Exploring Gullah History: The Roots of Gullah Culture

The history of the Gullah people begins on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, where much of their ancestry can be traced back to the “Rice Coast,” a collection of countries along the western coast of Africa whose people had extensive knowledge of rice farming, a new and lucrative market in South Carolina at the time. Over time, due to the isolation of the islands, the people and cultures of Sierra Leone, Angola, Liberia, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast, among others, melded into one distinct communit