From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina
and Georgia, which includes both the
coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Historically, the Gullah
region once extended north to the Cape Fear area on the coast of North Carolina
and south to the vicinity of Jacksonville on the coast of Florida; but today the Gullah
area is confined to the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry. The
Gullah people are also called Geechee, after the
Ogeechee River
near Savannah, Georgia. The term
Geechee is more commonly used in Georgia.
The Gullah are known for preserving more of their African
linguistic and cultural heritage than any other African-American
community in the United States. They speak an English-based creole language
containing many African loanwords and significant influences from
African languages in grammar and sentence structure. The Gullah
language is related to Jamaican Creole, Barbadian Dialect, and the Krio language of Sierra Leone in West Africa. Gullah
storytelling, cuisine, music, folk beliefs, crafts, farming and
fishing traditions, etc. all exhibit strong influences from West
and Central African cultures.
History
The name "Gullah" may derive from Angola, where many of the Gullahs' ancestors
originated. Some scholars have also suggested it comes from
Gola, an ethnic group living in the border area between Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa, another
region where many of the Gullahs' ancestors originated. The name
"Geechee," another common name for the Gullah people, may come from
Kissi, an ethnic group living in the
border area between Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. Some scholars have also
suggested Native American origins for these words. The Spanish
called the South Carolina and Georgia coastal region Guale after a Native American
tribe. The Ogeechee River, a prominent geographical
feature in coastal Georgia, takes its name from a Creek
Indian word. Regardless of the origins of these names, Gullah
language and culture have strong connections to the African
continent.
African
roots
Most of the Gullahs' ancestors were brought to the South
Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry through the ports
of Charleston and Savannah.
Charleston was the most important port in North America for the
Atlantic slave trade. Almost half of the enslaved Africans brought
into what is now the United States came through that port. Savannah
was also active in the Atlantic slave trade.
The largest group of Africans brought into Charleston and
Savannah came from the West African rice-growing region, which
stretches from what are now Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau in the north to Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia in the south. African rice had been
cultivated in this section of West Africa for possibly up to 3,000
years. South Carolina and Georgia rice planters once called this
region the "Rice Coast", indicating its importance as a source of
skilled African labor for the North American rice industry. Modern
historians call it the "Upper Guinea Coast." The second-largest
group of Africans brought through these ports came from the Congo and Angola regions in Central Africa.
Smaller numbers also were imported from the Gold Coast (what is now Ghana) and the West
Indies.
Origin
of Gullah culture
The Gullah region once extended from SE North Carolina to NE
Florida.
The Gullah people have been able to preserve so much of their
African cultural heritage because of geography, climate, and
patterns of importation of enslaved Africans. By the mid-1700s, the
South Carolina
and Georgia Lowcountry was covered by
thousands of acres of rice fields.
African farmers from the "Rice Coast" brought the skills for
cultivation and tidal irrigation that made rice one of the most
successful industries in early America.
The semi-tropical climate that made the Lowcountry such an excellent
place for rice production also made it vulnerable to the spread of
malaria and yellow fever. These
tropical diseases were carried by mosquitoes that were
brought unintentionally aboard the slave ships that came from
Africa. The mosquitoes bred in the swamps and inundated rice fields
of the Lowcountry. Malaria and yellow fever soon became endemic in the region.
Africans were far more resistant to tropical fevers than the
European slave owners. The white population of the Lowcountry grew
at a slower rate than the black population because the land was
devoted to large plantations. More and more enslaved Africans were
brought as laborers into the Lowcountry as the rice industry
expanded. By about 1708 South Carolina had a black majority. Coastal Georgia later acquired its own
black majority after rice cultivation expanded there in the
mid-1700s, and malaria and yellow fever became endemic. Fearing
disease, many white planters left the Lowcountry during the rainy
spring and summer months when fever ran rampant. They left their
African "rice drivers," or overseers, in charge of the plantations.
Working on large plantations with hundreds of laborers, and with
African traditions reinforced by new imports from the same regions,
the Gullahs developed a culture in which elements of African
languages, cultures, and community life were preserved to a high
degree. Their culture was quite different from that of slaves in
states like Virginia and North Carolina, where slaves lived in
smaller settlements and had more sustained contact with whites.
Gullah customs and
traditions
African influences are found in every aspect of the Gullahs'
traditional way of life:
- The Gullah word guber for peanut derives from the KiKongo word N'guba.
