Gullah

The Sea Islands

The region

The Sea Islands were designated as the Gullah-Geechee National Heritage Corridor in 2006. St. Helena is approximately in the center of the corridor that stretches from southern North Carolina to the northern tip of Florida.

National Park Service. (2009). "Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor (map)." Retrieved January 27, 2009, 2009, from http://www.gullahgeecheenews.com/uploads/Map.pdf.

Aerial photo of St. Helena Island

The Island is characterized by abundant salt marsh to the north, east and south, and borders on the Beaufort River to the west.

Google Earth, 2011

Cypress Swamp, Port Royal Island, 1865

The vast expanses of salt marsh cord grass (Spartina alterniflora) that make up the marshes were traditionally used for animal feed and fertilizer.

03281u (LC-DIG-cwpb-03282) Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Cypress Swamp, Port Royal Island, 1865

This view of a cypress swamp on neighboring Port Royal Island is typical of the tidal marshes and swamps on St. Helena Island and in the region.

03284u (LC-DIG-cwpb-03283) Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

From the County Boat Dock on Eddings Point Road, 2010.

The waterways, marshes and forests are rich with plant and animal life, providing critical natural habitat. The landscape also provides beauty that is attractive to human development.

Elizabeth Brabec, 2011

Roads

Many of the roads on the island are designated scenic roads, and have much the same character as they did a century or more ago.

Elizabeth Brabec, 2009.

Blueways

The waterways have been used throughout history as an important transportation route, and are also important today for recreation.

Elizabeth Brabec, 2011

Fishing fleet, 2010

The island supports several commercial fisheries, from large scale to individual boats. Intensive land development has threatened the fisheries, in St. Helena Sound and the surrounding regional waterways.

Elizabeth Brabec, 2010.

Fisheries, 2011

Intensive land development has threatened the fisheries, in St. Helena Sound and the surrounding regional waterways.

Elizabeth Brabec, 2011

Slavery in the Sea Islands

Notice of a slave auction, Charleston, South Carolina, 1852.

Africans brought as slaves to the Sea Islands were primarily from the rice growing regions of Africa - Sierra Leone and Ghana. The legal slave trade was closed in 1809, however illegal importations continued through 1858. Slave sales such as the one depicted in this advertisement were of local slaves, listed here in family groups.

Image NW0304, www.slavery images.org, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library.

Slave lists from the John Edwin Fripp Plantation, 1840 to 1845

During the period of slavery, families were strongly matrilineal. Registers such as this were typically made of all slaves born on each plantation, and serve as an important resource today for genealogy. The list includes the name of the child, the date and year of birth, and the child's mother.

Volume 1, Folder 1, Scan 2, in the John Edwin Fripp Papers #869, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Five generations on Smith's Plantation, Beaufort, South Carolina.

Research into slave families indicates that there were strong family ties during this period, even though family members were often sold off the home plantation, and fathers could be bound to a neighboring or distant plantation. Although travel without express permission (a pass) was hazardous and against the law, boats allowed clandestine travel between plantations and even between islands on a fairly regular basis.

00057v (LC-B811-152), Civil War Photograph Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Woman in field with hatchet, St. Helena Island

On the plantations, work was assigned in tasks. Once the task was completed, each slave could spend the remainder of the day as they wished. This was very different to the gang system used throughout most of the south, where slaves were required to work from before dawn to after dusk.

Photo 0855b, in the Penn School Papers #3615, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Emancipation Day, South Carolina, 1863.

The Emancipation Proclamation for southern slaves was enacted January 1, 1863. This scene at the nearby Smith Plantation near Port Royal would have been repeated in many areas of the region including St. Helena Island. Up to this point, the former slaves had been termed "contrabands of war," and so were still the "property" of the federal government.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (Jan. 24, 1863), vol. 15, p. 276. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-88808).

Plantation Communities

Slave Houses, Mulberry Plantation, South Carolina, ca. 1800.

A view of typical slave quarters close to the plantation house. The homes of house slaves, they were often of better construction, and in the plantation slave hierarchy, housed the most favored and valuable slaves. The arrangement in a grid with two or more rows creating a street or streets was typical, and was intended to maintain order and control.

