Gullah-Geechee Community Formation in the South Carolina Lowcountry

As enslaved West Africans, primarily from Sierra Leone, Senegal, and the Gold Coast, were concentrated in the South Carolina and Georgia lowcountry in the 1680s–1690s, they began forming the distinctive Gullah-Geechee culture. Geographic isolation on Sea Islands allowed enslaved communities to preserve African languages, naming practices, foodways, crafts (including sweetgrass basketry), and spiritual traditions to a degree impossible in more mixed populations. This cultural preservation was itself a form of resistance to the dehumanization of slavery, maintaining African identity across the Atlantic.