“Every landscape is exotic, from the perspective of those who stand apart from it. Even places we assume to be familiar remain, on some plane of perception, implacably strange.” P176
“Historically, though, southern swamps have been surprisingly hospitable to fugitive slaves and African-American revolutionaries.” P177
I love this article and these two quotes because they take a place that most people see as disgusting and untreckable and turn it into a safe haven. If you were to ask the average person where they would hide if someone was after them, I am positive they would not have a swamp on their list of places to hide. It makes me wonder what other landscapes people stereotype about that have secret of hidden meanings and significance to a certain people. I have respect for the people who hid in the swamps during times of slavery because they had to face all sorts if things including alligators, bristles, ticks, disease, lack of food, and so forth. I am sure to those around, and without knowledge of the hospitality of the swamps, that most people would disregard the swamps as gross, dirty, and not a place for humans to be for any reason. But for those people hiding within the swamp and using the swamps as refuge, they saw it as a safe haven and a trusted place they could go to in times of need. Unfortunately, as mentioned in the article, the bloodhounds had no problems entering the swamps to find the runaways. Unlike people, the dogs did not feel they were above or too good to be entering such a place as a swamp.
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