I saw a gigantic Negro, with a tattered blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and a gun in his hand. His head was bare, and he had little other clothing than a pair of ragged breeches and boots . . . After the swamp formed 10,000 years ago, Indian tribes settled on its periphery. But the dark secret of the enterprise was that it was built on the backs of slaves. Many of them took advantage of the swamp's vast wilderness to make their way to a kind of freedom.
Historians speculate that the swamp supported thousands of runaways.
Some, according to accounts, hired themselves out to shinglers and saved enough money to buy their freedom. But others were hounded mercilessly by bounty hunters. The hunted man crouched in the rank and tangled grass, Like a wild beast in his lair. The book, panned by critics, sold 300,000 copies anyway. The swamp apparently drew the young Robert Frost to thoughts of suicide.