Black History Month Blog

The Gullah are a people group most heavily concentrated in the Sea Islands (also called Rice Islands), which extend 160 miles along the South Carolina and Georgia coastline. They are descendents of slaves from the West African and Gold Coasts. During the antebellum (Pre-Civil War) era, the Gullah worked on rice, cotton, and indigo plantations in the low country, and were able to preserve much of their African heritage due to their relative isolation and ethnic majority in the region. Following the Civil War, many whites left the area, and the Gullah became yet more isolated as they took over the land formerly occupied by the whites. Many of the bridges connecting the islands to the mainland were destroyed during the war and remained unrepaired, reinforcing the insular nature of these communities.

The Gullah language continues to thrive today, and is the only Creole English still extant in the United States. Derived from African languages brought to Southern plantations as long ago as the 1700s, Gullah, or Geechee, maintains a surprising similarity to Caribbean languages such as Trinidadian, Jamaican, and others. The insularity of the Gullah community has thus far prevented widespread "decreolization," through which speech changes in response to the dominant language. Similarly, the community is also a striking anomaly in its preservation of African cultural, food, and religious customs. Their sweetgrass baskets and beautiful wood carvings can be seen in the Charleston market and in other low country communities still today.

For more information, see entries for Gullah in Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History (Cabell Reference E185 .E54 1996) and Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (Cabell Reference F209 .E53 1989).

--Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian - Research and Reference Services