Exploring the Gullah Geechee Culture with the Quarterman Keller Scholars
In addition to my role as a Student Brand Ambassador for the HistoryMakers Digital Archive, I am also honored to be an inaugural Quarterman-Keller Scholar. In this role, my peers and I interview the families of Randy Quarterman and Sarah Eisner, the descendants of two families tied together by the Trans Atlantic slave trade. George Adam Keller, Sarah’s three-time great-grandfather, enslaved Zeike Quarterman, Randy’s three-time great-grandfather, on Coldbrook Plantation in Savannah, Georgia. The two descendants have taken part in a journey to reinstate the reparations land given to the Quartman’s following emancipation. Through the documentation of these oral histories, I have not only invigorated my transgenerational interviewing prowess, but have also gained insight on the interlinked nature of public and personal history. For my spring break, I took part in the Quarterman-Keller Scholar Spring Break Experience. The experience included a trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. There, the scholars engaged in the history of African Americans in the area intimately.
A photo of the scholars and Quarterman Keller founders Randy and Sarah, during a welcome dinner on Hilton Head Island, SC.
Our first stop was Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park on the Hilton Head Island of South Carolina. Mitchelville was the first free black town in the United States. There, the formerly enslaved sold products, worked for wages, and governed their own affairs. During the Reconstruction period, many Mitchelville residents became politically involved and started state constitutional conventions. The town was founded by a white Union Army Major general Ormsby Mitchel, who spent the last weeks of his short life realizing a village for the freedman. Although they were considered federal contraband, Mitchel and the newly freedmen built a town where they would create the first free black community in the nation. The community had houses, a police force, a praise house, and a school.
HistoryMaker and CivicMaker recounts the legend of Mitchelville in his interview: saying, “ after the Union [Union Army] came in in 1861 and Africans came from other plantations behind Union lines, officially this was one of the first places where, you know, massive number of people had opportunity to buy land and to live as free people before others. And so in 1862 they actually established a village called Mitchelville on Hilton Head [Hilton Head Island, South Carolina] named for General Ormsby Mitchel [Ormsby M. Mitchel] who was in charge at the time. And so he took this plantations and organized people into a little town where they had their own town council; they had their school board; they had garbage collection; they had a police department. It was the beginning of self-governance for, for black people. He was, he was experimenting with it. And that lasted until 1868 when the Union pulled out of here…” To learn more about the history of Mitchellville, or to schedule a tour, visit their website here.
Learning about the lives of the formerly enslaved in Mitchelville
QK scholars at a memorial for the late Toni Morrison at Mitchelville.
The group then took a visit to the Gullah Museum, where we met the director and Hilton Head native Louise Miller Cohen. Ms. Cohen, known in the community as “Wheeze”, used the Gullah oral tradition to impart history, culture and wisdom on behalf of the Gullah people of South Carolina. Before the construction of the bridge to the mainland, the Gullah people of South Carolina experienced an isolated existence, allowing them to preserve many of the traditions from their African predecessors. Ms. Cohen demonstrated these practices through telling stories, sharing medicinal knowledge, and teaching parts of the Gullah language. If you would like to learn more about Ms. Cohen and the Gullah Museum, click this link here.
QK Scholars in front of a restored house at the Gullah Museum
One of the most distinctive facets of Gullah-Gechee culture is its language, which is a creolization of several African dialects and American English. HistoryMaker and Gullah Geechee descendant Zenobia Washington shared some of the dialect with the HistoryMakers, saying, “My mom, or my grandmother might say, or my great-grandmother might say, "Gal whut I tell you to do?" to say, you know, "What are you doing?" You know, or "Why you put dat dar in de pot?" Indeed, the language of the Gullah people is unique and full of poetry. We explored these cultural connections further on the Gullah Heritage Trail Tour on another part of the island. Fourth generation Gullah family members bring history to life with this fascinating tour through traditional Gullah neighborhoods and ‘off the beaten path’ historic sites. It was there we saw many Gullah communities, and learned about the childhood of our semi- retired guide, James. James, a fourth generation member, recounted the way that his people cultivated the island regardless of who had their names on the deed. He also showed us many saying and phrases used by the community he grew up in. If you are interested in taking a tour with the Gullah Heritage Trail, click this link here.
We then traveled about an hour to take a tour with asistan Pat Gun, to learn about the Geechee heritage of Savannah Georgia. A celebrated Gullah Geechee preservationist, Pat Gunn retired from the ACLU to dedicate her life to the detailing of her culture. Scholars learned about the ships that brought the enslaved to its ports, visited the holding cells for those people, and the many contributions the enslaved brought with them from Africa. Most notably, Sis. Pat encouraged us to look for adinkra symbols throughout the city. Adinkra symbols are Ghanaian in origin, and symbolize important concepts and principles of the culture. Was honored to be among one if Sis Pat’s oral history documentation last year, and to be in one of her final tours.