- Gullah rice dishes called "red rice" and "okra soup" are
similar to West African "jollof rice" and "okra soup". Jollof rice
is a style of cooking brought by the Wolof and Mandé peoples of West Africa.
[1]
- The Gullah version of "gumbo" has its roots in African cooking. "Gumbo"
is derived from a word in the Umbundu language of
Angola, meaning okra.
- Gullah beliefs about "hags" and "haunts" are similar to African
beliefs about malevolent ancestors, witches, and "devils" (forest spirits).
- Gullah "root doctors" protect their clients against dangerous
spiritual forces using similar ritual objects to those employed by African medicine men.
- The Gullah "seekin" ritual is similar to coming of age
ceremonies in West African secret societies such as the Poro and Sande.
- The Gullah ring
shout is similar to ecstatic religious rituals performed
in West and Central Africa.
- Gullah stories about "Bruh Rabbit" are similar to West and
Central African trickster tales about the clever and
conniving rabbit, spider, and tortoise.
- Gullah spirituals, shouts, and other musical forms employ the
"call and
response" method commonly used in African music.
- Gullah "strip quilts" mimic
the design of cloth woven with the traditional strip loom used throughout West Africa. The
famous kente
cloth from Ghana is woven on the strip loom.
Civil War
period
When the U.S. Civil War began, the Union
rushed to blockade the Confederate shipping.
White planters on the Sea Islands, fearing an invasion by the US
naval forces, abandoned their plantations and fled to the mainland.
When Union forces arrived on the Sea Islands in 1861, they found
the Gullah people eager for their freedom, and eager as well to
defend it. Many Gullahs served with distinction in the Union Army's First
South Carolina Volunteers. The Sea Islands were the first place
in the South where slaves were freed. Long before the War ended, Quaker
missionaries from Pennsylvania came down to start schools
for the newly freed slaves. Penn Center, now a Gullah community
organization on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina, began
as the very first school for freed slaves.
After the Civil War ended, the Gullahs' isolation from the
outside world actually increased in some respects. The rice
planters on the mainland gradually abandoned their farms and moved
away from the area because of labor issues and hurricane damage to
crops. Free blacks were unwilling to work in the dangerous and
disease-ridden rice fields. A series of hurricanes devastated the crops in the
1890s. Left alone in remote rural areas in the Lowcountry, the
Gullahs continued to practice their traditional culture with little
influence from the outside world well into the 20th Century.
Modern
times
In recent years the Gullah people—led by Penn Center and other
determined community groups—have been fighting to keep control of
their traditional lands. Since the 1960s, resort development on the
Sea Islands has threatened to push Gullahs off family lands they
have owned since emancipation, but they have
fought back against uncontrolled development on the islands through
community action, the courts, and the political process.
The Gullahs have also struggled to preserve their traditional
culture. In 2005, the Gullah community unveiled a translation of
the New
Testament in the Gullah language (a project that took more than
20 years to complete). The Gullahs achieved another victory in 2006
when the U.S. Congress passed the "Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage
Corridor Act" that provides $10 million over ten years for the
preservation and interpretation of historic sites relating to
Gullah culture. The "heritage corridor" will extend from southern
North Carolina to northern Florida. The project will be
administered by the US National Park Service with strong
input from the Gullah community.
Gullahs have also reached out to West Africa. Gullah groups made
three celebrated "homecomings" to Sierra Leone in 1989, 1997, and 2005.
Sierra Leone is at the heart of the traditional rice-growing region
of West Africa where many of the Gullahs' ancestors originated. Bunce Island, the
British slave castle in Sierra Leone, sent many African captives to
Charleston and Savannah during the mid- and late 1700s. These
dramatic homecomings were the subject of three documentary
films—"Family Across the Sea" (1990), "The Language
You Cry In" (1998), and "Priscilla's Homecoming" (in
production).
Celebrating Gullah
culture
Over the years, the Gullahs have attracted many historians,
linguists, folklorists, and anthropologists interested in their
rich cultural heritage. Many academic books on that subject have
been published. The Gullah have also become a symbol of cultural
pride for blacks throughout the United States and a subject of
general interest in the media. This has given rise to countless
newspaper and magazine articles, documentary films, and children's
books on Gullah culture, and to a number of popular novels set in
the Gullah region.
