In Touch With the Gullah and Geechee Culture Identities: Part II

By Betty Miller Buttram
FWIS Contributing Writer

This article is a continuation of Part I of the history of West Africa and Central Africa—Gullah/Geechee ancestry. The previous article informed you about the distinct differences between the two groups of people from Africa but from different countries on that continent. Let’s move forward to the present time to Saint Helena Island, South Carolina and Sapelo Island, Georgia where the Gullah/Geechee dialects still exists but are quietly spoken among the African descendants.

St. Helena Island is a barrier sea island located along the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina. This is part of the Lowcountry region because it includes significant salt marshes and other coastal waterways. The Spanish explorers were the first to colonize the sea islands; then the French; then the Spanish again, and finally St. Helena Island was occupied by the British. The island was isolated from the county seat, Beaufort, South Carolina, until it was connected to the mainland by a highway and a bridge several years after the 1954 Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education. It is a small island of about 64 square miles with approximately 10,000 people at the 2010 census count.

I toured this island years ago on a research mission accompanied by two close relatives. When we finished touring Beaufort, we rode across the connecting bridge to St. Helena Island and checked ourselves into the Frogmore Inn. As we entered the motel restaurant the next morning for breakfast, we were stared at as strangers in the small town. The motel clerk explained our presence on the island and heads nodded and we were warmly greeted. One of the locals gave us the historical tour of the island.

It was pointed out to us the several clusters of houses occupying areas of the same property. We were told that it was family unity, generation to generation still living side by side for years. The front entrance of a house faces the water so that cool breezes relieve some of the heat of the day. We learned that when a death occurs, all souls are buried on the mother’s side. The most favorite thing of the deceased person will be the headstone. We passed by a recent burial and a child’s bike was his headstone.

We discovered that Penn School Center was established in 1862 on the island to educate the liberated slaves six months prior to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. The planters had evacuated the island in the fall of 1862 and the Union Army Occupied the island. The Center later was a place where civil right workers were with Martin Luther, Jr. as he prepared his speech for March On Washington 1963. Today, the Penn Center’s mission is to promote and preserve the history and culture of the Sea Islands.

St. Helena Island has various historical places on its land such as the Chapel of Ease, Coffin Point Manor House, and Black Brick Baptist Church, still open to the public today.

There was a man by the name of Stephen Robinson born in 1885 on Saint Helena Island. It was stated that he was the son of a witch doctor from West Africa. He began practicing “root work” in the early 1900s. He became known as Dr. Buzzard, the Root Doctor, a Hoodoo doctor. He died in 1947 and is interred in Beaufort’s Saint Helena Memorial Gardens. The Gullah-Geechee practiced Hoodoo which has it origins in the southern part of the United States. It is a combination of West African folk traditions, Native American practices, European folklore, and magical practices. It is not a religion. Voodoo originated from the traditional West African religions. Th enslaved Africans brought Voodoo to America where it evolved and mixed with other religious traditions like Catholicisim. Voodoo is practiced in Louisiana and Haiti. It is a religion.

There is a community known as Hog Hammock, the last known Gullah-Geechee community located in McIntosh County, Sapelo Island, Georgia. Approximately ninety-seven percent of the island is owned by the state of Georgia and is managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the remainder under private ownership. The island is state protected and only accessible by boat and/or ferry. The people on this barrier island are descendants of the enslaved West African people brought to this island during the 1700’s and 1800s to work on the island plantations. Sapelo Island was purchased in the early 19th century by Thomas Spalding, a politician on the move upward. Spalding brought 400 slaves to Sapelo Island from West Africa and the West Indies to work on the plantation digging irrigation ditches, cultivating cotton, corn, sugar cane, and building his home which became the Spalding Mansion. Spalding opposed the abolition of slavery and died in 1851. When the slaves were freed, they established several settlements on the island including the 427-acre allotted to Hog Hammock.

The community of Hog Hammock includes homes, a general store, bar, public library, and three churches. The Hog Hammock community, at the last census count, has a population of 47 people. The residents get all their supplies from the mainland or purchase them from the general store on the island. The school on Sapelo Island closed in 1978. Any child from Hog Hammock on Sapelo Island takes the ferry to the mainland and then a bus to their school. There are tours into the Hog Hammond community that bring in revenue.

On Sapelo Island, Behavior Cemetery is a burial site of enslaved Africans. It is believed that since Thomas Spalding enslaved the people, it is felt that they are buried here as well as their descendants. A community on the island was named Behavior and it was a place where frightened or unruly enslaved people were sent until they could behave.

Saint Helena Island, South Carolina, has fought the gentrification process in being strong with the local government in retaining, protecting, and preserving its culture. Some of its rural land has been preserved through conservation easements. Condominium communities and gated communities are not allowed on St. Helena Island. Much of the island is still owned by Arican Americans through heritage property. There is an annual Gullah Festival in Beaufort, South Carolina every May.

The State of Georgia owns Sapelo Island. It is an island now focused on research and education. Visitors to the island must be part of an organized tour or guests of residents of the island. In Hog Hammock, with only 47 descendants of the African enslaved people still residents, this last known Gullah-Geechee community is fading away. The 427 acres will soon be in the hands of the State of Georgia, and Thomas Spalding and the enslaved Africans will become a part the island’s history and brochures will be displayed at the Sapelo Island Visitor Center.