A peculiar people : slave religion and community-culture among the Gullahs
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
Print Book, English, 1988
New York University Press, New York, 1988
xv, 417 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.
9780814714041, 9780814714225, 0814714048, 0814714226
16680925
AFRICAN BACKGROUND. Gullah roots: ethnic origins and Carolina preferences
Moslem jihad and ethnic displacement
The Socioreligious heritage: Upper Guinea culture circles
Religion and order in traditional society
EARLY CAROLINA'S RELIGIOUS ENVIRONMENT, 1670-1775. Missionaries and masters: Anglicans
Baptists and other "dissenters"
Christianity, bondage, and the Great Awakening: The coming of George Whitefield
Old ways die slowly
CHRISTIANITY AND AUTONOMY: A STRUGGLE LIN BLACK AND WHITE. An almost chosen people: Rebels and outlaws; white independence, black liberation
Slave religion in the postwar Lowcountry
The price of freedom
"Religion of the warm heart": Plantation missions and Methodist impact: The movement
The response
To make them better slaves: Baptist persuasion, 1830-1861: "Christian" masters
"Christian" slaves
THE SOCIORELIGIOUS COMMUNITY" AN AFRICAN-CHRISTIAN SYNTHESIS: Elements of the head and the heart: Gullah interpretations of Christianity
Folk religion in the slave quarters
Gullah attitudes toward death and the supernatural
Appendices: Ethnic origins of Carolina slaves
Missionary's letter
Baptist churches
The Deity
Gullah folkways
Illustrations: Gullahs worshiping in Goose Creek Church
Map of the Sea Island region
Cultural map of Africa
Sam Polite, the praise house elder
Susannah of the Oaks Plantation
Brick Baptist Church, St. Helena Island, S. C
The 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment
Gullahs and Sea Island cotton
The plantation "street"
Women and children in the evening after "maussa's" task is done
Gullahs working for themselves
Laura M. Towne, Dick, Maria, and "seeker" Amoretta, February 1866
Gullah decorated grave
Gullahs and the Carolina Lowcountry