Gullah of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Travel Show host Erik Hastings experiences Gullahs rich history and culture on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Erik visits the Coastal Discovery Museum at Honey Horn, the Stoney-Baynard Ruins, and the Mitchelville schoolhouse, site of the Souths first freedmans village. Historians Dr. Emory Campbell and Louise Cohen give a first-hand account of Gullah heritage from rice plantation origins to current Gullah Heritage Trail Tours. Visit www.hiltonheadisland.org for more information.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Gullah
• slavery
• rice
• plantations
• Coastal Discovery Museum
• Honey Horn
• history
• culture
• Dr. Emory Campbell
• South Carolina
• Stoney-Baynard Ruins
• slave quarters
• Mitchelville
• Louise Cohen
• St. James Baptist Church
• Hilton Head Island
• Erik Hastings
• Hilton Head
• Civil War History
• Sea Islands

[reghubert]

Gullah Wars...let us talk about this legacy and drop this slave title.

[jakeblues1295]

I'm from South Carolina and I can remember throughout elementary school a gullah story teller would come and I swear you could only understand maybe a 10th of what they said.

[phattracs]

Cum-bi YAH in the AbraHW or as Theologians would say Hebrew means. Come By Here YAHUWAH. The Siera Leon and Timbuktu Captives are the People of the Paleo Scrolls the prophesies and scriptures that the Malakiya or Apostles preached. We are found in the lowest state of every social order in the Americas UK Middle east Asia Africa and so forth. Known as Coon, ham, nigger, boot, black, spook, African American lol and so forth.

[Mrcstigallese]

@HipHopIsInMyNYBlood Also the runaway Gullahs and Geechees ran to Florida and the Bahamas. We actually call them Maroons. There they met up with the Seminole Indians and lived and bred with them. This is where Black Seminoles come from. They also founded Fort Mose', the first free Black town during slavery. So we were definitely fighters and a force to be reckoned with but those on the Islands were there originally because of the tropical climate great for rice crops (Marshland, heat, etc...).

[Mrcstigallese]

@HipHopIsInMyNYBlood The West Africans who are now the Gullah/Geechee people were mostly brought through Sullivan's Island in Charleston,SC and spread throughout the Gullah/Geechee Nation (Sea Island from Jacksonville,NC to Jacksonville, FL and 30 to 35 miles inland). Malaria made it where the Masters would only spend the colder months with the enslaved. This is how we preserved our culture. You can got to Facebook and join the Gullah/Geechee Nation page to learn more... Thanx!!

[HipHopIsInMyNYBlood]

@Mrcstigallese I was taught that the Gullah people were runaway slaves who moved to the islands and were so fierce (for lack of a better word) that the scared the whites from coming to mess with them. By keeping them away, they preserved their culture. no?

[Mrcstigallese]

@pang5 LOL!!! No problem!!

[pang5]

@Mrcstigallese Aha. So an extra sentence inbetween would have helped me immensely. Heh. Thanks so much, M!

[Mrcstigallese]

@pang5 The slave masters were coming down with illnesses and even dying off because of Malaria brought on the Slave Ships from Africa. The Whites moved inland and left the Africans (who were immune to Malaria) on the Islands to work the rice crops.