Sapelo Island's Gullah Legacy

adapted by Marva Jackson Lord from conversations with Stanley Walker & Cornelia Bailey

Sapelo Island is one of the most beautiful and greenest places to visit. There are no big hotels, simply small cottages and other types of low rise accommodations owned and run by the people who live on Sapelo.The Hog Hammock Community Gullah Festival takes place each year on Sapelo Island just off the coast of Georgia, near the Florida border. The festival is a popular annual event which takes place in late summer or early fall. The festival draws visitors from across the US. Against the romantic island setting and beautiful ocean beaches, visitors from across Georgia, other states and countries enjoy traditional Gullah cooking, crafts, historical tours, storytelling and musical performances.

Who Are Gullah People?

Gullah people originate on the Sea Islands off the coast of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, USA. Gullah people and their mainland cousins Geechee people are descendants of Africans once enslaved as plantation workers on the Sea Islands and in other parts of the Caribbean and USA.

Sapelo on the Net

Sapelo Island Coastal Georgia Barrier Island Retreat ... info about the Gullah community of Hog Hammock located on Sapelo Island just off the Georgia coast

Sapelo Island ... area map and information about the Sapelo National Park Service

 

Sapelo Island

Sapelo Sources & Contacts

Cornelia Bailey 912 485 2206
Storyteller & Craftperson
 The Wallow guest house
Maurice Bailey Tours

Nancy Banks 912 485 2212
The Weekender guest house

Stanley Walker 912 485-2273
tours, storyteller, netmaker, artist
Stanley Walker's Marshview campground is open year-round

Gullah Arts

Fanna or Sweet Grass Baskets - for fanning rice
Grass Dolls - for children
Red Grass Brooms - sweeping floors
Bateau - handmade wooden boats
Hand-Carved Wood Mortar and Pestles
Downfall - a trap for catching small animals
Jack Jumper - for catching birds
Box Trap - for catching small animals
Castnet - for catching fish

 

Sapelo Island - Historical Points

  • Pre-1500's - Sapelo is a favourite hunting ground for Native peoples
  • Early 1500's - First Europeans arrive
  • 1570-1686 - Franciscan Spanish mission, Zapala - a Native word, established. (The name Sapelo derived from this by British)
  • 1760 - English buy Sapelo from Native Princess known as Mary Musgrove
  • 1760-1802 - Sapelo owned by various British and French planters
  • 1802-62 - Thomas Spalding buys Sapelo. Begins Ante-Bellum Plantation period with extensive Sea Island cotton and sugar operations. Spalding established Sapelo's first African slave homestead, Behaviour Community in 1803. During this time Spalding buys Muslim agriculturist Belali Mohammed and his family from Bahamas. Spalding dies in 1851. Conservative estimates suggest that Spalding's family owned as many as 400 slaves at one time.
  • 1869-95 - Spalding family expand agriculture and cattle farming on Sapelo
  • 1912 - Howard Coffin, auto company executive, buys Sapelo and begins dairy and commercial fishing industries
  • 1934 - Richard J. Reynolds, tobacco tycoon, buys Sapelo
  • 1950 - Sapelo Island Research Foundation founded by Reynolds. During the 1950's Reynolds encouraged Sapelo's African descendants to move into Hog Hammock community. Prior to this they lived at Raccoon Bluff, Lumber Landing, Bell Marsh, and Shell Hammock.
  • 1954 - Marine Institute opens on Sapelo
  • 1969 - State of Georgia buys north 3/4 of Sapelo as Reynolds Wildlife Refuge
  • 1976 State buys South End property
  • 1975 - Hog Hammock Community Foundation established by local community


ROOTS

 

Sapelo Today

In 1863 slavery was abolished in the United States. Sapelo Island today is the home of a handful of people, including about 69 Black folks living in Hog Hammock Community. They are struggling to preserve and revitalize their African culture, heritage and property rights. Recent developments include: a cooperative clam farm; restoring Black artifacts and buildings; marketing locally made arts and crafts; encouraging young Gullah families to return to Hog Hammock Community; establishing new businesses like providing modest vacation spots and historical tours for visitors.

Resources
  • God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man by Cornelia Walker Bailey with Christena Bledsoe
  • Early Days on the Georgia Tidewater by Buddy Sullivan
  • Drums and Shadows by The Georgia Writers' Project;
    published by the University of Georgia
  • Daughters of the Dust, a popular dramatic film by Julie Dash, based on the history of Gullah people and set at the turn of the 20th century
  • Family Across the Sea, a short documentary which compares culture and linguistic similarities & differences of Gullah, contemporary West African & Caribbean peoples, originally aired on PBS.