 As most of you know, right now we are in the process of deep diving into the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Of course, with most cities there are subcultures. And one of the subcultures that we have been looking into is Haitian voodoo. I have mentioned before that my father's mother's family came up through New Orleans. Even though she was raised in South Georgia on a dairy farm, her ancestors used the port of New Orleans to enter into the Americas. However, I have also mentioned that my mother's family comes from the low country of South Carolina, in particular the Charleston area. Of course, many Americans know that Charleston, South Carolina is one of the most important cities in our nation's history. A lot of the original settlers into America made their way into America through the port of Charleston, South Carolina. We also know that roughly 75% of Americans with African descent also made their way through the port of Charleston, South Carolina through the slave trade. Now, as many of you know, Catherine Edwards and I are doing a new series on discovering your passion. And when we introduced the series, we started talking about crafts. And I mentioned the craft of making sweetgrass baskets. In fact, in that episode I showed you guys a basket that I have here in my house that is made of sweetgrass from Charleston, South Carolina. I asked on Twitter if you guys wanted me to do a deep dive into the Gullah people and I got an overwhelming response of yes. It just so happens that many of the Gullah people of South Carolina also practice a form of voodoo. Again, for me as a daughter of the Deep South, this is why voodoo never scared me. And I find it to be an honor to now re-researching this faith to try to come to the truth of what the voodoo people actually believe. However, in this episode, we are going to be more specifically focused on the Gullahs and more importantly on their culture and their sweetgrass baskets. Now, selfishly, I haven't done a lot of deep dives into the low country or into the city of Charleston, South Carolina. This is because Charleston, South Carolina and the low country are and were a second home to me growing up. I was born in South Carolina, but I did grow up in Georgia as my parents moved here for work. However, I did spend my summers as a child always in the low country of South Carolina. The summer times spent in the low country are still very, very precious memories to me. My mom's parents died when we were very young. And my mother and her three sisters did a really good job of keeping their family together. Every summer, my cousins and I would all live in the same house on the coast of South Carolina. All eight of us would spend our days out on the beach, playing and oftentimes hearing the stories of the ghost and of the legends of our roots in South Carolina. In fact, for my mom's parents before they passed away, us understanding that we were from the low country was very, very important to them. Having my lineage in the low country of South Carolina is something I am very, very proud of. The low country can be very, very eccentric, just like New Orleans. And in fact, the Gullah people of the low country are often compared to the Creole of New Orleans because with the Gullahs, they are a combination of African American, Native American and European American. And in the culture of Charleston itself, you do see an overlap of all of these cultures molded into one. Now again, the reason why I haven't done a huge deep dive into Charleston or the low country is because I already know a lot about it. And being that I loved research and learned things, I've only done a couple of episodes on some of the stories I heard growing up, one being LaVenia Fisher and the other one being the Gray Man of Polly's Island. I will link those story time videos down in the description box below. But fair warning, those stories were put together right when I started this channel, so they might look a little bit different to what you see now. In the future, after we wrap up our series on New Orleans, if you want me to do more deep dives into Charleston, I will be more than happy to. Just let me know down in the comment section below. Again, doing a series on Charleston would probably be pretty easy for me because I already know a lot about its history. And as I said, I like to research. And so it's been fun for me to research New Orleans. And of course, Savannah, I did a whole playlist on Savannah, Georgia as well. When I first started this channel, I'll link that playlist down in the description box too. As many of you know from being on this channel for a while, here in the deep south, Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans are considered the three sisters of the south. Charleston is considered to be the beautiful sister. Savannah is considered to be the dirty sister. And New Orleans is considered to be the wicked sister. And even though these three cities are considered to be the sisters of the south, each of these cities have their own lineage and their own heritage. All three of these cities are in different states. And because they were in different states, they were often governed very differently when the United States was just considered to be a colony of Great Britain. Of course, New Orleans was owned by the French and the Spanish, and only became a part of the United States in the early 19th century. Whereas Charleston and Savannah had been a part of the original 13 colonies. Charleston was originally called Charlestown, and over time it just merged into one as Charleston. Like New Orleans, Charleston also has a French Quarter. However, Charleston's French Quarter is pretty small and nothing to write home about. This is because Charlestown, when it was first being settled, was a safe haven for many Protestants, including Huguenots coming over from France. Even though the southeast is predominantly English in its heritage, there is a little bit of French here outside of New Orleans. My first name, Bryce, is my mother's maiden name. However, the actual pronunciation of this maiden name, this surname, is Brice. The Brices or the Brices were such Huguenots that