hide and a long wooden stick neck, Usually the banjos had three strings with a shorter, drone string.

The earliest mention in the American Colonies occurred in the 17th century. The first known picture of a man playing a banjo-like instrument (The Old Plantation, circa 1785-1795) shows a four stringed instrument as described above. Banjo-playing was perpetuated in the plantations and the slave-labor camps as I describe in my mystery.

The banjo in its modern form is a melding of the old form with European influences, a flat fingerboard and tuning pegs. The pictures show both fretted and unfretted varieties. During the 1830 and 1840s, playing the banjo spread beyond the enslaved to the enslavers, Minstrels shows featuring the banjos became popular. After the Civil War, the banjos spread to drawing rooms and other venues.

The banjo was re-popularized once again during the folk revival by such performers as Pete Seeger.

American Music owes a huge debt to the men and women brought here so unwillingly and would be a lot less rich without these influences.

The Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp

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In Death in the Great Dismal, I take a temporary break from Rees’s world; the District of Maine and the community of Shakers who live nearby, to send him and Lydia south to Virginia.

Rees is asked by his friend Tobias to rescue his wife Ruth from the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. Rees and Lydia agree, somewhat reluctantly, and travel to the swamp. (The swamp still exists, bridging 100,000 acres in Southern Virginia into northern North Carolina, and has been declared a Wildlife Refuge.)

There, Tobias guides them to a small village of fugitives, who were living hand to mouth, in the depths of the swamp. Who were these people?

Well, first of all, the existence of the Maroons is true and historically accurate. The hunger for freedom was so acute that many people fled slavery, preferring to take their chances in the hostile environment of the swamp. Daniel Sayers, an archeologist, has done excavations to identify some of the sites of the villages. The village structures were built of wood and, because of the climate in the swamp, they have all rotted. There are no stones of any kind in the swamp but Sayers found remnants of post holes and pottery shards. Why were they called Maroons. No one really knows. One theory is that the name is from the French, marronage, to flee.

Although not well known until recently, the existence of these small villages is present in the historical record. Slave takers were sent regularly into the swamp to recapture escapees – with mixed success. Some of these Maroons lived so deep within the swamp, surviving and raising families, that they could not be found. The children born here grew up in their turn, and the descendent of the original fugitives did not leave the swamp until after the Civil War. They had never seen a white person.

As I describe, male slaves were regularly hired by the Dismal Canal Company to dig the canal. The overseers turned a blind eye to the maroons who worked as shingle makers, despite knowing they were fugitives, because these shingle makers helped make the quotas.

I also based my character Quaco, on an historical account of a man who, brought to Virginia on a slave ship, escaped to the swamp as soon as he arrived. He survived by hunting, and dressed himself in the skins of the animals in killed. He never learned English.

Death in the Great Dismal

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Very excited to reveal the cover for my next Will Rees mystery: Death in the Great Dismal. It will be released early fall. In this book, Will and Lydia travel to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia to rescue a free black woman, taken from Maine and enslaved, who has fled to the swamp. One of the other maroons is murdered – but Will and Lydia are on the case.

I have had many wonderful covers but this one is exceptional.

The Great Dismal Swamp, Again

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Next March, A Circle of Dead Girls will be released. It has already been released in the UK.

The Will Rees Mystery that will come out after, probably next summer, is titled Death in the Great Dismal. As one may guess, this mystery takes Will and Lydia to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia.

Since I always find it easier to imagine my characters in the location in which the mystery takes place, I have visited the swamp again. What an amazing place!

Loblolly pines. Even in the winter, when the leaves have dropped, it is difficult to see through the vegetation. The pines grow on drier islands in the swamp. This is where the maroons, the escaped slaves, would have set up camps.
One of the many streams in the swamp. The water is black. Tannin leaches from the roots of the cypress. Although the water is safe to drink, any fabric or lighter surface will be dyed brown by the water. Look closely. All the water ways are edges with the stubs of trees where the beavers have gnawed them down.
Downed trees are everywhere. I describe this scene in my book, although Rees finds a clue at the water’s edge.