Gullah
From Free net encyclopedia
Template:AfricanAmerican The Gullah are an African American population of African slave ancestry. They live in the Sea Islands and the nearby coastal low country region of South Carolina, Georgia and northern Florida. In Georgia, they are commonly referred to as Geechees.
The Gullah historically spoke a distinctive English-African creole, the Gullah language.
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Etymology
The origin of the name Gullah may be from Angola, a country in southwestern Africa where many of the Gullahs' ancestors came from. However, some believe it comes from Gola, a tribe living on the border area between Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa. Regardless of the origin of the name, the Gullah language and culture have clear African roots.
History
By the mid-1700s, the coastal low country of South Carolina and Georgia was covered by many thousands of acres (many km²) of rice. Indigo was also an important crop in this region, but was replaced by cotton after the American Revolution. African slaves brought in large numbers from the "Rice Coast" region of West Africa brought the skills that made rice one of the most successful industries in early America. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, the slaves were freed and the plantations closed. Penn Center on St. Helena Island, South Carolina is a modern institution engaged in research and preservation of Gullah culture.
The cultural heritage of the Gullah people has drawn interest for many years from historians, anthropologists, and linguists. The Gullah have preserved a great many African influences in their cuisine, crafts, storytelling, religion, music, etc. They have also preserved a creole language containing many African loanwords and many African grammatical and syntactical influences.
The Gullah people were able to preserve so much of their African heritage because of geography and climate. The semi-tropical climate of the South Carolina and Georgia low country made the area an excellent place to grow rice, but it made it open as well to the spread of malaria and yellow fever. Mosquitoes, brought by accident on the slave ships from Africa, spread these diseases during the wet spring and summer months. White planters fled the low country during these seasons, leaving African "drivers" in charge. The white population -- and European cultural influence -- was reduced, and African influence increased. By about 1708 South Carolina had a "black majority," and coastal Georgia would later acquire its own black majority after rice cultivation took off there in the 1760s. The social isolation of the Gullahs helped them preserve their African language, culture, and community life.
When the American Civil War began, Union forces rushed to blockade the Confederate shipping lanes. White planters on the Sea Islands, fearing the turmoil of war, abandoned their plantations and fled to the mainland. When Union forces arrived, they found the Gullah people on the islands eager to take up their new-found freedom, and eager as well to serve in the Union Army to defend their freedom. Even before the Civil War ended missionaries from the Northern States came down to the Sea Islands to start schools to educate the newly freed slaves. Penn Center, now a community organization, began as the first mission school for blacks in the Sea Islands.
In recent years the Gullah people -- led by Penn Center and other determined community groups -- have been fighting to keep their traditional lands and to preserve their culture. Since the 1960s resort development on the Sea Islands has threatened this unique African-American folk tradition. But the Gullahs have demonstrated a great deal of strength as a community and great determination to carry on with their ancient traditions.
In recent years the Gullahs have also reached out to their distant family in West Africa. Gullah groups made three celebrated "homecomings" to Sierra Leone in 1989, 1997, and 2005. Sierra Leone is located in the traditional rice-growing region of West Africa, where many of the Gullahs' ancestors originated. These homecomings were the subject of two documentary films -- "Family Across the Sea" and "The Language You Cry In."
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is of Gullah origin.
Films
- The Language You Cry In (1998).
- God's Gonna Trouble the Water (1997).
- Daughters of the Dust (1991).
- Family Across the Sea (1990).
- When Rice Was King (1990).
- Gullah Tales (1988)
External links
- Gullah page at Beaufort County Public Library, South Carolina
- The Penn Center
- Gullah Pride
- Gullah Tales
- Gullah Connections
- Geechee Girls Multimedia
- Priscilla's Homecoming
- Gullah Summary
- The New Testament Translated into Gullah, from March 2006
Listening
- "Finding Priscilla's Children" from The World radio program, December 28, 2005