came over from France into the Charlestown area. But of course, over the many hundreds of years, they adapted the English pronunciation of the name, and that is why I go by Bryce. So please don't call me Bryce, it's Bryce. My mother's mother's lineage was German. Her maiden name was Strom, or Wunström, as it was when they came over from Germany seeking religious asylum. My German line from Charlestown, South Carolina, is one of the oldest lineages I have. They came over to the New World at the end of the 17th century. And there is a book out there called The Straums of South Carolina. I am actually mentioned in that book. And this book was written because my grandmother's cousin is the late Strom Thurman, who was one of our longest running senators in the United States. No, he was not a good guy. I am fully aware of his crimes, but it is what it is. In the southeastern part of the United States, it is very, very common to give one of your kids your maiden name as a woman. Hence why my name is Bryce and hence why Strom Thurman got the name Strom. When the Bryce is immigrated over to the New World, they very quickly became a very prominent family in the South Carolina region. The Bryce family are known for being medical doctors. They have been medical doctors for many, many generations. And in fact, at the University of South Carolina, the football stadium is actually called the Williams Bryce Stadium. This, my friends, is why I did not go to the University of South Carolina because that is quite embarrassing. I'm also not a huge football fan, so there's that. So suffice it to say, even though I am an Atlanta girl through and through, I have, again, a lot of lineage and personal history in the Low Country of South Carolina. And the Gullah people have always been very, very special people to me. Like a lot of the Creoles of New Orleans, the Gullah people in the Low Country have held on to a lot of their true African lineage. Most of the Gullah people come from the area of West Africa. And this is important because of the terrain of West Africa and its similarities to the southeastern United States. The West African slaves were able to properly work the land. West Africa was an area that was rich with rice harvesting. Now, I know a lot of people, when they think of plantations down in the South, they often think about cotton plantations, which we will speak about. But in South Carolina, the main crop was also rice. In fact, rice became known as Carolina Gold. And to be perfectly honest with you guys, a lot of my ancestors did own rice plantations, again, in the Low Country of South Carolina. The Low Country is called the Low Country because it does dip down. And if you're ever driving into the Low Country area, especially from Atlanta, you can physically feel it start to drop down into the sea level. The Low Country, a lot like New Orleans, can be a bit swampy. In New Orleans, they call these swamps bayous. Whereas in the Low Country, they're just known as marshes or swamps. But of course, this is perfect condition to harvest rice. West Africans were also known for their storytelling. Now, of course, storytelling is a trade that you see often in all the cultures. That's how people learned, especially our ancient ancestors. But this storytelling became quite prominent in the culture of the Southeast. Hence why my channel takes on kind of a storytelling theme. In the town that I grew up in outside of Atlanta, we had a professional storyteller, Mrs. Cunningham. She would come to the parties either for kids or adults and tell stories. The West Africans were also known for their basket weaving, which is where we get the craft of sweet grass basket weaving today in the Low Country. Between the years of 1440 and 1640, the Portuguese was the main empire exporting slaves all over the New World and the colonies. By the 18th century, it was estimated that about 6 million people had been taken from Africa against their will to be brought in as slaves. Now, of course, in 1793, the cotton gin was invented for a lot of the cotton plantations, which you do see a lot here in Georgia. And this upped the need for more labor on the plantations. Now, because the Low Country, though, was known for its rice. In the 17th century, a lot of the African slaves started using their basket making skills to create the first ever sweet grass baskets. At this point, the slaves started using the actual sweet grass that grows in South Carolina to create what we call a rice fanner. These rice fanners were used to collect rice, cotton, and indigo from the plantations. Now, these rice fanners were so big that it would take about five to six men to make one. Now, again, this sweet grass does grow in abundance in the marshes of the Low Country. And the binding of these baskets were used and are still used by Paul Meadow funds. Now, the Paul Meadow tree is the tree that is on the South Carolina flag. It does look like a palm tree, but it's a little bit shorter and a little bit thicker. Now, in the beginning of this video, I said that about 75% of people who have African descent in the United States probably came through Charleston, South Carolina. By the 1760s, Charleston had a very big maritime business. And Gadston's wharf in Charleston, South Carolina became the Ellis Island of the slave trade. It's located on the east side of the Charleston Peninsula along the Cooper River. In 1720, Thomas Gadston purchased 63 acres along the river and then sold it. It eventually was resold to Thomas Gadston, who was the son of Christopher Gadston. And Thomas Gadston himself was a merchant who did work in exporting of rice, indigo, and cotton. Now, the wharf wasn't created right away. In fact, even though he owned the property that would become the wharf, at first he was renting space with other wharfs in Charleston in order to do his business. But being a shrewd businessman in 1767, he decided to build his own wharf. Therefore, he would not have to pay any of the tariffs associated with renting wharfs from other property owners. The construction to the wharf lasted from 1767 to 1774. And by 1774, the wharf was 840 feet long. And at its peak, it could hold about six ships. Now