A Peculiar People: Slave Religion and Community-Culture Among the Gullahs

by Margaret Washington Creel

A historical analysis of the Gullahs of South Carolina, and an imaginative and suggestive treatment of slave religion and social cohesion, A Peculiar People: Slave Religion and Community-Culture Among The Gullahs examines the components that provided the Sea Island slave population with their cultural autonomy and sense of consciousness. The elements of community, religion, and resistance are examined in relationship to this unique people.

Margaret Creel traces three successive importations of slaves into the South Carolina coastal region, addressing each as a distinct period. She argues that the large numbers of slaves imported between 1749 and 1787 came predominantly from Senegambia, the Gold Coast, and Liberia. The majority of the Gullah population came from these areas of West Africa.

Combining anthropological and historical studies with observations, reports, manuscripts, and letters relating to the Gullahs, the book creates an original and exceptionally fascinating analysis of Gullah culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."

Genres: History, Religion, Cultural

1 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gershwin used Gullah dialect in Porgy and Bess and my love for that American opera prompted me to read this. it has nothing about Gershwin and the dialect is a minor yet significant feature. the rest is fascinating and rich in scholarly detail. act 1 is the tribal roots of south Carolina's slave population in three great waves from the slave coast with Christians buying pagan populated coffles from Moslem traffickers. they brought with them a polyglot culture and such intrinsic elements as the male and female Poro and Sande secret societies. act 2 is american religious movements from the Great Awakening to the solidification of the Methodist and Baptist denominations. especially for the former there's the schizophrenic hypocrisy of biblical support for slavery, abolition and converting the slaves for either end. act 3 is the outgrowth of ecstatic worship by postbellum Gullahs.