First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape," at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Gullah Geechee are a unique creole African American culture found on the sea islands and immediate coast of South Carolina and Georgia. Created from the context of rice, indigo, and sea island cotton plantations that required large Black labor forces working in relative isolation from whites, the Gullah Geechee are best known for their idiom, crafts, cuisine, and landscape. The Gullah Geechee have been recognized by the National Park Service through the creation of the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor, which threads along the South Atlantic Coast where the Gullah Geechee were prominent and where their communities remain. This session looks at the archaeology of the Gullah Geechee, their landscapes, cultural parallels, and public connections to the present generation to illustrate the ways in which this culture made a region their own.

Other Keywords
Gullah • African American • Landscape • bioarchaeology • Reconstruction • Fishing • Remote Sensing • Climate • Community • Slavery

Geographic Keywords
Southeast • US Southeast • Southeastern US • Coastal Georgia • South Carolina, Lowcountry • southeastern United States, Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor • South Atlantic Coast

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-10 of 10)

  • Documents (10)
Documents
  • The Anson Street Burying Ground: Lost Ancestors of Charleston’s Gullah Community (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric C. Poplin.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Excavations for the renovations of Charleston’s (SC) Galliard Performance Center exposed a formerly unknown African American burying ground near the corner of George and Anson streets. At least 36 individuals were interred at this cemetery during the later 18th...

  • The Archaeology of a Gullah Geechee Fishing Village (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jodi A. Barnes. Georgette Rivera. Bill Stevens. Vennie Deas Moore.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Every place tells a climate story (Rockman and Maase 2017). In 2017, the storm surge and high tides from Hurricane Irma highlighted the ongoing erosion to South Island at the mouth of Winyah Bay in South Carolina. A turn of the 20th century plat shows that the...

  • Archaeology of Captive African Life on the Brook Green Rice Plantation: what we know, and where we will go. (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David T. Palmer.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Brook Green plantation was one of the largest rice plantations in the United States prior to the Civil War, but we as yet know little about the lives of the many Captive Africans who lived and labored there. This plantation was located on property that is now...

  • Carving a Kingdom from the Trunk of the Plantation Tree: Archaeology of the Hutchinson House and the Legacy of the "Black Kings" of Edisto Island (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only JW Joseph.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Emancipation provided the Gullah Geechee with the opportunity to craft their own communities and economies. On Edisto Island, prominent Gullah Geechee were known as the “Black Kings” of the Island.  James Hutchinson was one of the kings, and created a community...

  • Combatting Gullah Erasure in the Ground and Out of it: Archaeology’s Place in Hilton Head Island (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine (1,2) Seeber. Caleb Hutson.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 2019 a total of 2,684,328 vacationers came to Hilton Head Island, SC. The 70sq mile island rose to supremacy in the vacation industry in the 1970’s where it’s remained for more than fifty years. But before it was #15 on the “Worlds Best Vacation Islands” list...

  • Community and Commerce: Investigations at African American-Owned Stores in the Community of Needwood, Georgia (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia McMahon.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Within the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, the community of Needwood in Glynn County, Georgia, was established by Freedmen in the years following Emancipation. In the historic period, the self-sufficient community included three stores, at least two of...

  • The Economic Contexts of Small Finds from Gullah Geechee Occupations (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Brad Botwick.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Enslaved and Freed Africans and African Americans in the Lowcountry of the Carolinas and Georgia had a rich economic life apart from the formal and official economy. Historical sources indicate they made, gathered, raised, or provided an extensive range of products...

  • Gullah Place-making & Racial Landscapes on Hilton Head Island, SC. (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Terrance M. Weik. Eric E. Jones.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The goal of this project is to explore ways racism, Gullah countermeasures, and reparatory actions reshaped places, spatial practices, and human relations on Hilton Head Island, from the 1800s onward. A GIS spatial analysis of maps, archival sources, oral histories,...

  • The Hutchinson House: Restoring a Freedman’s House to Serve as a Heritage Center on Edisto Island, SC (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Cameron E Moon.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Hutchinson House on Edisto Island, constructed in 1885 by Henry Hutchinson, stands as a testament to the perseverance of African Americans who asserted their independence from White control after the Civil War. Henry Hutchinson’s father, James Hutchinson, was...

  • Looking at "Uniqueness:" the Importance of the Gullah Geechee in Understanding African American Behavioral Adaptations (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth L. Brown.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. When compared with other African Americans the Gullah Geechee are generally described as unique and relatively culturally homogeneous. Their uniqueness has been attributed to the operation of a number of forces from their isolated environment to the labor regime...