again, Gadston himself was a businessman. He was more interested in the export of cotton rice and indigo. He himself was not necessarily a slave trader. However, when it came to collecting rent from boats bringing in slaves, he wasn't going to miss that opportunity. Each of the slave ships held about 450 people. And Gadston's wharf could hold six ships. So at any given moment when the wharf was packed full of ships, they were bringing in around roughly 2700 people from Africa. Now if you ever go into Charleston and take a historical tour, you will see that again, Charleston itself is a peninsula. It's a peninsula that you can actually kind of see the ocean. But around this peninsula are barrier islands. This is true for most of the Southeast. We've spoken about Jekyll Island, Cumberland Island, the Sea Islands. These are all barrier islands to the coast of the South. Well, when the slaves would be brought into Charleston, first the ships would stop at one of the barrier islands, where the slaves would be brought into what is called a pestilence house. These houses are where the slaves would be cleaned and treated for any injuries or sicknesses before being shipped across the river to go to market in Charleston. Still to this day, along the barrier islands of the low country in both South Carolina and Georgia and Florida, you see a lot of Gullah history. Now if you've been on this channel since the very beginning, especially if you watched our series on Savannah, you know that when the settlers got to the New World, malaria and yellow fever were quite a problem for the Europeans. However, because the Gullahs came from Africa, they had a special type of immunity to these diseases. This meant that the Gullah people remained pretty strong here in this area. This meant that they were really the only people who could work the land because the yellow fever and the malaria did take the Europeans out, especially yellow fever. Because the European settlers were so dependent upon the Gullah people, for this issue alone, I really do believe this is one of the reasons why their culture is still such a stronghold in the area. Now many history buffs do know that the Civil War actually started in Charleston. It started at Fort Sumter. And if you've ever been to Charleston, especially in the battery area, there is a park right at the end of the peninsula called Battery Park. And legend states that a lot of the women in their antebellum outfits and big hoop dresses stood out on the edge of the park and watched the war start off of Fort Sumter. For them, this was purely entertainment because at this point, they didn't believe that the war would really last that long. Because of the Civil War, the Americans adapted the 13th Amendment to our Constitution. Of course, this was the amendment that outlawed slavery. And something very interesting that I found in my research, something that I didn't actually know about Charleston, it's hard to tell me stuff I don't know about Charleston, was that our Memorial Day started in Charleston. This was originally known as Declaration Day. This was started on May of 1865 in Hampton Park in downtown. The Citadel is actually across the street from Hampton Park in downtown, and that is where my grandfather went to medical school. At the end of the Civil War, this park was a place that held a horse race track. But it did became a prisoner of war camp for the Union soldiers. About 250 soldiers passed away and were buried in a mass grave at the Hampton Park. But in May of 1865, 28 black men came and gave these men a proper burial. This was a way for the freed slaves to give thanks and homage to the men who had fought to free them. Now again, the craft of making sweet grass baskets has held strong through the centuries in the low country. It is said that you cannot really buy a book on how to make sweet grass baskets. This is something that is taught from generation to generation to generation. If you're ever the low country and you're driving down the freeway, you will see stands and shops set up by local Gullah women and men there to sell their beautiful, beautiful baskets. You'll also see many sweet grass baskets being sold in the legendary Market Street. And for a long time, every time you bought a basket, you were buying the basket from the person who made the basket. In fact, in a lot of these stands, you'll see the stand owner there in the process of making more baskets by hand while selling the ones they have already created. I have heard over the last few years that the craft and the lineage of sweet grass basket making is a dying one. That many of the descendants of the Gullah people are becoming modernized and don't necessarily want to continue with their heritage of sweet grass basket making. However, I do hope that this trade and this craft never dies because these baskets are truly, truly beautiful. They're sturdy, they're durable, and they're made with heart and they're made with love. They're not mass produced by machinery and no two baskets are the same. It's always amazing to me that many people don't realize the heritage that lies there. A lot of times when people think about this mystical side of the south, they often only think about New Orleans, of the Creole people of New Orleans. But Charleston, Savannah, all the way down to the north of Florida, holds just as much of a very special, very mystical, and very magical eclectic and eccentric lineage. Please let me know if you have ever bought a sweet grass basket, or if you have one, or if you've heard of this craft of making sweet grass baskets. If you ever go into the low country, you're not going to miss it. The sweet grass basket stands are literally everywhere. And I really, really encourage you guys if you are there to buy a basket from one of these stands. You won't regret it. It'll last forever. And you are helping to prolong a culture. All right, guys. Let me know your thoughts and opinions down in the comment section below. Next week, we will return back to New Orleans, where I'm working on going even deeper into some of the Voodoo deep dives. I hope you're all well. Keep your head up high and know that the best is yet to come.