Gullah Museum SC: “The Gullah Geechee people are the descendants of Africans who were enslaved on these plantations in coastal Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida—from Jacksonville, NC, to Jacksonville, FL. Many came from West and Central African countries—which includes Angola, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The nature of their enslavement on isolated island and coastal plantations created a unique culture with deep African roots that are clearly visible in the Gullah Geechee people’s distinctive arts, crafts, foodways, music, style of worship, naming practices, and language.”
RICE WAS QUEEN BEFORE COTTON WAS KING
“In the 1700s, British colonists in South Carolina and Georgia believed that rice would grow well in the moist, semitropical land along the coastline. The problem was the plantation owners had no knowledge of or experience with the cultivation of rice. But they did know about Africa’s “Guinea Coast,” where rice was grown and that is why planters told slave traders to bring them Africans from this region because they were more likely to know how to plant, grow, harvest, and process this difficult, labor intensive crop that involves knowledge of hydroponics, engineering, astronomy, and tides. Africans living in the floodplains of the inland Niger delta began domesticating the African variety of rice thousands of years ago.”
“Growing rice was back-breaking, dangerous, deadly work. The enslaved Africans had to remove huge cypress and gum trees, draining, clearing, and leveling immense wooded tidal swamps that were infested with poisonous snakes, rats, alligators, and disease carrying insects. They created vast coastal marine estuaries with rough tools, constructing massive hydrological systems—dams, dikes, canals, and floodgates—used to divert the massive amounts of river water needed to irrigate rice fields.”
A rice raft with Gullah Geechees near Georgetown, S.C., in 1904. Photo: College of Charleston Stereoscopic Views, Special Collection, Addlestone Library.
https://www.gullahmuseumsc.com/new-page-2
African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Beaufort Sea Islands.
A Gullah woman makes a sweetgrass basket in Charleston’s City Market.
“The Gullah people and their language are also called Geechee, which may be derived from the name of the Ogeechee River near Savannah, Georgia. Gullah is a term that was originally used to designate the creole dialect of English spoken by Gullah and Geechee people. Over time, its speakers have used this term to formally refer to their creole language and distinctive ethnic identity as a people. The Georgia communities are distinguished by identifying as either “Freshwater Geechee” or “Saltwater Geechee”, depending on whether they live on the mainland or the Sea Islands.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah
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