Documenting Historic Landscape Change in the Great Dismal Swamp Using Maps, Images and Written Accounts

The Great Dismal Swamp (GDS) is one of the largest remaining wild landscapes in the Eastern United States. Viewed from ground level, on maps of the region or from an aerial perspective its boundary is clearly visible. As a unique ecosystem, it's currently protected by the US National Wildlife Service (NWS). This thesis argues that the GDS is also a cultural landscape, the product of long-term interactions between humans and the physical environment.;This thesis documents the evolution of the GDS as a cultural landscape using maps, images and written accounts. The GDS has been represented on maps of the Tidewater of North Carolina and Virginia in some form since the 17th century. The meaning, value and understanding of the GDS landscape has changed considerably over this time period. As a result cartographic representations of the landscape have varied as well.;The assembled history of the GDS as a cultural landscape has been broken down into five successive chapters. These chapters articulate time periods of significant landscape change and relate them to larger historical patterns. As the GDS has recovered from centuries of intensive land uses ecological patterns have become more apparent in the landscape. The historic record documented in this thesis offers material for re-imagining and ultimately managing the GDS as a cultural landscape as well as a valued ecosystem.