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.
