The band of 14 modern-day explorers gathered last year, roughly 20 miles north of Savannah. Led by novelist George Dawes Green, the crew came together to search for ruins of the maroon community that formed on the other side of the Savannah River, in South Carolina, around 1780.
Maroons were people who escaped enslavement and the abuse of plantation owners to live in the wilderness. They made their home deep in the swamps of coastal Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, among other places, and subsisted on whatever they had raided from the plantations they left behind or could gather in the wild.
These physically inhospitable environs became refuges for Africans and American Americans, their act of resistance to the brutal institution of slavery.
Green wrote about the hidden fortress that escaped slaves built in the Savannah River swamps, from which, for a while, they fended off all hostile comers. It wasn’t until the Georgia militia joined forces with the South Carolina militia that the escapees were defeated. Even then, many managed to get away and are thought to have fled to other uninhabited areas.
The story of the maroons’ heroism isn’t widely known or celebrated. Much of the knowledge about these resisters has been lost to the swamp and revisionist history.
Dan Sayers, an archaeologist at American University, was reportedly the first to hack deep enough into the dense Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and Virginia to uncover some artifacts of maroon life.
In a 2016 interview with Smithsonian magazine, Sayers said downplaying the significance of maroon communities shows “a reluctance to acknowledge the strength of Black resistance and initiative.”
“They risked everything to live in a more just and equitable way, and they were successful for 10 generations.”
Stories like this don’t immediately come to mind when we think about Juneteenth, the federal holiday celebrated today. But they should.
The day commemorates the momentous occasion in 1865 when word finally reached enslaved people in Texas that they had been officially freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.
Because of their location in the westernmost of the Confederate states, they received news of their freedom only after federal troops arrived in Galveston — two months after the end of the Civil War and two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation.
But, as significant as that day was, Juneteenth isn’t just a celebration of the events of June 19, 1865. It’s a celebration of surviving — clawing, fighting, resisting and finding a way to come out on the other side. As we commemorate freedom on Juneteenth, we also should honor the resistance of the maroons and countless other people who risked their lives to live with dignity and autonomy.
These were people who decided they would not, could not, wait for freedom.
These were people whose stories often haven’t survived, Sayers and some other historians say, because America prefers the narrative that Black freedom was always given rather than taken.
Author Kellie Carter Jackson shared some of those stories in her book “We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance.”
Credit: Seal Press
Credit: Seal Press
During a recent appearance at Black Coffee on Atlanta’s southeast side, Carter Jackson recounted how she set out to uncover a more expansive understanding of Black resilience. In 2020, she was angry and frustrated that marches, hashtags and peaceful protests weren’t achieving the desired goals of liberation from systemic racism.
Carter Jackson believes there are many things we can learn from the examples of Black resilience over the years. Juneteenth seems like a perfect time to tell these stories of heroism, rather than allowing ourselves to think of oppressed people as docile groups that sit around and wait for rescue.
We see resistance in the Haitian Revolution, which started in 1791 when enslaved people rose up against their oppressors. At the time, Black Haitians’ success in ending colonial rule inspired people across the globe to keep fighting for freedom.
We see resistance in Eliza Small and Polly Ann Bates, who escaped from their master in Baltimore in 1836. Their first attempt at freedom was unsuccessful. They were caught and brought to trial. But abolitionists caused a commotion in the courthouse, which allowed them to flee again. Their escape was aided by a Black cleaning woman who threw her sturdy arms around an officer in pursuit, restraining him long enough for Small and Bates to get away.
We see resistance in Fannie Lou Hamer, best known for advocating for the rights for Black people in Mississippi in the 1960s. Hamer’s weapon of choice was the voting booth, but Carter Jackson reminds us that the activist also kept a shotgun in every corner of her bedroom.
Carter Jackson asks us to not only embrace the stories in which white people have played a role in Black freedom but to appreciate the full range of ways in which Black people have sought and attained freedom for themselves.
Sometimes, resistance means finding ways to live joyfully under oppression. Or it can mean just leaving, such as the millions of Black people who migrated North seeking better lives in urban cities.
It’s important to recognize all the tools that have been used in resistance, shine a spotlight on those who wielded them and learn from the past. Because Juneteenth may have marked the end of the last vestiges of slavery in America, but the struggle for freedom continues.
Read more on the Real Life blog (www.ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog/) and find Nedra on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AJCRealLifeColumn) and Twitter (@nrhoneajc) or email her at nedra.rhone@ajc.com.
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