Tom Copper’s Rebellion and Great Dismal Marronage

Lake Drummond at Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia. August 2, 2006

Rebecca Wynn/USFWS

An Opening, Dismal Swamp

Elizabeth, N.J. : Alfred S. Campbell, Publisher, [1897], Library of Congress

By Dr. Joshua Strayhorn, Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow

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The Great Dismal Swamp, a vast mire teeming with predators that spans 113,000 acres across northern North Carolina and southern Virginia, was not a pleasant place to call home. But for those enslaved in the region prior to the Civil War, the swamp promised both a better life and—thanks to its harsh conditions and fearsome reputation—safety from those seeking to return them to slavery. From the seventeenth through nineteenth century, the Great Dismal Swamp was home to an estimated 50,000 people, a unique community made up of indigenous peoples, free people of color, and those fleeing enslavement and indentured servitude. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the Dismal Swamp became a haven for freedom seekers across the mid-Atlantic and became a planning site for rebellious activity during the Revolutionary period.

Long before European arrival, Indigenous peoples of the region lived near and around the swamp. Historically, the Croatan, Hatteras, Chowan, Weapomeiok, Coranine, Machapunga, Bay River, Pamplico, Roanoke, Woccon, Nansemond, and Cape Fear peoples settled in and around the swamp using it for hunting and farming.^[1] However, European conquest of Southern Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina in the late 17^th century pushed Indigenous populations out of their land. While Europeans transformed the land into productive plots for tobacco, the swamp remained a place of safety that could not be tamed.^[2]

Osman [graphic]

Library Company of Philadelphia, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2873

Throughout the Revolutionary era, many European colonists tried to clear and control the swamp, draining parts of it to create routes for trade and commerce. George Washington, for example, formed part of an early venture. In the Dismal Swamp Company, Washington and other investors sought to drain the swamp to access its rich soil. Enslaved people formed the labor force for the Company; Washington sent slaves from his plantation at Mt. Vernon to the Great Dismal Swamp to cut down trees and clear ditches.³ One of Washington’s enslaved people, Harry Washington, became well known for his freedom seeking efforts. The venture ultimately became unsuccessful, but speculators and surveyors would try to tame the swamp throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries.⁴

In the early 1700s, a motley crew of freedom seekers gathered in the swamp. Fugitives, indentured servants, Indigenous peoples, and maroon communities all found refuge within the swamp. Maroons found the Great Dismal Swamp to be an ideal place to prevent re-enslavement. According to Great Dismal historian J. Brent Morris, a maroon was, "someone who has self-extricated from enslavement, or is born to maroon parents, and lives in defiance of the laws of the enslavers that would limit their freedom."⁵ Some self-emancipators chose temporary marronage, or truancy, for relief from slavery. Others formed semi-permanent settlements within the swamp where the threat of being discovered was slim to none. As previously mentioned, life in the swamp was not easy. Freedom seekers dealt with wild animals, heat, mosquitos, and swampy conditions. They foraged, traded, made tools and hunted to survive the harsh conditions.⁶

The swamp was not only a site for escaping slavery, but it was also a launching point for rebellious activities. In what Julius Scott called, “The Common Wind,” news of slave revolts, rebellions and revolutions spread across the Atlantic World.⁷ The Haitian, French, and American Revolutions created a revolutionary environment in enslaved people’s communities. Throughout the 18^th century, several insurrections had roots in the Swamp. Dismal Swamp Maroons organized bands of fighters who fought to dismantle slavery. In several cases, they launched campaigns from the swamp into neighboring towns and plantations. Their actions caused anxiety among nearby planters. This, in turn, led to increasingly stringent laws on free and enslaved Black people in the region. In the swamp itself, this took on a distinctive character.⁸

