The Gullah people are African-Americans who live or reside in the Lowcountry area of the United States’ states of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, in the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. They developed a creole language, also known as Gullah, and a way of life or culture with African influence. According to history, the Gullah territory extended from the Cape Fear area on N. Carolina’s coast south to Jacksonville’s neighborhood on Florida. In present-day, the Gullah territory is enclosed to the Georgia and S. Carolina Lowcountry.
The Gullah language and its people are also known as Geechee, which may originate from the Ogeechee River’s name near Savannah (Georgia). Gullah is a term that people used originally to designate the creole dialect of English, which the Geechee and Gullah people spoke. Over time, its speakers have used this term to refer to their creole language and unique or distinctive ethnic identity as a people. People distinguish the Georgia communities by identifying them as either Saltwater Geechee or Freshwater Geechee, depending on whether they reside on the Sea Islands or the mainland.
Due to a period of isolation from white people, while working on big farms or plantations in rural areas, the Africans developed a creole culture that has preserved their African cultural heritage and linguistics from several people. These Africans were mostly slaves from a variety of West African and Central ethnic groups or tribes. Besides, these Africans absorbed new influences from the region.
The Gullah people speak an English-based creole language having several African loanwords and in which African languages have influenced sentence structure and grammar. The linguists and scholars refer to the Gullah language as Sea Island Creole. They liken the Gullah language to Bahamian Creole, Barbadian Creole, Belizean Creole, Guyanese Creole, Jamaican Patois, and Western Africa’s Krio language. The Gullah arts or crafts, farming traditions, fishing traditions, folk beliefs, music, storytelling traditions, and rice-based cuisine exhibit strong influences from West African and Central cultures.
The Etymology of Gullah
The origin of the word Gullah is not exact. Some scholars propose that it may be in relation to Angola’s name, where the ancestors of some of the Gullah people likely originated. They established a new culture synthesized from that of the several African peoples brought into Charleston and South Carolina. Other scholars propose that the term may have originated from the Gola name, a tribe residing in the border area between modern-day Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa. The name Geechee, another name for the Gullah people, may originate from the Kissi people’s name, a tribe residing in the border region between Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Another possible linguistic source for the term Gullah is the Dyula tribe of West Africa, from whom the American Gullah might be descended. The Dyula civilization had a big territory that stretched from Senegal via Mali to Burkina Faso and the rest of French W. Africa.
These were savanna lands with low population densities. Slave raiding was easier and common here than in forested regions with natural forms of physical defenses. The members of the Akan tribe in Ghana and Ivory Coast pronounce the word Dyula as Gwullah.
Origin of the Gullah Culture
The Gullah people have maintained most of their African cultural heritage due to geography, climate, cultural pride, and importation patterns of African slaves. According to a British historian, the Gullah culture developed as a creole culture in the United States and colonies from peoples of several African cultures who came together there. These included the Fula, Kissi, Baga, Kpelle, Limba, Mandinka, Mende, Susu, Vai, Temne, the Wolof of the Rice Coast, many from Angola Calabar, Igbo, West Congo, and the Gold Coast.
By the mid-18th century, several acres in the Georgia and S. Carolina Lowcountry and the Sea Islands became African rice fields. African farmers from the Rice Coast brought tidal irrigation and cultivation skills that made rice farming a successful industry in early America.
The subtropical climate encouraged the spread of yellow fever and Malaria, which the mosquitoes carried and transmitted. These diseases were endemic in the African region, and the African slaves had carried them to the colonies. Mosquitoes in the swampy areas and inundated rice fields of the Lowcountry increased and spread the diseases to the foreign settlers. Because the Africans had acquired immunity in their motherland, they were more resistant to tropical fever than foreigners or Europeans.
As the rice industry was thriving, planters continued to import African slaves. By about the early 18th century (1708), S. Carolina had a black majority. Coastal Georgia grew and developed a black majority after rice cultivation increased there in the 18th century. Afterward, yellow fever and Malaria became endemic in the region. Fearing these illnesses, many foreign or white planters and their loved ones left the Lowcountry during the rainy summer and spring periods when fevers ran rampant. Others resided in the regions or cities such as Charleston rather than on the isolated farms, particularly those on the Sea Islands.
