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Gullah Geechee | |
|---|---|
 A Gullah woman makes a sweetgrass basket in Charleston's City Market. | |
| Total population | |
| Est. 200,000[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| North Carolina • South Carolina • Georgia • Florida | |
| Languages | |
| American English, African-American English, Gullah language | |
| Religion | |
| Majority Protestant; minorities Roman Catholic and Hoodoo | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| African-Americans, Afro-Bahamians, Afro-Trinidadians, Haitians, West Africans, Black Seminoles |
| Part of a series on |
| African Americans |
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The Gullah (/ˈɡʌlə/) are a subgroup of the African American ethnic group, who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and culture have preserved a significant influence of Africanisms as a result of their historical geographic isolation and the community's relation to its shared history and identity.[2]
Historically, the Gullah region extended from the Cape Fear area on North Carolina's coast south to the vicinity of Jacksonville on Florida's coast. The Gullah people and their language are also called Geechee, which may be derived from the name of the Ogeechee River near Savannah, Georgia.[3] Gullah is a term that was originally used to designate the creole dialect of English spoken by Gullah and Geechee people. Over time, its speakers have used this term to formally refer to their creole language and distinctive ethnic identity as a people. The Georgia communities are distinguished by identifying as either "Freshwater Geechee" or "Saltwater Geechee", depending on whether they live on the mainland or the Sea Islands.[4][5][6][7]
Because of a period of relative isolation from whites while working on large plantations in rural areas, the Africans, enslaved from a variety of Central and West African ethnic groups, developed a creole culture that has preserved much of their African linguistic and cultural heritage from various peoples; in addition, they absorbed new influences from the region. The Gullah people speak an English-based creole language containing many African loanwords and influenced by African languages in grammar and sentence structure. Sometimes referred to as "Sea Island Creole" by linguists and scholars, the Gullah language is sometimes considered as being similar to Bahamian Creole, Barbadian Creole, Guyanese Creole, Belizean Creole, Jamaican Patois, Trinidadian Creole, Tobagonian Creole, and the Sierra Leone Krio language of West Africa. Gullah crafts, farming and fishing traditions, folk beliefs, music, rice-based cuisine and story-telling traditions all exhibit strong influences from Central and West African cultures.[8][9][10][11]
- ^ Duara, Nigel (November 4, 2016). "The Gullah people have survived on the Carolina sea islands for centuries. Now development is taking a toll". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 27, 2021.
- ^ "The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection". The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. 2015-03-10. Retrieved 2022-06-25.
- ^ Michael A. Gomez (9 November 2000). Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-8078-6171-4.
- ^ Philip Morgan (15 August 2011). African American Life in the Georgia Lowcountry: The Atlantic World and the Gullah Geechee. University of Georgia Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-8203-4274-0.
- ^ Cornelia Bailey; Norma Harris; Karen Smith (2003). Sapelo Voices: Historical Anthropology and the Oral Traditions of Gullah-Geechee Communities on Sapelo Island, Georgia. State University of West Georgia. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-883199-14-2.
- ^ Low Country Gullah Culture, Special Resource Study: Environmental Impact Statement. National Park Service. 2003. p. 16.
- ^ NPS. "Gullah Geechee History, Language, Society, Culture, and Change". National Park Service. p. 1.
Geechee people in Georgia refer to themselves as Freshwater Geechee if they live on the mainland and Saltwater Geechee if they live on the Sea Islands.
- ^ Anand Prahlad (31 August 2016). African American Folklore: An Encyclopedia for Students: An Encyclopedia for Students. ABC-CLIO. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-61069-930-3.
- ^ Mwalimu J. Shujaa; Kenya J. Shujaa (21 July 2015). The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America. SAGE Publications. pp. 435–436. ISBN 978-1-4833-4638-0.
- ^ Daina Ramey Berry (2012). Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-313-34908-9.
- ^ Low Country Gullah Culture, Special Resource Study: Environmental Impact Statement. National Park Service. 2003. pp. 50–58.