Gullah Roots

Gullah (also referred to as Geechee) is the official name of an indigenous Afro

Creole/Krio tribal-ethnic community and nation based along the southeast coast of
the North American sub continent within the territorial borders of the United
States.

Gullah is believed to be a derivative variant of Gola, which is the name of an

indigenous tribal-ethnic community and nation of Africans based in modern day
Liberia and Sierra Leone, respectfully.

The Mane invaded the coast hailing from Timbuktu, Mali under the legendary
leadership of Queen Mancarico and were established along the coast by the 1540's,
less than a century after Portuguese sailor/pirate Pedro Da Cintra arrived in the
estuary of the Rokel River in 1462 and first called the mountainous peninsula
overlooking the largest natural harbor in Africa, "Serra Lyoa" meaning "Lion
Mountains or Range" which has since become "Sierra Leone" since the British seized
the coast after 200 years of Portuguese domination in the mid 17th century.

By most accounts historians agree that the modern day Mende tribal-ethnic community
and nation represents the fusion of the Manes from the Mali Empire with the Gola
and Kissi/Gizi, while the Loko represent the same Mane elements mixed with the
Temne and the Shebro represent the Bullom variant within the peoples of modern day
Sierra Leone.

Exactly 100 years after Pedro Da Contra came the notorious English slaver John
Hawkins on the good ship Jesus in 1562 and captured some 300 Africans, more than
likely Koya Temne's, from Tagrin on the Sierra Leone River. He was followed by the
likes of Francis Drake in 1579.

See, that's when and this is where British capitalist-imperialism was born in
Africa, from my perspective. I say this because my studies have revealed that the
British came after the Portuguese alongside the Danish, Dutch, and French for
domination of the coastal trade economy imposed on Africans by European invaders
and colonizers. The Brits were trying to monopolize the trade of certain areas by
operating chartered companies like the British Royal African Company (BRAC).

BRAC built military-trade fortresses on strategic islands such as Tasso, Shebro,

and Bunce Islands along the coast of Sierra Leone. The various European powers
began fighting themselves in Africa over domination of the Trans Atlantic Slave
Trade. For example, the BRAC fort at Tasso Island was sacked in 1664 by a Dutch
officer, Admiral de Ruyter and the capture of BRAC's strongest fort on Bunce Island
by an African military force led by rival Afro Portuguese traders in 1728.

Bunce Island located about 20 miles (32 km) above Freetown was the departure point
of our Gullah ancestors, taken directly from Sierra Leone by the British to
Charleston, South Carolina in the modern United States of America, first by BRAC
until 1750 when the island was taken over by the London firm of Grant, Sargent, and
Oswald (GSO). The firm established a shipyard and "employed" more African workers
and assembled a fleet of small vessels to ply the southern coastline in search of
captives.

It was the period between 1750 and 1808, when the British abolished the Trans
Atlantic Slave Trade and Freetown became a British Colony with its population
becoming the colonial subjects of the British, that history records the largest
arrival of enslaved Africans whom were captured and shipped directly from Bunce
Island to Charleston.

See, around 1750 when GSO first took over control of the Bunce trade, slave
plantation owners in the British American colonies were discovering that rice could
be grown along what is today officially recognized as the US Gullah/Geechee
Corridor sparking a great demand for enslaved Africans from what they considered
the "Rice Coast" region of Guinea. Oswald of GSO was the personal friend and
business partner Henry Laurens based in Charleston. It was with Laurens that Oswald
coordinated the Bunce-Charleston Middle Passage trade which subsequently led to the
ethnogenesis of the Gullah people in North America today!

Before there were Manes there were Gola's among many others already long
established in the Liberian Hinterland where the modern day Mende tribal-ethnic
community and nation is based.

Those Gola's are an ancient non Mande language speaking group of African people so
when its understood that the Mande speaking Manes who mass migrated from Mali with
Queen Macarico represented a vastly different culture and language one can get a
clearer picture of the relationship between Gola's, Gullah's, Manes, Mende, Bunce
Island, Freetown, Charleston, etc.

When I think of the fact that the Gola fused with the Manes and along with elements
of the Kissi/Gizi of Sierra Leone and Liberia became the modern Mende it all makes
sense now!

No wonder Gullah language has more Mende loanwords than any other African language.
No wonder Mende is the language that Gullah's cry in. No wonder so many African
Americans are coming back to be Mende via DNA test! No wonder my mother was taught
and passed on oral knowledge of not only a Gullah identity but a Mandinka ancestry
as well! No wonder because the Mende are Gola, Gizi, and Mandinka in the first
place!

Remember we were first distinguish among and singled out as a group in America
based on our fast spoken pidgin, cultural heritage, and rice growing skills. They
called us Gullah and they called us Geechee but more importantly than that is the
fact that we called ourselves both before departure from Bunce Island where
Europeans slave raided the southern coastline from for hundreds of years without
halt. So don't get it twisted Gullah's came to America from Africa!

Its time for y'all to learn who we are from our own mouths and according to our own
story!

GNONA Chief Foday Ajamu Mansaray

*Chief Ajamu is also President of UNIA-ACL Freetown Division #717 and
Founder/Chairman of the BSANI Movement

GULLAH NATION OF NORTH AMERICA

�

Mansarico
Mani warrior queen of West Afrika (mid 16th century A.D.)

The Mani (Mane) were a Mandinko (Mande-speaking) people arising from the Mali
Empire. Queen Mansarico, who had perhaps been exiled by the Mansa (king) of Mali,
left that country and led her followers south, then west, eventually establishing,
by the mid-1540's, a base of operations in the vicinity of Cape Mount in Liberia.
From there, she dispatched her armies into the borderland of present day Sierra
Leone, subjugating the local populace and establishing sub-kingdoms which were
forced to pay tribute to her. This pattern of waves of invasions eventually had the
result of developing the Mende as the largest ethnic group in Sierra Leone.
Mansarico and the other Mani women were equipped for leadership because they
apparently possessed not only such essential skills as knowledge of herbal medicine
and agriculture, and such serendipitous skills as knowledge of the fine arts, but
also expertise in statecraft. The basis for this knowledge and expertise appears to
have been education obtained through a heierarchical initiation society. Thus Mani
women were always powerful, often regents or rulers in their own right.

Suggested Reading:
(1) Boone, Sylvia Ardyn. "Radiance From the Waters". New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1986, pp. 4, 25, 246.