Ben Franklin's world is a production of the

Omaha Institute.

Hello and welcome to episode 289 of Ben Franklin's world.

The podcast dedicated to helping you learn more about how the people and events of our early American past

have shaped the present-day world we live in. And I'm your host, Liz Covert. The name

Great Dismal Swamp doesn't exactly evoke an image of a pleasant or beautiful place, does it?

And yet, it was an important place that offered land speculators the chance to profit,

and enslave men and women a chance for freedom in colonial British America and the early United States.

Marcus Nevius, an assistant professor of history at the University of Rhode Island,

and author of City of Refuge, slavery and

Petit Maronage and the Great Dismal Swamp 1763 to 1856, has offered to guide us into and

through the Great Dismal Swamp in its history,

so that we can better understand maroons and maroon communities in early America

and learn more about how enslaved people used an environment around them to resist their enslaved condition.

Now during our journey through the swamp, Marcus reveals information about the great dismal swamp

and how it came by its dismal name. information about the Great

Maroons and how it came by its dismal name.

Details about maroons and the differences between Petit marinage and grand marinage.

And the many roles the Great Dismal Swamp played in enslaved people's resistance to slavery.

But first, I have a programming note.

Next month marks the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower's arrival and present day Plymouth

Harbor.

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