A Desolate Place for a Defiant People: The Archaeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp

by Daniel Sayers

“Shows how colonialism and slavery created sustained critiques of American capitalism and created the conditions for chronic resistance. These communities represent a largely unrecognized, alternative declaration of independence. They are a part of world history that is truly revolutionary.”—Mark P. Leone, author of The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital
 
“Addresses key historical and theoretical debates of the archaeology of the African diaspora. Theoretically complex and methodologically rigorous, it is the first serious study to locate maroon groups in the Chesapeake.”—Frederick H. Smith, author of The Archaeology of Alcohol and Drinking
 
“Sayers uses archaeology to tell a compelling story of how alienated people found refuge in the alien landscape of the Great Dismal Swamp. Here they created their own way of life, free of the exploitation and alienation that they escaped. His work helps us to better understand the history of defiance in the Antebellum South and raises important theoretical issues for all archaeologists studying diasporic communities.”—Randall H. McGuire, author of Archaeology as Political Action
 
In the 250 years before the Civil War, the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia and North Carolina was a brutal landscape—2,000 square miles of undeveloped and unforgiving wetlands, peat bogs, impenetrable foliage, and dangerous creatures. It was also a protective refuge for marginalized individuals, including Native Americans, African-American maroons, free African Americans, and outcast Europeans.

In the first thorough archaeological examination of this unique region, Daniel Sayers exposes and unravels the complex social and economic systems developed by these defiant communities that thrived on the periphery. He develops an analytical framework based on the complex interplay between alienation, diasporic exile, uneven geographical development, and modes of production to argue that colonialism and slavery inevitably created sustained critiques of American capitalism. 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Race, Indigenous, Native American, Archaeology

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2014

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the grueling labor of interpreting academic jargon, this book is enormously important and thus worthy of the effort to read it. It is nothing less than an exploration of evidence of a form of humanity lived outside of the socially accepted and continuously enforced world of capitalism. It indicates a possibility inherent in the very intrinsic desire for freedom born into each of us.

[Julia Hendon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Potentially interesting archaeology but the decision to focus on a very heavy handed theoretical framework makes it difficult to figure how the available evidence tells anything about people's lives

[Jasmine Jordan Ham · Rating 2 out of 5]

"In this analysis, I ground my thoughts on the social history of the Dismal Swamp firmly in the Marxian conceptualization of alienation because I have found that it is an extremely productive and fruitful approach to understanding how capitalistic systems and societies persist and reproduce on daily bases and over long periods of time."

At least 60 of the 217 pages (mostly chapters 2 and 3) and spent discussing the Marxist concept of alienation with references to the Dismal Swamp thinly scattered throughout. I do not personally hold a Marxist worldview, but I thought that would all be worth it— it was not. Sayers defined the swamp's denizens only by their "labor" and "mode of production". My questions about the social interactions, kinship, and overall culture in the Dismal Swamp were never answered. In his closing remarks, Sayers even makes it clear that he will never answer such questions, stating, "I do not actively seek evidence of ethnogeneiss, creolization, spiritual practices, ethnic identities, and certain cultural traditions, as such." Sayers even seems to infer that interests in these concepts are a product of the "Capitalistic Mode of Production".

I bought this book based on title alone in the Great Dismal Swamp State Park giftshop because I thought it would be more comprehensive than the books solely about music, the canal, or bootlegging. I should have gone with music. Overall, I would only recommend this to someone with a strong interest in this type of Marxist interpretation.

[Hebbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 -- interesting to find a Marxian account of the swamp and how its political economy could, for at least parts of its history, be something that represented a minimally-alienating mode of production.