Image reference NW0098, www.slavery images.org, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library.

Plantation Dance, South Carolina, 1785-1795.

This small watercolor painting is probably the best known depiction of life in the slave quarters during the 18th century. The plantation is on the Coosaw River in the Beaufort area. The painting shows two canoes on the Coosaw, which separates the plantation house and row of seven slave quarters from the slave village in the foreground. It was common, particularly on large plantations, to have from 2 to 5 or more villages on a plantation, often separated from the main house by large distances.

Image reference NW0159, www.slavery images.org, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library.

Frogmore Plantation, St. Helena Island, 1798

This plantation plat shows the 3,300 acres of Frogmore Plantation as it was drawn in 1798. Frogmore had two slave villages or quarters, a smaller one to the north and a larger one to the south.

John Stapleton Papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina.

A slave village on Frogmore Plantation, St. Helena Island, 1798.

The larger slave village on the plantation had 18 cabins. This was a commodity production plantation, so it did not have a plantation house at this time, just an overseer's house. The plantation clearly produced cotton, with a cotton house, a gin house and a barn and provision houses in the complex.

John Stapleton Papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina.

Frogmore House (Frogmore Manor)

Built in about 1810 (after the date of the preceding plat), Frogmore House was purchased by the first two Penn School teachers, Miss Towne and Miss Murray, as their home. It is also a good architectural example of a Low Country plantation house common on St. Helena.

Image Folder P-4285/3, in the Edith M. Dabbs Collection of Papers Relating to Saint Helena Island, S.C., Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Cotton House, St. Helena Island, 1860s.

After 1790, Sea Island cotton was the primary cash crop of the plantations on St. Helena Island. This sketch shows the cotton house, where the cotton was cleaned and made ready for market.

Image Folder P-4285/06, in the Edith M. Dabbs Collection of Papers Relating to Saint Helena Island, S.C., Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Preparing cotton for the gin on Smith's Plantation, Port Royal I

Outside of the cotton house: scenes like this for cleaning cotton would also have been common on St. Helena Island during the plantation period.

00747u (LC-DIG-cwpb-00747) Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Frogmore Street, 1860s.

A sketch of a plantation "street" on St. Helena Island, the Frogmore Street is typical of a plantation slave village. There were about 50 plantations on the island at the time of the Civil War, and each plantation would have had one or more slave villages. The homes of the Frogmore Street are "double pen" in style, housing two families, with a central chimney. The front overhang is an unusual architectural feature, and provides some shelter for sitting in front of the homes, a common practice for socializing. Most slave quarters had windows without glass, but used shutters that were closed at night.

Image Folder P-4285/10, in the Edith M. Dabbs Collection of Papers Relating to Saint Helena Island, S.C., Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Perryclear Plantation, Port Royal Island, SC.

While on neighboring Port Royal Island, this view of plantation slave cabins would have been typical for St. Helena as well. Slave cabins were lined up in straight rows, in the midst of a cotton field. There is a small amount of corn growing on the field margin, likely for the use of this village. People gathered in front of the cabins while this photo was being taken.

Photo 0827 in the Penn School Papers #3615, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Port Royal, South Carolina, slave quarters, 1862.

Taken in 1862, when freedom came to the Gullah in the area of Beaufort and St. Helena, this photo shows a row of slave quarters. This grouping is very unusual for quarters before emancipation, because they are not in a straight row. They are relatively well built, with brick chimneys. The areas between the houses are fenced, indicating a level of personal and family space defined in the grouping. The man in the foreground is sitting on a bench in front of a pot on a fire.

00806u (LC-B811-211A), Civil War Photograph Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

View on Mill's Plantation, Port Royal Island.

Taken after the Northern Army took control of the region, this view of the former slave quarters on Mill's Plantation shows the reality of daily life. The slave quarters are laid out in the typical straight line, and show the work areas in front. The woman on the far right is standing next to a wash tub set on a stool, and there is another four-legged stool in the foreground. Two women in the center of the photo are carrying buckets or tubs on their heads. To the left a man and woman are sitting on chairs with a small boy at their feet (probably a family group) with other men sitting or standing in the group. There is a pile of oyster shells in the background.

