The Great Dismal Swamp
99% Invisible15 Aug 2017

The Great Dismal Swamp

On the border of Virginia and North Carolina stretches a great, dismal swamp. The Great Dismal Swamp, actually — that’s the name British colonists gave it centuries ago. The swamp covers about 190 square miles today, but at its peak, before parts of it were drained and developed, it was around ten times bigger, spanning roughly 2,000 square miles of Virginia and North Carolina.

And it’s understandable why people called the swamp “dismal.” Temperatures can reach over 100 degrees. It’s humid and soggy, filled with thorns and thickets, teeming with all sorts of dangerous and unpleasant wildlife. The panthers that used to live there are now gone, but even today there are black bears, poisonous snakes, and swarms of yellow flies and mosquitoes.

Hundreds of years ago, before the Civil War, the dangers of the swamp and its seeming impenetrability actually attracted people to it. The land was so untamed that horses and boats couldn’t enter, and the colonists who were filing into the region detested it. William Byrd II, a Virginia planter, called it “a miserable morass where nothing can inhabit.” But people did inhabit the swamp, including thousands of enslaved Africans and African Americans who escaped their captors and formed communities in the swamp. This “dismal” landscape was the site of one of the most remarkable and least told stories of resistance to slavery in American history.

The Great Dismal Swamp

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Avsnitt(788)

Not Built For This #2: The Ripple Effect

Not Built For This #2: The Ripple Effect

In disasters where a lot of people lose their homes, the impacts are not confined to a single city or town. They ripple outward, cascading into the surrounding area, as the survivors are forced to go ...

23 Aug 202457min

Not Built For This #1: The Bottom of the Bowl

Not Built For This #1: The Bottom of the Bowl

Reporter Emmett Fitzgerald was used to hearing people call his home state of Vermont a “climate haven.” But last summer, he got a wake up call in the form of a devastating flood.All throughout the Uni...

20 Aug 202428min

The Power Broker #8: Shiloh Frederick

The Power Broker #8: Shiloh Frederick

This is the eighth official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. This week, Roman Mars and Elliott Kalan sit down with Shiloh Frederic...

16 Aug 20242h 12min

Side Projects

Side Projects

This week we're highlighting a couple of series that live inside the 99pi production tent.We’ve got a preview of a new miniseries for you called Not Built for This, created and hosted by Emmett FitzGe...

13 Aug 20241h 5min

Top Billing

Top Billing

When you’re watching the opening credits to a movie, it’s not just a list of names. What you’re actually seeing is intense negotiations by Hollywood stars and their agents playing out in text form. Ti...

6 Aug 202429min

The Art of the Olympics

The Art of the Olympics

The 2024 Paris Olympics are currently under way, and we thought we’d play two stories from the 99% Invisible archives about the art of the Olympics.First up, a story about the design and iconography o...

30 Juli 202434min

The 2024 Olympics Spectacular

The 2024 Olympics Spectacular

From TV commercials and branded soda cans to Emily in Paris spon-con, the Olympics are once again everywhere. In the Olympic spirit, we’re bringing you four stories about the games in all their intern...

23 Juli 202440min

The Power Broker #7: Sec. Pete Buttigieg

The Power Broker #7: Sec. Pete Buttigieg

This is the seventh official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. This week, Roman Mars and Elliott Kalan sit down with Pete Buttigieg...

19 Juli 20242h 42min

Populärt inom Business & ekonomi

framgangspodden
varvet
rss-jossan-nina
rss-svart-marknad
svd-tech-brief
rss-borsens-finest
badfluence
avanzapodden
uppgang-och-fall
bathina-en-podcast
fill-or-kill
rss-inga-dumma-fragor-om-pengar
rss-dagen-med-di
lastbilspodden
24fragor
tabberaset
rss-kort-lang-analyspodden-fran-di
kapitalet-en-podd-om-ekonomi
rss-veckans-trade
borsmorgon