The Negro dialect known as Gullah or Geechee is spoken by the ex-slaves and their decendants in that part of this region which extends along the Atlantic coast approximately from Georgetown, South Carolina, to the northern boundary of Florida. It is heard both on the mainland and on the Sea Islands near by.
If one were to give a conservative estimate of the number of slaves imported direct from Africa to South Carolina and Georgia during the one hundred years prior to 1808, when the Slave Trade Act became operative, slave traders continued to bring Negroes direct from Africa, though to do so was illegal. As late as 1858, approximately 420 Negroes direct from Africa were landed near Brunswick, Georgia. Information as to how many of these 'new' slaves, i.e. those who had come direct from Africa, remained in coastal South Carolina and Georgia joined them there is not available; but if there is any correlation between the number who settled there and the extent to which African customs and speech habits have survived in that area, then the 'new' slaves must have constituted a considerable part of the slave population of coastal South Carolina and Georgia.
The slaves brought to South Carolina and Georgia direct from Africa came principally from a section along the West Coast extending from Senegal to Angola. The important areas involved were Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Gold Coast, Togo, Dahomey, Nigeria, and Angola. Today the vocabulary of Gullah contains words found in the following languages, all of which are spoken in the above-mentioned areas: Wolof, Malinke, Mandinka, Bambara, Fula, Mende, Vai, Twi, Fante, Ga, Ewe, Fon, Yoruba, Bini, Hausa, Ibo, Ibibio, Efik, Kongo, Umbundu, Kimbundu, and a few others.
Presumably the slaves coming to South Carolina and Georgia direct from Africa, unlike those who had spent some time in other parts of America or in the West Indies, had, on their arrival, little or no acquaintance with the English language. In the coastal region of these states, especially on the Sea Islands, heat, malaria, and dampness retarded the growth of the white population. The extensive production of rice, indigo, and cotton led to the establishment of plantations on which Negro families to every one white family in many sections of coastal South Carolina.
Whereas these facts explain why there was less demand in the Charleston market for slaves from the West Indies than for those who were being brought dialect from Africa, they do not warrant the assumption that slaves coming to South Carolina and Georgia who had previously lived in the West Indies had lost their African speech habits. As a matter of fact, the African element in the speech of West Indians is still considerable. These facts do, however, warrant the reasonable assumption that the African speech habits of the earliest Gullahs were being constantly strengthened throughout the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth by contact with the speech of native Africans who were coming direct from Africa and who were sharing with the older Gullahs the isolation of the Sea Islands -- a condition which obviously made easier the retention of Africanisms in that area than in places where Negroes had less direct contact with Africa and lived less isolated lives. One should not be surprised, therefore, to find among the Gullahs today numerous African customs and speech habits.
Content
Factsheet
Development of Gullah
Learning Gullah
Black English
Sea Island Culture
Photos
Reference