HS 217 - Lowcountry & Gullah Culture

Foodways

• An Illustrated History of the Lowcountry Cuisine
  • "Author and South Carolina native John Martin Taylor explains how long-grain rice and seafood form the backbone of this coastal cooking tradition."

Recommended Databases

Other Databases

Chicora Foundation

• Digitized publications by "Chicora is a Columbia, South Carolina public, non-profit heritage preservation organization founded in 1983. Our work includes archaeological and historical research throughout the Southeastern United States, public education (primarily right here in South Carolina), and work in conservation and preservation with museums, libraries, archives, historic organizations, and private citizens."

Lowcountry Digital History Initiative

The Southern Historical Collection - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Sea Islands Institute at USC Beaufort

New Georgia Encyclopedia

Lowcountry Digital Library

Chronicling of America - Historic Newspapers

South Carolina Encyclopedia

• "A joint project of South Carolina Humanities, the University of South Carolina Press, the USC Libraries, the USC Center for Digital Humanities, the USC College of Arts & Sciences, the USC Institute for Southern Studies, the South Carolina State Library, and many other organizations, the Digital South Carolina Encyclopedia is a comprehensive reference source of the people, places, events, things, achievements, and ideals that have contributed to the evolution of the Palmetto State."

Gullah Culture

Gullah / Geechee Nation

• "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. "

Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor

• "The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor (the Corridor or Corridor) was designated by an act of Congress on October 12, 2006 (Public Law 109-338).It was authorized as part of the National Heritage Areas Act of 2006. As a national heritage area, the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor is not part of the national park system; however, the act authorizes the secretary of the interior to provide technical and financial assistance for the development and implementation of the management plan."

Penn Center

• "For more than 150 years, Penn Center National Historic Landmark District, located on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, has been at the epicenter of African American education, historic preservation, and social justice for tens of thousands of descendants of formerly enslaved West Africans living in the Sea Islands, known as the Gullah Geechee people."

The Lowcountry

• the Lowcountry and Resort Islands
  • Website created and run by the  Lowcountry & Resort Island Tourism Commission to provide visitor information about the region.
• Charleston Museum
  • Museum dedicated  "To educate Charleston area residents and visitors about the natural and cultural history of the South Carolina Lowcountry through collections, exhibitions, preservation, programs and research."
• Savannah History Museum
  • The "Savannah History Museum is located within the historic Central of Georgia Railway train shed and offers a glimpse into Savannah's past with a story starting in 1733, spanning the American Revolution and Civil War, to the Industrial Revolution and beyond."
• The Last Rice River
  • A self-paced exploration (~30 minutes) of Lowcountry Rice Culture.
    • Or view it at the bottom of the Lowcountry & Gullah Libguide - Story Maps

Nature Conservation and Ecology

• ACE Basin Project
  • "The Ashepoo, Combahee and South Edisto (ACE) Basin represents one of the largest undeveloped estuaries on the east coast of the United States consisting of approximately 1.1 million acres of diverse habitats including pine and hardwood uplands, forested wetlands, fresh, brackish and salt water tidal marshes, barrier islands and beaches. The basin's unique estuarine system, the largest of its type in the state, provides invaluable habitat for a rich diversity of finfish and shellfish resources. The basin hosts a wealth of wildlife resources."
• South Carolina: Sandy Island Preserve
  • "The 9,165 acre Sandy Island Preserve is part of the largest protected freshwater island on the east coast and the Nature Conservancy's largest preserve in South Carolina. Comprised of tidal freshwater marsh and wetland forests (3,600 acres) and interior upland habitat (5,565 acres)."
• Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge
  • "The refuge was established on December 1, 1997, to (1) protect and manage diverse habitat components within coastal river ecosystems for the benefit of endangered and threatened species, freshwater and anadromous fish, migratory birds, and forest wildlife, including a wide array of plants and animals associated with bottomland hardwood habitats; and (2) provide a variety of wildlife-dependant recreational activities including hunting, fishing, wildlife observation, photography, and environmental education."
• Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge
  • "Established as a wildlife refuge and nature and forest preserve for aesthetic and conservation purposes. Formerly part of the plantation of Major General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a prominent lawyer active in South Carolina politics from 1801 to 1815."
• Lowcountry Land Trust
  • "A local land conservation organization that is focused on protecting ecologically, agriculturally, and historically significant Lowcountry lands."

Slavery

• Charleston's African American Heritage
  • "South Carolina's Lowcountry holds a major place of importance in African-American history for many reasons, but perhaps most importantly as a port of entry for people of African descent. According to several historians, anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of the Africans who were brought to America during the slave trade entered through ports in the Lowcountry."
• Explore the History of Slavery in Charleston and the Lowcountry
  • Subsection of the International African American Museum, focused on the "more than 40% of all enslaved Africans that came to the US, that came through Charleston."
• Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
  • "Has information on almost 36,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries."
• The Abolition of the Slave Trade
  • "This website provides resources for exploring the various dimensions and consequences, and the impact of decisions made and actions taken or not taken on four continents two centuries ago. It offers insights into the slave trade to the United States, African resistance, abolitionism, the U.S. Constitution and the Slave Trade Acts, 19th century African-American celebrations of the 1807 Act, the illegal slave trade, the campaign to revive the trade, and the end of the Africans’ deportation."

Rice

• Carolina Gold Rice Foundation
  • Founded "to advance the sustainable restoration and preservation of Carolina Gold Rice and other heirloom grains and raise public awareness of the importance of historic ricelands and heirloom agriculture."
• Rice Museum
  • "The Rice Museum chronicles the history of Rice production from the 1750s colonial period to the 1850s zenith and its impact on, not only South Carolina, but internationally as well. Through dioramas, maps, artifacts and other exhibits, visitors to the Museum are enlightened to the history of a society dependent on the rice crop."
• Ricepedia - North America
  • "Ricepedia.org is an online repository of relevant and contextual information about rice as a plant, as food, as a commodity, and as a cultural centerpiece. This site is maintained by the International Rice Research Institute, AfricaRice, and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture."

Lowcountry and Gullah Arts

• Jonathan Green Studios
  • Website devoted to "Jonathan Green's available works, the studio represents other artist who work display the same cultural significance and stature. "
• Brookgreen Gardens
  • Since its 1931 founding, Brookgreen Gardens has been a cultural center for the South Carolina Community, whose mission, in part is to "collect, conserve and exhibit the plants, animals and cultural materials of the South Carolina Lowcountry."
• Gibbes Museum of Art
  • "The Gibbes Museum of Art is home to the foremost collection of American art that incorporates the story of Charleston."