Gullah people now organize cultural festivals every year in towns up and down the
Lowcountry. Hilton Head Island,
South Carolina, for instance, hosts its "Gullah Celebration" in
February, which includes "De Aarts ob We People" show, the "Ol’
Fashioned Gullah Breakfast," "National Freedom Day," the "Gullah
Film Fest", "A Taste of Gullah" food and entertainment, a
"Celebration of Lowcountry Authors and Books," an "Arts, Crafts
& Food Expo," and "De Gullah Playhouse." Beaufort, South Carolina hosts
its "Gullah Festival" in May, and nearby Penn Center on St.
Helena Island, South Carolina holds its famous "Heritage Days"
in November. Other Gullah festivals are celebrated on James Island, South
Carolina and Sapelo Island, Georgia.
But Gullah culture is now being celebrated throughout the United
States. Purdue University in West Lafayette,
Indiana recently held an event to showcase the Gullah culture.
Purdue's Black Cultural Center maintains a bibliography of Gullah
publications as well. And Metro State
College in Denver, Colorado recently hosted a
conference on Gullah culture, called "The Water Brought Us: Gullah
History and Culture" which featured a panel of Gullah scholars and
cultural activists. Metro State students and members of the
community attended the event, which was covered in the local press.
These events in Indiana and
Colorado are typical of the attention Gullah culture now receives
on a regular basis throughout the United States.
Cultural
survival
Gullah culture has proven to be particularly resilient. Gullah
traditions are strong not only in the rural areas of the Lowcountry
mainland and on the Sea Islands, but also in urban areas like
Charleston and Savannah. But some of the old fashioned ways have
persisted even among Gullah people who have left the Lowcountry and
moved far away. Many Gullahs migrated to New York starting at the
beginning of the 20th century, and these urban migrants have not
lost their identity. Gullahs have their own neighborhood churches
in Harlem, Brooklyn, and Queens. Typically they send their children back
to rural communities in South Carolina and Georgia during the
summer months to be reared by grandparents, uncles and aunts.
Gullah people living in New York also frequently return to the
Lowcountry to retire. Second- and third-generation Gullahs in New
York often maintain many of their traditional customs and sometimes
still speak the Gullah language.
Overview of Gullah
Culture
Gullah
cultural topics
Gullah
historical topics
Gullah
historical figures
Gullah
leaders, artists, and cultural activists
Famous African
Americans with Gullah roots
Further
reading
- Gullah history
- Ball, Edward (1998) "Slaves in the Family,” New York: Farrar,
Straus, & Giroux.
- Carney, Judith (2001) "Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice
Cultivation in the Americas," Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
- Fields-Black, Edda (2008) "Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West
Africa and the African Diaspora," Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
- Littlefield, Daniel (1981) Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the
Slave Trade in Colonial South Carolina," Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press.
- Miller, Edward (1995) "Gullah Statesman: Robert Smalls from
Slavery to Congress, 1839-1915," Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press.
- Pollitzer, William (1999) "The
Gullah People and their African Heritage," Athens: University of
Georgia Press.
- Smith, Julia Floyd (1985) "Slavery and Rice Culture in Low
Country Georgia: 1750-1860," Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press.
- Smith, Mark M. (2005) "Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a
Southern Slave Revolt," Columbia: University of South Carolina
Press.
- Wood, Peter (1974) "Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South
Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion," New York:
Knopf.
- Gullah language and storytelling
- Bailey, Cornelia & Christena Bledsoe (2000) "God, Dr.
Buzzard, and the Bolito Man: A Saltwater Geechee Talks about Life
on Sapelo Island," New York: Doubleday.
- Geraty, Virginia Mixon (1997) "Gulluh fuh Oonuh: A Guide to the
Gullah Language," Orangeburg, SC: Sandlapper Publishing
Company.
- Jones, Charles Colcock (2000) "Gullah Folktales from the
Georgia Coast," Athens: University of Georgia Press.
- Jones-Jackson, Patricia (1987) "When Roots Die: Endangered
Traditions on the Sea Islands," Athens: University of Georgia
Press.
- Mills, Peterkin and McCollough (2008) "Coming Through: Voices
of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories
collected by Genevieve W. Chandler," The University of South
Carolina Press.
- Montgomery, Michael (ed.) (1994) "The Crucible of Carolina:
Essays in the Development of Gullah Language and Culture," Athens:
University of Georgia Press.
- Sea Island Translation Team (2005) "De Nyew Testament (The New
Testament in Gullah)," New York: American Bible Society.
