Slavery's Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons

11. Out of the Wilds

[ 286 ]  [ 11 ]  Out of the Wilds Maroons may have envisioned a long life of freedom in the wilderness , but most did not achieve that dream. For many, what pushed them out of the woods prematurely were militia attacks, slave hunters’ assaults, sickness, and lack of prudence. The maroons who made it out alive emerged from the borderlands and the hinterlands profoundly changed both mentally and physically. The psychological repercussions of their reentry into the world of slavery were severe. Their anguish can only be guessed at, as they knew what to expect when they stepped back unto white-controlled territory and under the planters’ ruthless power. But for a number of people, the end of marronage was the end of their lives. “Some would run away en go in de woods en perish to death dere fore dey would come out en take a whipping,” recalled Sylvia Cannon.1 Men, women, infants, and children died in the wilds, their bodies never found, or discovered by chance. Charles Grandy of Virginia remembered how John Sally “[s]tayed right ’roun’ de plantation. Use to come in at night an’ steal hawgs an’ chickens fer food. Dat ole man died in de woods. Never did come out.”2 Several men and women who went to the woods after a beating, weighed down by shackles that marked them as recent runaways, never recovered from the brutality they had endured. They died in their fetters, their bodies found by hunters. “White men come in sometimes with collars and chains and bells,” said a former maroon who stated that he knew of a great many cases, “which they had taken from Out of the Wilds [ 287 ] dead slaves. They just take off their irons and then leave them, and think no more about them.”3 In the Great Dismal Swamp, “graves of people who had lived there in olden times” could still be seen in the twentieth century.4 When known, news of a maroon’s demise could travel long distances, carried from farm to plantation by relatives and friends. As Jacob Stroyer pointed out: In general someone from the plantation from which they ran away, or confidential friends on some other plantation, had communications with them, so that if anything happened to them the slaves at home would find out through such parties. And sometimes the masters and overseers would find out about their death, but indirectly, however, because if it was known that anyone on the plantation had dealings with the runaway he would be punished, even though the information was gladly received by the master and overseer.5 Owners and overseers could rejoice because the maroon’s death meant that he or she was no longer participating in the stealing, or contributing to the planter’s suspicion that everyone on the plantation was flaunting his authority. But there was more to it: owners cared about their lost investment and asked to be reimbursed for their property “found dead in the woods.”6 They also petitioned to be paid the value of the maroons killed by patrols out of special funds reserved for that purpose. Some maroons were the victims of accidents, as in the case of an outlawed woman of Buckingham County, Virginia, who was trapped by a tree that fell on her as she was hiding. The woods were on fire, and unable to free herself she burned to death.7 Others fell gravely ill and did not look for help, a determined stance that led twenty-three inhabitants from Christ Church Parish to complain in 1829 to the South Carolina House of Representatives that many of their slaves had died in the woods of “diseases occasioned by running away.”8 For the vast majority of maroons, however, the end of free life did not entail death. Instead it came in one of two ways: either they were captured or they left the borderlands and the hinterland voluntarily. Out of the Wilds [ 288 ] Raiding Parties Professional slave hunters, like future General Cornelius Gilliam, were the maroons’ scourge. His daughter Martha Collins recalled, “When my father was in his ‘teens he was a man grown and a good shot and was good at tracking game, so he naturally took up tracking runaway slaves. They used to send for him all ‘round the country, for a heap of slaves used to take to the swamps. He made good money at the business...