How Did The Gullah Influence West African Americans

Gullah is stationed on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia which are the communities of people who are the descendants of enslaved Africans. The Gullah people have a distinct and unique culture that is directly linked to West Africa. A variety of historians believe that the word Gullah comes from a West African country which many slaves came from called Angola. Gullah is also from the tribe named “Gola”. Gola is a tribe found near the border of Liberia and Sierra Leone, West Africa. While living and working on Sea Island plantations that were owned by American colonists, Gullah communities were labeled and located where enslaved Africans were. Although the slaves provided needed labor and worked hard on a daily basis, they were not

That cultural heritage that they brought with them, they knew no matter what they went through, that was something that they could relate on and keep as a positive aspect in life as they were slaving. The Gullah people were a group of black Americans that lived in small fishing and farming communities along the Atlantic coastal plain and on the chain of Sea Islands which ran parallel to the coast. The Gullah has been able to conserve more of their African heritage than any other group of Black Americans and that is because all of the hard work that they have done, they have worked together the whole way. The language that the Gullah people is known to speak is creole and they tell African folktales, use African names, make styles similar to African handicrafts as known as baskets and walking sticks that are carved. The language of the Gullah people had such identical expressions to the people of Sierra Leone such as pantap (on top of), ohltu (both), tif (steal), bigyai

One of their most popular meals that they were known for enjoying was a rich cuisine based primarily on rice. Rice is what formed the link between the Gullah people and the people of Sierra Leone. Around the 1700s, the American colonists in Georgia and South Carolina discovered that rice would grow well in the semitropical country bordering their coastline which was known to be very moist. It was then discovered that the American colonists had no experience with the cultivation of rice, and African slaves were needed who knew how to harvest, plant, and process the crop. Plantation owners were then willing to pay high prices for slaves from the traditional rice growing regions of West Africa and this region was known as the “Rice Coast”. Africans from the Rice Coast were the largest group of slaves imported into South Carolina and Georgia around the 18th century which connects to the Gullah people’s location. The Gullah is descended from the slaves who labored on the rice