Revolutionary activity ran rampant in the tidewater region of North Carolina and Virginia. Inspired by Gabriel Prosser’s rebellion in 1800, Dismal Swamp maroons launched multiple highly organized attempts to dismantle slavery. One man, Tom Copper, became infamous for both his elusive nature and his vast operation within the Dismal Swamp region. Copper, the self-proclaimed general of the maroons in the Swamp, collaborated with maroons across the North Carolina and Virginia border to plot the murder of white people in the region. In what became known as the Easter Conspiracy of 1802, citizens in the Northeastern counties of North Carolina and the Hampton Roads region of Virginia feared an uprising of enslaved folks, maroons, and free people of color and stories of enslaved people’s plans to kill white people spread across the region. Fearful officials arrested and executed many of those thought to have conspired to kill the citizens. According to Mingo, an enslaved man who testified in the case, Copper threatened to, "kill the white people, and that he Tom Copper offered a paper to all to sign that would join him."⁹ According to the case, Copper was outlawed and had a camp in the Dismal Swamp where he was to hide weapons for the assault. Copper along with other freedom seekers such as Caesar, Preacher Joe, Jarvis’ Joe, and many others were to write to Virginia for ammunition and arms.¹⁰ Freedom Seeker’s sophisticated, literate, and crafty strategies surpassed state borders.

Site of alleged Swamp Camp in Walton, D. S. "Dismal Swamp Canal connecting Chesapeake Bay with Currituck, Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds and their tributary streams."

Map. Hosford & Sons, 1867. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ncmaps/id/129

While Tom Copper was associated with these alleged plots, he was never tried in the courts. After being arrested, “six stout negroes, mounted on horseback,” made an attempt to liberate the jail. Two people escaped while four were detained. Tom Copper was one of the ones who escaped and does not appear in the historical record again.¹¹ As a result of Mingo’s testimony, officials charged Peter Cobb, Jarvis’ Joe, Luke, Aaron, Jacob, and Doctor Joe with, "conspiracy, in promoting insurrection among the slaves or people of colour."¹² They all pled not guilty and were ultimately acquitted. Mingo promised to lead the court officials to Copper’s camp, named New Begun. However, after sending a cavalry to the location, no camp was to be found. Officials charged Mingo with perjury and sentenced him to have both of his ears cut.¹³

Some historians argue that Mingo may have purposely led court officials away from the camp and even questioned whether the camp existed.¹⁴ Historian Kathryn Benjamin Golden insists that the conspiracy was made possible in part because of the extensive networks of maroons that existed in the Swamp and its surrounding area.¹⁵ However, the story of Tom Copper’s conspiracy shows how freedom-seeking took a variety of forms. Some people chose to escape North where they would be free. Others, like those within the Great Dismal, pursued freedom much closer to home. Freedom in place allowed enslaved people to maintain ties with enslaved family members and others in the region while still carving out their own freedom in perilous circumstances. Further, the security offered by the swamp contributed to revolutionary and rebellious activity within maroon communities. The swamp became a refuge, haven, and headquarters for a wide range of activities during the revolutionary era.

Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship

This article was made possible through generous support from the Mellon Foundation in partnership with the National Park Foundation and American Conservation Experience. Learn more about the Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Sources:

[1] J. Brent Morris, Dismal Freedom: A History of the Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2022), 22-23.

[2] Morris, Dismal Freedom, 39-40

[3] Morris, Dismal Freedom, 61; Marcus Nevius, City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763–1856 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2020).

[4] See Chapter 2 in Morris, Dismal Freedom.

[5] Morris, Dismal Freedom, 5.

[6] For more on the complex nature of marronage in the United States see, Sylviane Diouf, Slavery's Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons (New York: New York University Press, 2014).

[7] See, Julius S. Scott, The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution (New York: Verso Books, 2018).

[8] For more on revolutionary activity in the swamp, see, Kathryn Benjamin Golden, “Armed in the Great Swamp”: Fear, Maroon Insurrection, and the Insurgent Ecology of the Great Dismal Swamp” Journal of African American History 106. no.4 (Winter 2021): 1-26; Kathryn Benjamin Golden, This Insurgent Ground: Black Women, Marronage, and Rebellion in the Great Dismal Swamp (forthcoming 2025)

[9] Raleigh Register, June 1 1802

[10] Perquimans County Court Case, Insurrection Among Slaves, 1802-1803, North Carolina State Archives.

[11] Raleigh Register, June 1, 1802; Golden, “Armed in the Great Swamp,” 20.

[12] Pasquotank County Minute Book, 1802, North Carolina State Archives.

[13] Pasqoutank County Minutes.

[14] Diouf, Slavery’s Exiles, 263-264

[15] Golden, Kathryn Benjamin. “Armed in the Great Swamp,” 19-20