The planters left their European rice drivers or overseers, in-charge of the rice farms. These had several workers or laborers, with new imports from the same regions reinforcing African traditions. Over time, the Gullah people develop a creole culture in which they preserved the constituents or elements of African cultures, languages, and community life to a high degree.
The Customs and Traditions of the Gullah People (Cuisine)
Rice is the main food in Gullah communities, and they continue to cultivate it in abundance in the coastal parts of S. Carolina and Georgia. Besides, rice is also a vital food in West African cultures. As descendants of enslaved Africans, the Gullah people continued the customary food and food techniques of their ancestors, showing another connection to traditional African cultures. Rice is a principal good of the Gullah food system. Strict rituals are surrounding the preparation of rice in Gullah societies or communities. 1st, people would remove the darker grains from the rice and then clean the rice several times before it is ready for cooking.
The Gullah communities would add water for the rice to steam, but not so much that an individual would have to drain or stir it. The Gullah people passed down these traditional techniques during the time or period of slavery and are still their essential part of rice preparation.
Celebrating Gullah Culture and Cultural Survival
Over the years, the Gullah people have attracted to study by several linguists, historians, folklorists, and anthropologists interested in their cultural heritage. People have published many academic books on that subject. The Gullah people have also become a representation or symbol of cultural pride for Africans throughout the US and media. Individuals have produced several newspapers, magazine articles, documentary films, and children’s books on the Gullah way of life. In 1991, Julie Dash directed and wrote ‘Daughters of the Dust,’ the 1st feature film about the Gullah, set at the turn of the 20th century on Saint Helena Island. Born into a Gullah family, she was the 1st black American woman director to produce a feature film.
Now, the Gullah people organize cultural festivals annually in towns down and up the Lowcountry. For instance, Hilton Head Island hosts a Gullah Celebration in February. It includes National Freedom Day, the Gullah Film Fest, and De Gullah Playhouse. Beaufort hosts the largest and oldest celebration, ‘The Original Gullah Festival,’ in May. The Penn Center on St. Helena Island holds Heritage Days in November. People celebrate other Gullah festivals on James Island, S. Carolina, and Sapelo Island. Individuals also celebrate Gullah culture elsewhere in the US. The High Art Museum in Atlanta has shown exhibits about the Gullah way of life or culture. At Purdue University in Indiana, the Black Cultural Center had a research tour and other related events to showcase Gullah’s way of life. The Black Cultural Center Library maintains a bibliography of Gullah materials and books.
In Colorado, Metro State College hosted a conference on Gullah culture known as ‘The Water Brought Us: Gullah History and Culture, which featured a panel of Gullah cultural activists and Gullah scholars.
On cultural survival, the Gullah culture has proven to be resilient. Gullah customs are strong in the rural parts or areas of the Lowcountry and the Sea Islands and among their people in urban regions such as Savannah and Charleston. Gullah people who have left the Lowcountry and moved away have maintained or preserved traditions. For example, many Gullah in New York City has formed or established their neighborhood churches in Brooklyn, Harlem, and Queens. Typically, they send their kids to rural societies in Georgia and South Carolina during the summer months to reside or live with relatives (uncles, aunts or grandfather, or grandmother).
The Gullah people residing in New York City return to the Lowcountry to retire. 3rd and 2nd generation Gullah in New York maintain most of their traditional customs, and many still speak the Gullah language. The Gullah tradition or custom of painting porch ceilings survives in the American South.
Notable Americans With Gullah Roots
Some of these Americans are Robert Sengstacke, Jim Brown, Emory Campbell, Charlamagne Tha God, Julie Dash, Sam Doyle, and DJ Homicide. Others are Trick Daddy, Joe Frazier, Candice Glover, Marquetta Goodwine, Gullah Jack, Kemba Walker, Mary Jackson, James Jamerson, Michelle Obama, and wife to ex-US president Barack Obama.
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