- Stoddard, Albert Henry (1995) "Gullah Animal Tales from
Daufuskie Island, South Carolina," Hilton Head Island, SC: Push
Button Publishing Company.
- Turner, Lorenzo Dow (2002) "Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect,"
Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
- Gullah culture
- Campbell, Emory (2008) "Gullah Cultural Legacies," Hilton Head
South Carolina: Gullah Heritage Counsulting Services.
- Carawan, Guy and Candie (1989) "Ain't You Got a Right to the
Tree of Life: The People of Johns Island, South Carolina, their
Faces, their Words, and their Songs," Athens: University of Georgia
Press.
- Creel, Margaret Washington (1988) "A Peculiar People: Slave
Religion and Community Culture among the Gullahs," New York: New
York University Press.
- Cross, Wilbur (2008) "Gullah Culture in America," Westport,
Connecticut: Praeger.
- Joyner, Charles (1984) "Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina
Slave Community," Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
- Kiser, Clyde Vernon (1969) "Sea Island to City: A Study of St.
Helena Islanders in Harlem and Other Urban Centers," New York:
Atheneum.
- McFeely, William (1994) "Sapelo's People: A Long Walk into
Freedom," New York: W.W. Norton.
- Parish, Lydia (1992) "Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands,"
Athens: University of Georgia Press.
- Robinson, Sallie Ann (2003) "Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie
Way" and (2006) "Cooking the Gullah Way Morning,Noon, and Night."
Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press.
- Rosenbaum, Art (1998) "Shout Because You're Free: The African
American Ring Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia," Athens:
University of Georgia Press.
- Rosengarten, Dale (1986) "Sea Grass Baskets of the South
Carolina Lowcountry," Columbia, South Carolina: McKissick Museum,
University of South Carolina.
- Twining, Mary & Keigh Baird (1991) "Sea Island Roots: The
African Presence in the Carolinas and Georgia," Trenton, New
Jersey: Africa World Press.
- Young, Jason (2007) "Rituals of Resistance: African Atlantic
Religion in Kongo and the Lowcountry South in the Era of Slavery,"
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University.
- Historical photos of the Gullah
- Georgia Writer's Project (1986) "Drums and Shadows: Survival
Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes," Athens: University of
Georgia Press.
- Johnson, Thomas L. & Nina J. Root (2002) "Camera Man's
Journey: Julian Dimock's South," Athens: University of Georgia
Press.
- Minor, Leigh Richmond & Edith Dabbs (2003) "Face of an
Island: Leigh Richmond Miner's Photographs of Saint Helena Island,"
Charleston, South Carolina: Wyrick & Company.
- Ulmann, Doris & Suzanna Krout Millerton, New York:
Aperture, Inc.
- Children's books on the Gullah
- Branch, Muriel (1995) "The Water Brought Us: The Story of the
Gullah-Speaking People," New York: Cobblehill Books.
- Clary, Margie Willis (1995) "A Sweet, Sweet Basket,"
Orangeburg, South Carolina: Sandlapper Publishing Company.
- Geraty, Virginia (1998) "Gullah Night Before Christmas,"
Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company.
- Jaquith, Priscilla (1995) "Bo Rabbit Smart for True: Tall Tales
from the Gullah," New York: Philomel Books.
- Krull, Kathleen (1995) "Bridges to Change: How Kids Live on a
South Carolina Sea Island," New York: Lodestar Books.
- Seabrooke, Brenda (1994) "The Bridges of Summer," New York:
Puffin Books.
- Raven, Margot Theis (2004) "Circle Unbroken," New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux.
- Works of fiction set in the Gullah region
- Conroy, Pat (1972) "The Water Is Wide," Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
- Dash, Julie (1999) "Daughters of the Dust," New York: Plume
Books.
- Gershwin, George (1935) "Porgy and Bess," New York:Alfred
Publishing. [4]
- Heyward, Dubose (1925)"Porgy," Charleston, S.C.: Wyrick &
Compnay. [5]
- Hurston, Zora Neale (1937) "Their Eyes Were Watching God," New
York: Harper Perennial. [6]
- Siddons, Anne Rivers (1998) "Low Country," New York:
HarperCollinsPublishers.
- Naylor, Gloria (1988) "Mama Day," New York: Ticknor &
Fields.
- Straight, Susan (1993) "I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked
Out All the Pots," New York: Hyperion.
Other
media
- Television
Gullah Gullah Island; Children's
show on Nickelodeon.
- Films
- Radio programs
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