Gullah

The Gullah people have several West African words in their language that survived despite hundreds of years of slavery when African Americans were forced to speak English.[18]

History

African roots

According to Port of Charleston records, African slaves shipped to the port came from the following areas: Angola (39%), Senegambia (20%), the Windward Coast (17%), the Gold Coast (13%), Sierra Leone (6%), and Madagascar, Mozambique, and the two Bights (Benin and Biafra) (5% combined) (Pollitzer, 1999:43).^[19] The term "Windward Coast" often referred to Sierra Leone,^[20] so the total figure of slaves from that region is higher than 6%.

Particularly along the western coast, the local peoples had cultivated

Two British trading companies based in England operated the slave castle at Bunce Island (formerly called Bance Island), located in the Sierra Leone River. Henry Laurens was their main contact in Charleston and was a planter and slave trader. His counterpart in Britain was the Scottish merchant and slave trader Richard Oswald. Many of the enslaved Africans taken in West Africa were processed through Bunce Island. It was a prime export site for slaves to South Carolina and Georgia. Slave castles in Ghana, by contrast, shipped many of the people they handled to ports and markets in the Caribbean islands.

After Freetown, Sierra Leone, was founded in the late 18th century by the British as a colony for poor black people from London and

The Gullah people have been able to preserve much of their African cultural heritage because of climate, geography, cultural pride, and patterns of importation of enslaved Africans. While some were transported to some areas of Brazil (including Bahia), the enslaved Gullah-Gheechee people were traded in what was then Charlestowne, South Carolina. According to British historian P.E.H. Hair, Gullah culture developed as a creole culture in the colonies and United States from the peoples of many different African cultures who came together there.^{[citation needed]} These included the Bakongo, Mbundu, Vili,^[24] from Igbo, Angola, Calabar, Congo and the Gold Coast.^{[citation needed]}

By the middle of the 18th century, thousands of acres in the

The subtropical climate encouraged the spread of malaria and yellow fever, which were both carried and transmitted by mosquitoes. These tropical diseases were endemic in Africa and might have been carried by enslaved Africans to the colonies.^[25] Mosquitoes in the swamps and inundated rice fields of the Lowcountry picked up and spread the diseases to European settlers, as well. Malaria and yellow fever soon became endemic in the region.

Because they had acquired some

The planters left their European or African "rice drivers", or overseers, in charge of the rice plantations.^[23] These had hundreds of laborers, with African traditions reinforced by new imports from the same regions. Over time, the Gullah people developed a creole culture in which elements of African languages, cultures, and community life were preserved to a high degree. Their culture developed in a distinct way, different from that of the enslaved African Americans in states such as North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, where the enslaved lived in smaller groups, and had more sustained and frequent interactions with whites and British American culture.^[27]

Civil War period

When the

After the Civil War ended, the Gullahs' isolation from the outside world increased in some respects. The rice planters on the mainland gradually abandoned their plantations 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

In the 20th century, some plantations were redeveloped as resort or hunting destinations by wealthy whites.^{[citation needed]} Gradually more visitors went to the islands to enjoy their beaches and mild climate. Since the late 20th century, 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 greatly increased property values, threatening to push the Gullah off family lands which they have owned since emancipation. They have fought back against uncontrolled development on the islands through community action, the courts, and the political process.^[33]

The Gullah have also struggled to preserve their traditional culture in the face of much more contact with modern culture and media. In 1979, a translation of the New Testament into the Gullah language was begun.^[34] The American Bible Society published De Nyew Testament in 2005. In November 2011, Healin fa de Soul, a five-CD collection of readings from the Gullah Bible, was released.^[35] This collection includes Scipcha Wa De Bring Healing ("Scripture That Heals") and the Gospel of John (De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa John Write). This was also the most extensive collection of Gullah recordings, surpassing those of Lorenzo Dow Turner. The recordings have helped people develop an interest in the culture, because they get to hear the language and learn how to pronounce some words.^[36]

The Gullah achieved another victory in 2006 when the U.S. Congress passed the "

The Gullah 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 18th century. 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).

