Sapelo Island: Preserving the Past and Studying the Forgotten

The Georgia coast and its barrier islands have been invaluable for recording and preserving information about the people and cultures of the American South. Islands such as Sapelo, about sixty miles south of Savannah, are treasures of Geechee-Gullah heritage; the sea islands were also early scenes of vibrant African Muslim communities whose traces have faded over time. Even with a documented historical importance, only a few locations have been protected for future generations (and sometimes unintentionally by unknowing stewards).

Gullah-Geechee Heritage

The Gullah-Geechee were taken from the rice-producing regions of Senegambia, Angola, and Sierra Leone in West Africa and brought to rice plantations of the American South as enslaved labor. They were brought to Sapelo in 1802 when Thomas Spalding, who introduced the cultivation of sugar cane and manufacture of sugar to Georgia, began buying portions of the island and created several plantations (which included a sugar mill) operated by as many as 400 enslaved workers in cotton, sugar cane and livestock activities.

The porous soils, temperate climates, tidal influences, and saline atmosphere of Sapelo and its marshes are ideal for the cultivation of rice and Sea Island cotton, according to Buddy Sullivan, manager of the reserve when I visited as part of a workshop on African American culture and history conducted by the Georgia Historical Society for the National Endowment for the Humanities. In fact, the freshwater rivers of the Carolina and Georgia coastal areas permit rice cultivation to thrive, particularly as alternating cycles of flooding and draining fields (skills brought by enslaved West Africans to the Atlantic coast) are repeated; this coastal system was later adopted by the planters on large river plantations.

The 1860 census indicates that the Spalding family had 252 enslaved residents living in 50 cabins. Following the American Civil War, the freedmen created several communities throughout Sapelo, although only Hog Hammock now remains. This community, home to about 50 Gullah-Geechee descendants, includes the historic Behavior Cemetery and the First African Baptist Church that traces its origins to 1866. Because Hog Hammock no longer has its own school (the last one closed in 1978), children take the ferry to the mainland and then a bus to school.

Accessible by only ferry or airplane, the island is remote. Because the Gullah-Geechee were so isolated, many generations were able to preserve their distinct culture. When I visited Sapelo, I met Cornelia Bailey, storyteller and folklorist, who wrote about growing up on the island and preserved many Gullah-Geechee memories in her book God, Dr. Buzzard and the Bolito Man. “We still drink, love, hate, and remember we are still living for our ancestors,” says Bailey (who traces her lineage back to an African Muslim named Bul-Allah, the head enslaved manager for Spalding) in her essay “I Am Sapelo.”

Islamic Heritage

Although the First African Baptist Church congregants continue to worship on the island, what has faded is awareness of how significantly Sapelo and neighboring coastal islands constituted the largest assembly of African Muslims in early North America. Such knowledge is the result of painstaking research by scholars such as Michael Gomez, professor at New York University, who describes the Muslim presence in the coastal American South as “active, vibrant, and compelling.” As Gomez points out, of the 388,000 Africans brought into British North America during the Atlantic slave trade, more than 224,000 came from regions influenced by Islam.

By analyzing interviews conducted by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s and related family narratives, Gomez has identified how many practices of enslaved Africans show a picture consistent with serious pursuits of Islam, such as attempts to adhere to Islamic dietary requirements, observance of Muslim feast days, and other elements of Muslim life, such as prayer mats, veiling, and daily ritualized prayer. The longing of many to preserve their religion and culture is also shown by the pattern among American-born enslaved to carry Muslim names and retain vivid memories of their ancestors’ religious practices, even as the number of Christian converts increased. In addition, Gomez has confirmed Sapelo as an important Muslim community based on listings of enslaved Africans when plantations were sold as well as advertisements for enslaved runaways. (Names are clearly Muslim such as Mustapha, Sambo, and Mamado.) Other research by the Georgia Historical Society substantiates the Islamic influences in early African communities on the southeastern U.S. coast.

Protection

What protected Sapelo from the boom of coastal real estate development, the fate of some islands such as Hilton Head, S.C., that also share the Gullah-Geechee heritage? Several islands were acquired by wealthy Northerners in the fifty years after the American Civil War. The story of Sapelo is similar to Ossabaw and a few other islands whose purchase protected them from the typical development. For example, in 1912, Howard E. Coffin, a Detroit automotive pioneer, purchased all of Sapelo from its various owners except for the African American communities. During the Great Depression, Coffin sold his property to North Carolina tobacco heir Richard J. Reynolds, Jr., whose widow later sold it in two transactions (1969 and 1976) to the state of Georgia.

The 16,500-acre Sapelo Island, the fourth largest barrier island of Georgia, is now home to an estuarine research reserve (6,110 acres as part of the 27-reserve national system) and a wildlife refuge (8,420 acres). Equally important is that Hog Hammock is the last intact sea island community of Geechee-Gullah people in Georgia. As a result, Hog Hammock has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Except for this small community (434 acres), the island (97%) is state owned and managed.