00761u (LC-B811-169), Civil War Photograph Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Negro fields near Beaufort, c. 1800

This portion of a plantation plat from about 1800 shows a negro field located between two quarters. A graveyard is also located to the lower left of the drawing. Although extremely rare to see indentified on a plantation plat, the fields for slave family use were standard in Low Country plantations.

Plat 4564, Register of Mesne Conveyance, Charleston.

Family Compounds

Former slave cabins became hoes for tenant farmers.

A former slave quarters street in Georgetown County became home for tenant farmers after emancipation. Although common in the rest of the South, this situation was unusual on St. Helena Island, where many families were able to purchase their own land and build their own homes.

06-018-M, Morgan Collection, Georgetown County Library.

Freedmen on Marion Chaplin Plantation, Saint Helena Island.

In November of 1861, when the northern army took the area encompassing Hilton Head, Beaufort and St. Helena Island, the plantation owners fled and the slaves became "freedmen." They began working the plantations for wages, and later, during 1863 to 1865, they purchased the land of their former plantations for themselves.

Photo 0824a in the Penn School Papers #3615, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

St. Helena resurveyed, 1862.

A unique land pattern that developed on St. Helena during the Civil War was created by the resurveying of the former plantations into 10-acre plots. These plots were subsequently sold before 1865, many to the freedmen of the Island.

St. Helena plot pattern.

The resurvey of land resulted in the unique land ownership patterns we see on the island today. These 10-acre plots became the basis of today’s family compounds.

Island Cabins c. 1890 to 1912.

An unusual view of a compound on St. Helena Island around the turn of the last century, with a woman and her horse outside of her home. The home yard is fenced, and the buildings are well constructed. There appear to be at least two homes in this compound.

Photo 1050a in the Penn School Papers #3615, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Homes near Charleston, 1938.

As the Gullah developed their family compounds on their own land, they arranged their homes in an organic, roughly circular fashion.

fas 8c09544 (LC-USF34-050509-D), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Compound

Yards

Home near Beaufort, 1938.

Traditional Gullah yards were swept, in the African tradition. The woman shown here sweeps her yard regularly with a broom, leaving a clean, hard-packed surface.

fsa 8c30071 (LC-USF34-050784-E), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Tomato harvest, in the area of St. Helena Island, 1936.

The traditional approach to Gullah yards was a swept yard - seen here around the family's feet. However, by the 1920's, a federal "Better Homes" movement that culminated in a national competition. The Penn Center was active in this competition, and that effort began to influence both traditional housing styles and yards. The effect can be seen in the flowers in front of the porch.

8b29054u (LC-USF43-006797-D) Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

The Street, circa 1900.

This is a former slave community or "street" that continued to be occupied after emancipation. It is a good example of a double-sided street, common throughout the Low Country. Sitting in front f the house to socialize was also a cultural pattern that continues today.

06-035-M, Morgan Collection, Georgetown Public Library.

Social yard space 2010

Sitting and meeting frelds and neighbors in the front yard is a cultural tradition int he Gullah communities on St. Helena.

Elizabeth Brabec, 2010.

Corner Community

View of Brick Church from the Corner approach.

Since its construction in 1855, the Brick Church played an important role in life on St. Helena Island, and was a prominent building at Corner Community. Seen here from the Corner approach, crossing the stream, the location and alignment of what is now Martin Luther King Drive is somewhat different form the approach today (see next slide).

Image Folder P-4285/09, in the Edith M. Dabbs Collection of Papers Relating to Saint Helena Island, S.C., Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Fourth of July Celebration, Corner Community, 1939.

Corner Community is the central meeting place. Here a July celebration takes place outside the store and gas station, that is the present-day location of the Gullah Grub restaurant.

fsa.8a40370 (LC-USF33-030417-M1) Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Fourth of July celebration at the Corner, 1939.

Corner Community is the central meeting place. Here a July celebration takes place outside the store and gas station, that is the present-day location of the Gullah Grub restaurant.

fsa.8a40370 (LC-USF33-030417-M1) Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Corner Store and office

Also a National Register property, the Corner Store and office has served various businesses of Corner Community since the late 1870s.

Elizabeth Brabec, 2009