The Gullah/Geechee Nation

[11th_VA]

The Gullah/Geechee Nation exist from Jacksonville, NC to Jacksonville, FL. It encompasses all of the Sea Islands and thirty to thirty-five miles inland to the St. John’s River.

On these islands, people from numerous African ethnic groups linked with indigenous Americans and created the unique Gullah language and traditions from which later came “Geechee.”

The Gullah/Geechee people have been considered “a nation within a nation” from the time of chattel enslavement in the United States until they officially became an internationally recognized nation on July 2, 2000. At the time of their declaration as a nation, they confirmed the election of their first “head pun de boddee”-head of state and official spokesperson and queen mother. They elected Queen Quet, Chieftess and Head-of-State for the Gullah/Geechee Nation.

Mission

To preserve, protect, and promote our history, culture, language, and homeland and to institute and demand official recognition of the governance (minority) rights necessary to accomplish our mission to take care of our community through collective efforts which will provide a healthy environment, care for the well beings of each person, and economic empowerment.

Goals

...

WE will preserve, maintain, and reclaim ALL elements of our homeland which will FOREVER be our base of existence as we carry out these goals. With these goals in mind, Gullah/Geechee people take formal recognition of their nation and their human right to self-determination within the context of their minority governance rights, and thereby, the Gullah/Geechee Nation Wisdom Circle Council of Elders, by its hands, spirit and soul undertakes the task of creating and ratifying the first Constitution of the Gullah/Geechee Nation.

[WayneS]

With apologies to Longfellow:

By the shores of Gullah-Geechee
By the shining Atlan-tic-Sea,
Stood the wigwam of...

... Queen Quet?

[Utilizer]

Why does this sound so much like an episode in the TV series "Leverage"?

I have some computer skills. Maybe I should make like Hardisan and create a nation too!

[11th_VA]

I don’t know about that, but last week I was in SC, and the price of baskets they were selling, must have included ‘reparations’ as well. They are crazy to ask $75 for a basket.

[Little Ray]

Sweet grass baskets are expensive, but they’re pretty time consuming to weave as well.

[Little Ray]

The Gullah are low-country blacks. Once you get away from the cities, they’re pretty good folks.

This is a hoot, but VERY politically incorrect:

http://www.amazon.com/Gullah-Breath-Carolina-Country-RECORD/dp/B000Z9WDOW

[Little Ray]

Nope. No Voodoo or Santeria in the Low Country; have to go to south Florida or Louisiana for that. They’re mostly good Christians

[JSDude1]

Wow who knew as a (white/Euro ancestry) person living in Wilmington, N.C. I now live in another nation (and why I have I never heard this before)?

[Mamzelle]

Those are locally made according to old traditions. The artisans have to have licenses and permits. If you want a cheap, Chinese-made basket, go to Pier 1.

[JimRed]

I don’t know about that, but last week I was in SC, and the price of baskets they were selling, must have included ‘reparations’ as well. They are crazy to ask $75 for a basket.

Give 'em some credit for making an attempt to earn some money, rather than insisting upon handouts. I'll bet they were pretty much self-sufficient until the explosion of goobermint "programs".

And maybe their culture expects you to haggle over the price?

[Gumdrop]

She must be a relative of Michelle Obama’s. I remember reading that her ancestry goes back to the Gullah peoples who lived off shore along the East Coast of NC. SC. GA. I didn’t realize it goes all the way south to Jacksonville, fl.

[Zionist Conspirator]

I've always loved and been fascinated by Gullah, and I hate to see it politicized, but it was inevitable.

So let me get this straight . . . when the "indigenous peoples" say they want all non-indigenous people out, they mean only the white ones? Non-white people who don't belong here get to stay? The same way all non-whites, indigenous or not, get local control and a society based on their traditions while white people have to be mid-nineteenth century European materialist intellectuals?

I wonder what old Karl Marx would have made of this Marxism of "blood and soil?"

[Zionist Conspirator]

When I worked at the public broadcasting network here in SC, there would be periodic bouts of lame documentaries and specials about them.

Hey! American Blacks may have been radicalized till they're to the Left of Pol Pot, but Gullah is not lame!

I suggest you get ahold of some American folklore anthologies and read some stories. Joel Chandler Harris also recorded several.

[Zionist Conspirator]

“I guess they want recognition to open a casino ...”

That has been discussed, but they have no land to speak of. More likely they just want the permanent welfare that the federal government currently gives to Native Americans...

That and to join hands with the "gays" in this country. And to support separation of church and state (for white people only). And to end the Cuban embargo. And every other leftist cause in history, however inane and little-related to the actual Gullah people. Because that's how the Left works.

I'll bet their biggest worry is global warming.

[caveat emptor]

That is a massive land grab attempt it sounds like to me.

In the late 50s when I was in college in Georgia I knew a guy from Savannah who knew some Gullah. Incomprehensible at first but once you knew the meanings you could make sense of the sounds.

Here's a Gullah Children's Story(4:51)

I've read about the Gullah off and on for the last few years, and if there's a land grab going on it seems to me it's the other way around. Here's some info from Wikipedia - I know Wiki's not reliable, and the more I learn about it the worse it seems, but this seems about right as far as the land grab goes.

Civil War period
When the U.S. Civil War began, the Union rushed to blockade Confederate shipping. White planters on the Sea Islands, fearing an invasion by the US naval forces, abandoned their plantations and fled to the mainland. When Union forces arrived on the Sea Islands in 1861, they found the Gullah people eager for their freedom, and eager as well to defend it. Many Gullahs served with distinction in the Union Army's First South Carolina Volunteers. The Sea Islands were the first place in the South where slaves were freed. Long before the War ended, Unitarian missionaries from Pennsylvania came down to start schools for the newly freed slaves. Penn Center, now a Gullah community organization on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina, began as the very first school for freed slaves.

After the Civil War ended, the Gullahs' isolation from the outside world actually increased in some respects. The rice planters on the mainland gradually abandoned their farms and moved away from the area because of labor issues and hurricane damage to crops. Free blacks were unwilling to work in the dangerous and disease-ridden rice fields. A series of hurricanes devastated the crops in the 1890s. Left alone in remote rural areas in the Low country, the Gullahs continued to practice their traditional culture with little influence from the outside world well into the 20th Century.

Recent history
In recent years the Gullah people—led by Penn Center and other determined community groups—have been fighting to keep control of their traditional lands. Since the 1960s, resort development on the Sea Islands has threatened to push Gullahs off family lands they have owned since emancipation. They have fought back against uncontrolled development on the islands through community action, the courts and the political process.

[kearnyirish2]

“That and to join hands with the “gays” in this country. And to support separation of church and state (for white people only). And to end the Cuban embargo. And every other leftist cause in history, however inane and little-related to the actual Gullah people. Because that’s how the Left works. I’ll bet their biggest worry is global warming.”

These people (the “Ramapough tribe”) aren’t typical leftists (outside of the welfare); these people literally live as though government doesn’t exist outside of the monthly check. They hunt out of season, ride ATVs on state park land where it is expressly prohibited (one was killed in a confrontation with park rangers a few years back stemming from this), and basically do as they please; many don’t finish high school and they are completely unassimilated.

[Rebelbase]

Anyone recall a PBS kids show from about 20+ years ago called Gullah-Gullah Island?

[Jack Hammer]

Acording to Frederik Pohl, the Heechee nation is extinct.

Oh, wait a minute.

Never mind.

[Holdem Or Foldem]

“Hmmmm .... Can they do this ???”

It worked out so well for Jefferson Davis and his buddies.

[wally_bert]

The people are interesting, yes but the typical documentary or special produced was dull.