Preserving Culture

The Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society annually conducts several educational events, including a cultural day each fall that features storytelling, arts and crafts (including quilt-making and sweet grass basket-making), dancing, music, and food. These efforts, although small, are vital for preserving the full history of the American South. More concerted actions are needed to retain a critical awareness of how past generations have shaped our values and traditions.

Storytelling in the South

The rich tradition of storytelling in the South unites residents and visitors in a common love of relaying fiction and sometimes fact. Often combined with music and drama, storytelling in the Southern tradition is rich in culture, history, arts, humor, and outdoor activities and emphasizes the importance of community and the power of family.

What Is Storytelling?

Storytelling, an art that predates written history, is one of the earliest forms of human communication. Although the importance of storytelling is often underestimated, the late Southern writer Reynolds Price expressed: “A need to hear and tell stories is essential to human beings, second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter.” Storytelling obviously is not limited to the American South as the National Storytelling Network illustrates -- almost every state has an association. However, the power, intimacy and skills of storytelling in the South are unsurpassed.

Storytelling is not simple. It requires imagination, narrative, and interaction; in addition, if often depends on non-verbal communication and expressions. In fact, storytelling can be a high art form. For example, East Tennessee State University offers a master’s degree in storytelling. Other regional universities also offer programs, such as the storytelling project of Florida Atlantic University that seeks to advance the knowledge, appreciation and application of storytelling through classes, workshops, and outreach programs. Some programs focus on specific objectives, such as The Storytelling Project at UNC-Greensboro that focuses on teaching tolerance to kids of all ages (one story at a time) and uses storytelling to foster respect for diversity.

Types of Storytelling

Unlike the South, in some regions storytelling fell out of favor, particularly as the written word and printed material were used to share information. If storytelling survived, it was typically limited to library story hours and young children. However, the South is well known for its many stories where stretching the truth is not a vice — sometimes:

• Tall tales, often known as Jack tales that are very popular in Appalachian folklore, are familiar traditions. Usually centered on a weak, sometimes foolish, but usually kind character, these tales are oral traditions (as opposed to written). Many also trace back to sources in England.



• Folk tales with a moral often have animals as main characters. Probably the best known stories of the South are the Uncle Remus tales recorded by Joel Chandler Harris (1845-1908), who was born in Georgia on a plantation where he served as an apprentice. The stories represent dialect tales that Harris had heard from slaves before he became a well-known writer for the Atlanta Constitution. Such tales often feature a trickster animal (Br’er Rabbit) that disobeys normal rules and succeeds through wit rather than strength or authority. Connected to storytelling traditions with roots in Africa, these animal tales, seemingly stories of simple entertainment, suggest more complex lessons about the value of cunning and escape from submission.
  


• Myths and legends, brought forward from native American, African, and European traditions, are also common in the South. Ghost stories, such as “A Christmas Haunting,” are also prominent, and their characters are not limited to humans, such as the legend of Joeabb the frog.



• Other family, church, and community tales are often great attention grabbers.

Storytelling Circles and Networks

Storytelling, by preserving the heritage of the region, serves as a bridge between families, generations and areas; reaches across barriers of age, gender, wealth and race; and provides the foundation for meaningful connections that in others cultures may be lost. Obviously, the South would be the preferred site for an international storytelling event, and it’s the home of the International Storytelling Center, located in Jonesboro, Tenn., which conducts a festival each October (attended by more than 10,000 people). It also sponsors “tellers”-in-residence from May to October.

Many states in the South have statewide guilds and local storytelling circles. North Carolina is a prime example with a statewide guild, circles in cities such as Asheville, and groups with a specific cultural focus such as the N.C. Association of Black Storytellers. In fact, North Carolina is also the home of the Storytelling Arts Center of the Southeast, which sponsors a regional festival each spring with workshops and performances, a liars’ showdown (with a maxim of “where lying through your teeth is an art”) in January, and a fall festival in October with music and storytelling. Another example of a state with a strong storytelling network is South Carolina. Often these networks and events capture the attention of regional media as illustrated by the festival report of the North Carolina statewide television network.

When I participated in the Liars’ Showdown, my tale of a talking collard plant (that lied) was representative of the traditional Southern tall tale. Held at the Storytelling Arts Center of the Southeast in Laurinburg, NC, the event featured storytellers from throughout North Carolina (including Asheville, Cary, Hickory, Marshville, Monroe, Raleigh, Saint Pauls, Waxhaw, and West End) as well as South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. Other participants told tales about a Greyhound bus that flew to Africa, false teeth in a mud puddle that ate fried chicken during a tent revival, moon rocks found in a cow pasture, and a boy who could swallow an ocean. The regional talent is almost as good as the national storyteller such as Suzi Whaples of West Virginia who receives top billing.

The rich tradition of storytelling has an unlimited future in the South. Although it predates written history, storytelling will never be out-of-date even in the era of digital communications. Because it features imagination, intimacy, and interaction that the Internet cannot offer, storytelling – with its strengths in combining culture, history, arts, and humor and emphasizing the importance of community and the power of family – will be a significant part of Southern culture for a long time.