The history of this remote and uncrowded place is fascinating. The land known as the Great Dismal Swamp covers more than 2,000 square miles over parts of Virginia and North Carolina. It’s the last remaining piece of a larger landscape that once spread across more than 1 million acres. It’s home to large swaths of important plant and animal habitats. It’s a National Wildlife Refuge, it’s a North Carolina State Park, and it was part of the route for the Underground Railroad. Prior to the American Civil War, thousands of people who had escaped slavery made the Great Dismal Swamp their hidden fortress of freedom.

Known as “maroons,” these freedom seekers made the swamp their home, if they weren’t passing through to the northern states. Many of the maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp were enslaved people of African descent, but also among them were many Native Americans seeking escape from colonial expansion into their land. Some lived there for over 30 years, free from oppression.