Customs and traditions

African influences

• The Gullah word guba (or goober) for
  Kikongo and Kimbundu
  word N'guba.
• Gullah rice dishes called "red rice" and "okra soup" are similar to West African "jollof rice" and "okra soup" and hog maws. Jollof rice is a traditional style of rice preparation brought by the Wolof people of West Africa.^[38]
• 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, one of the dish's main ingredients.
• Gullah rice farmers once made and used mortar and pestles and winnowing fanners similar in style to tools used by West African rice farmers.
• 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 by using ritual objects similar to those employed by African traditional healers
  .
• Gullah
  herbal medicines
  are similar to traditional African remedies.
• 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 "Br'er Rabbit" are similar to West and Central African trickster tales about the figures of 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 "sweetgrass baskets" are coil straw baskets made by the descendants of enslaved peoples in the South Carolina Lowcountry. They are nearly identical to traditional coil baskets made by the Wolof people in Senegal.
• Gullah "strip
  Ashanti and the Ewe peoples, as well as Akwete cloth from the Igbo people
  are woven on the strip loom.
• An African song, preserved by a Gullah family in coastal Georgia, was identified in the 1940s by linguist Lorenzo Turner and found to be a Mende song from Sierra Leone. It is probably the longest text in an African language to survive the transatlantic crossing of enslaved Africans to the present-day United States. Later, in the 1990s, researchers Joseph Opala, Cynthia Schmidt, and Taziff Koroma located a remote village in Sierra Leone where the song is still sung today, and determined it is a funeral hymn. This research and the resulting reunion between a Gullah family and a Mende family that have both retained versions of the song is recounted in the documentary The Language You Cry In (1998).^[39]
• Some words coming from other African languages such as Yoruba, Fon, Ewe, Twi, Ga, Mende, and Bini are still used by Gullah people.^[40][41]
• The Gullahs’ English-based creole language is strikingly similar to Sierra Leone Krio of West Africa and contains such identical expressions as bigyai ("greedy"), pantap ("on top of"), ohltu ("both"), tif ("steal"), yeys ("ear"), and swit ("delicious").^[42]

Cuisine

The Gullah have preserved many of their west African food ways growing and eating crops such as Sea island red peas, Carolina Gold rice, Sea island Benne, Sea island Okra, sorghum, and watermelon all of which were brought with them from West Africa.^[43][44] Rice is a staple food in Gullah communities and continues to be cultivated in abundance in the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina. Rice is also an important food in West African cultures. As descendants of enslaved Africans, the Gullah continued the traditional food and food techniques of their ancestors, demonstrating another link to traditional African cultures.

Rice is a core commodity of the Gullah food system: a meal was not considered complete without rice. There are strict rituals surrounding the preparation of rice in the Gullah communities. First, individuals would remove the darker grains from the rice, and then hand wash the rice numerous times before it was ready for cooking. The Gullah people would add enough water for the rice to steam on its own, but not so much that one would have to stir or drain it. These traditional techniques were passed down during the period of slavery and are still an important part of rice preparation by Gullah people.^[45]

The first high-profile book on Gullah cooking^[46] was published in 2022 by Emily Meggett, an 89-year-old Gullah cook.^[47]

Celebrating Gullah culture

Over the years, the Gullah have attracted study by many

• VOA

  report about an exhibit about Gullah culture
• 
  Sweet grass baskets made and sold by the African American Gullah community can be found throughout City Market.
• 
  Gullah sweet baskets from Edisto island

Cultural survival

Gullah culture has proven to be particularly resilient. Gullah traditions are strong in the rural areas of the Lowcountry mainland and on the Sea Islands, and among their people in urban areas such as Charleston and Savannah. Gullah people who have left the Lowcountry and moved far away have also preserved traditions; for instance, many Gullah in New York, who went North in the Great Migration of the first half of the 20th century, have established 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 live with grandparents, uncles, and aunts. Gullah people living in New York frequently return to the Lowcountry to retire. Second- and third-generation Gullah in New York often maintain many of their traditional customs and many still speak the Gullah language.^{[citation needed]}

The Gullah custom of painting porch ceilings haint blue to deter haints, or ghosts, survives in the American South. Having also been adopted by White Southerners, it has lost some of its spiritual significance.^[49]

Representation in art, entertainment, and media

Gullah Gullah Island is an American musical children's television series that was produced by and aired on the Nick Jr. programming block on the Nickelodeon network from October 24, 1994, to April 7, 1998. The show was hosted by Ron Daise—now the former vice president for Creative Education at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina—and his wife Natalie Daise, both of whom also served as cultural advisors, and were inspired by the Gullah culture of Ron Daise's home of St. Helena Island, South Carolina, part of the Sea Islands.

Notable Americans with Gullah roots

See also

References