Gullah
THE GULLAH CULTURE 4
Web Web page designed by Bradford Pazant
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The recent rise in Black consciousness has created an extraordinary interest in the study of Black heritage and the preservation of Black culture in America. Many scholars and students are turning their attention to A frican-American cultural patterns, which have been long ignored and often scorned. Black people are realizing more and more that these patterns exemplify key features of their heritage and may offer not only clues into the past, but also provide guides to survival in the future. As this interest gains momentum, African-Americans are looking toward the South, particularly to its rural and isolated islands where so many of the unique elements of contemporary Black culture have their roots. The culture of the Sea Islands is such a special case. The lack of contact with the mainland helped to preserve some of the important features of their African culture. Because the Africans that were brought to these islands were not sold and resold as often as those on the mainland, some of their ancestral family patterns remain even to this date.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A. Sea Islands
Begin just north of Georgetown, South Carolina, and continue to the Florida border. It is estimated that there are approximately 1,000 islands along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia separated from the mainland by marshes, alluvial streams and rivers.
1. Some of the islands are bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and are as far as twenty miles or more from the mainland.
2. They range in size from the uninhabitable ones to John’s Island South Carolina, the second largest island in the United States.
B. European settlement
1. The Sea Islands have formed the basis of a very profitable agriculture.
2. During slavery, the long staple cotton grown
Web Web page designed by Bradford Pazant
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The recent rise in Black consciousness has created an extraordinary interest in the study of Black heritage and the preservation of Black culture in America. Many scholars and students are turning their attention to A frican-American cultural patterns, which have been long ignored and often scorned. Black people are realizing more and more that these patterns exemplify key features of their heritage and may offer not only clues into the past, but also provide guides to survival in the future. As this interest gains momentum, African-Americans are looking toward the South, particularly to its rural and isolated islands where so many of the unique elements of contemporary Black culture have their roots. The culture of the Sea Islands is such a special case. The lack of contact with the mainland helped to preserve some of the important features of their African culture. Because the Africans that were brought to these islands were not sold and resold as often as those on the mainland, some of their ancestral family patterns remain even to this date.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A. Sea Islands
Begin just north of Georgetown, South Carolina, and continue to the Florida border. It is estimated that there are approximately 1,000 islands along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia separated from the mainland by marshes, alluvial streams and rivers.
1. Some of the islands are bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and are as far as twenty miles or more from the mainland.
2. They range in size from the uninhabitable ones to John’s Island South Carolina, the second largest island in the United States.
B. European settlement
1. The Sea Islands have formed the basis of a very profitable agriculture.
2. During slavery, the long staple cotton grown
Bibliography: 1. Adjaye, Joseph K., Time in the Black Experience. Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1994. 2 3. Holloway, Joseph, Africanisms in American Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. 4 5. Jackson, Juanita, Slaughter, Sabra, and Blake, J. Herman, "The Sea Islands As A Cultural Resource," The Black Scholar, March, 1974 p.32. 6 7. Jones-Jackson, Patricia, When Roots Die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands. University of Georgia Press, 1987. 8 9. Spieler, Gerhard, The Beaufort Gazette, Feb. 3, 1987 p. 16a. 10