African American ethnic group in south United States
This article is about the Gullah people and their culture and diaspora. For other uses, see Gullah (disambiguation).
"Geechee" redirects here. For other uses, see Geechee (disambiguation).
Gullah
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
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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 their 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 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.
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...
GullahGullah Island is an American musical children's television series that was produced by and aired on the Nick Jr. programming block on the Nickelodeon...
Gullah (also called Gullah-English, Sea Island Creole English, and Geechee) is a creole language spoken by the Gullah people (also called "Geechees" within...
Gullah Jack (died July 12, 1822), also known as Couter Jack and sometimes referred to as "Gullah" Jack Pritchard, was an African Methodist and Hoodoo conjurer...
of the Gullah culture. It is a locally created unique contribution to the worldwide hag folklore based on the syncretic belief system of Gullah or Hoodoo...
in television series including as Shaina in the Nickelodeon series GullahGullah Island and as Robin Dixon, the daughter of Marcus Dixon, Carl Lumbly's...
linguistic history, otherwise known as the Gullah people and Gullah language (aka, Geechie Gullah, or Gullah-Geechee, etc). It has been used as a nickname...
The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, in both...
#D1EAEB is a popular shade of haint blue. The tradition originated with the Gullah in Georgia and South Carolina. The ceiling of the slave quarters at the...
Kot Gulla is a village and union council, an administrative subdivision, of Talagang District in the Punjab Province of Pakistan, it is part of Talagang...
is still heavily dominated by African American communities, such as the Gullah/Geechee people. As of the 2020 census, the population of the Lowcountry...
The largest is Johns Island, South Carolina. Sapelo Island is home to the Gullah people and all islands are acutely threatened by sea level rise due to climate...
1932 – April 21, 2023) was an American Geechee-Gullah community leader, chef, and author who co-wrote Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes from the Matriarch...
United States. Set in 1902, it tells the story of three generations of Gullah (also known as Geechee) women in the Peazant family on Saint Helena Island...
of Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, she is noted for her knowledge of Gullah traditions and history. Robinson was born on Daufuskie Island before natives...
establishing the "Gullah Connection," the historical links between the indigenous people of the West African nation of Sierra Leone and the Gullah people of the...
American spiritual song of disputed origin, but known to be sung in the Gullah culture of the islands off South Carolina and Georgia, with ties to enslaved...
stage name as SilaS, before adopting the name Dear Silas. The single "GullahGullah Island," which came out in February 2016, went viral when former NFL...
best known as a child actress in the Nickelodeon television series GullahGullah Island (1994–1998) and Kenan & Kel (1996–2000). In 2017, she starred...
United States between the 18th and early 19th century. In particular, the Gullah people of partial Sierra Leonean ancestry, fled their owners and settled...
translations into creole languages include: The effort to translate the Bible into Gullah, a creole language spoken by residents of the Sea Islands off the eastern...
is a recurring story that has taken deep roots in African American and Gullah oral history. As is typical of oral histories, the facts have evolved over...