The Emancipation Procrastination

The barrier islands off the coast of South Carolina were home to the Gullah people who were the descendants of liberated slaves, and had become their own society with customs and traditions that defined them as almost another race. How-ever, the one distinguishing trait was the Gullah language. No one knows where it originated, probably back in Africa with a mixture of the ‘Queens English’ and tribal dialects, but it was more than words. Outsiders who heard it for the first time listened for some musical instrument to accompany the speaker.

There is no way a writer could come close to replicating the language on paper because text cannot duplicate an accent, which is the basis for its beauty.

The Smalls’ family, Henry, Ruby and teenage daughter, Elizabeth, were Gullah people who inhabited one of these islands. Until a landowner decided to sell his timber, and brought in a barge to connect the island to the mainland for the conveyance of log trucks, the only mode of transportation to and from Beaufort and Savannah were the salt water creeks and rivers in paddle powered bateaux. Henry was a fisherman with his own boats. Ruby ‘headed’ shrimp, picked crabs and cooked time proven recipes in her ancient kitchen. Elizabeth went off to school by making a two hour boat trip Sunday afternoon and returning Friday evening. Her school was the Penn Center near Beaufort started for the sole purpose of educating the children of slaves and former slaves. The Northern white teachers were strict and dedicated and the Gullah language forbidden. During the week Elizabeth spoke the school-taught proper English, and back home, Gullah. She had been an excellent student and in the fall was going to college in Atlanta. Her father was particularly proud of her academic accomplishments, and she was excited about the future. Henry was, by local standards a prosperous fisherman; independent and successful. Ruby enjoyed the only life she had known in her confined world, and Elizabeth was happily anticipating a world she had only dreamed about. Life was good.

In the ‘Cold War’ era of the 1950s, shipbuilding was on the rise, and with the heart of the pine logs filled with resin and resistant to water rot they were in great demand for launching platforms and railroad crossties. Consequently, the large sea island pines fell victim to the sawmills in the inland counties. This, coupled with the ‘Cold War’ enemy, Russia, ordering thousands of finished crossties to build railroads in construction of the Egyptian Aswan Dam, made the virgin stand of pines almost extinct in one decade.

The Gullah people were fiercely independent, owned their own land, made their own rules, and lived their own lives. Conversely the inland ‘colored’ population, were sharecroppers dependant on the white landowner for everything, and did not have anything but a mule, wagon and strong back all important to the white man in the production and harvesting of cotton.

“Who’s dat?” Mose asked as the boat pulled up to the dock at the end of the day. It took a few minutes with the communication problem still lingering, but he finally understood it was Henry’s daughter. You could look, but not touch, and not even look too long.

She came down to meet the boats when they docked to get some of the catch to take back to the house. The sweetgrass basket was heavy so she asked the strong young stranger to carry it for her. Henry had already left to refuel the boat for the next day’s run so he was not aware they met.

Mose effortlessly took the heavy basket and said, “I’m Mose, wha’ you’ name?”

With a hint of Gullah, she said, “Elizabeth” which Mose thought sounded like Lilybell.

He repeated, “Lilybell, that’s a pretty name.” She tried to correct him, but after several tries gave up, thinking it wouldn’t make any difference since she probably wouldn’t see him again anyway.

Mose said, “I kin understan’ you. Why don’ts you talk like the mens on de boat?” Lilybell, as she thought she had better get used to being called, said that she had gone to school on the next island over and that most of the teachers were from the North, and discouraged the students from speaking Gullah. She said she could when she had to, because everyone on this island did. This story is about the sudden collision of the two cultures and the interesting and life changing events that followed.