The Gullah People of South Carolina

The Gullah people developed in South Carolina which was an ideal place to grow rice because it was low-lying waterlogged marshy territory. A slave community from Africa was needed to cultivate this rice as they already had a knowledge of rice cultivation (it was cultivated near the River Niger Delta in Africa). But, due to the required skillset, most of the slaves came from one particular part of Africa, meaning they could all speak the same language and already had a shared culture, which didn't normally happen.

A maroon is a member of a community of black slaves who had escaped from their captivity. For example, in Suriname (southern part of America) was essentially in the rainforest with lots of thick vegetation, rivers, streams, creaks etc. So, people who had escaped and fled here were very difficult to round up again. These slaves soon began making maroon societies in the bushes. These societies that moved to the Amazon in South Carolina became known as the Gullah, and those in Georgia became known as the Geechee.

The Gullah community followed a system called a 'task system' where they produced everything to the best quality. The remnants left today want to keep this going. You can see this is effect when looking at their famous woven baskets. The baskets were woven out of sweetgrass and they were sold either to travellers or their neighbours. Mary Jackson was particularly skilled in making these.

Jonathon Green was a famous artist who showed the daily life of the Gullah people. These paintings are very nostalgic. Leroy Campbell also created Gullah paintings but his was less nostalgic. He focused on educational improvement and the self-reliant pride of his neck bone family.

The Gullah and the Geechee held religious meetings in the 'praise house'. They engaged in fast, rhythmic hand-clapping and the ring shout. Many use this music as a defining point of the culture and thus promote it. 

Amelia Dawley was recorded in the early 1930s singing a song she learnt from her mother who had been a slave. In 1989, it was traced back to Sierra Leone and found to be a Mende funeral song. This funeral song still exists but only in a few people who still remember it. 

Outsiders to the culture have repeatedly tried to define it through using their particular religion, songs, dances, cuisine, crafts and creative arts. Even their language, although English, is used to define them by emphasising their accent e.g. "wadda" instead of "water". 

Joel Chandler Harris created B'rer Rabbit in his Uncle Remus stories. He wrote the B'rer rabbit stories to ‘preserve in permanent shape those curious mementoes of a period that will no doubt be sadly misrepresented by historians of the future’. But even he put emphasis on their accent with the word "b'rer" for brother.

In recent years, the culture seems to have become a sort of tourist attraction. For example, many products exploit their culture to make it a tourist attraction, again placing emphasis on their accent.They struggle to define their culture in print due to others having done that for them. This therefore makes it necessary to look at other sources like images, artefacts, buildings etc.