I always feel my ancestors out in this
field with me I still can hear songs
like stay in the
field stay in the
field stay in the field until the war is
ended on a quiet chain of islands off
the South Carolina and Georgia coast is
an almost forgotten Community called the
gulla or gei
[Music]
people more than anywhere else in
America they've held on to Traditions
their ancestors brought from
[Music]
Africa they've stayed on the isolated
former Plantation land where those
ancestors were once enslaved and
developed culture and language known as
[Music]
gulla it seems pretty isolated back here
oh see now that's what we call insulated
so we feel like we're insulated and kind
of kept warmed and keep our culture
alive away from the mainland culture so
sure if you went just across a couple
Bridges and you ended up on the mainland
you'll hear people speaking like this
and then you come across onto these hone
Yeti people that cracking teeth like a
they show all like that and they say
huh Marquetta goodwine also known as
Queen quet still lives on the land where
her great great grandfather was enslaved
five generations
ago we have okra we plant peanuts
cantaloupe watermelon the same things
that my great great grandfather planted
here and he was the person that actually
obtained this land in 1862 so my family
has continuously owned it legally since
then but he was actually enslaved
here hundreds of plantations ran down to
South Carolina and Georgia coast in an
area known as the sea
Islands after the Civil War broke out
the islands were abandoned by the
plantation owners and thousands of
people were eventually able to buy the
land they were once enslaved on
but today the landscape is changing
folks come in with bulldozers and the
first thing we see is they want to dig
up what we've already had for all these
generations and then they want to build
something that's antithetical to our
culture golf courses Resorts and condos
have replaced gulla
communities Hilton Head Island was the
first to be
developed once home to about 300 gulla
families the 42 squ m island is now home
to 26 golf courses brings in 2 million
tourists a year and is considered one of
the top vacation destinations in the
United
States gulla burial grounds dating back
to the days of slavery are now the
backyards of million-dollar condos in
opulent gated communities that new
locals fondly call
plantations that development boom is
slowly spreading to other areas
nearby you can to hear right now
Construction in the distance something
else being built
yep one of the things that you'll notice
that you'll never see outside of gichi
homes usually are signs like that no
trespassing well that's part of the
interesting thing is that the land that
the gichi own it's all communally owned
absolutely yeah most people live on what
is in the law called airs property and
that's because our ancestors during the
US Civil War now bought property and so
gagi became the first group of people of
African descent in North America to own
own land in
Mass gulla land owners sought to own the
Land Community among their extended
family over Generations this community
owned land was passed down to hundreds
of heirs often without legal documents
like Wills or clear
titles an informal shared ownership
system developed which came to be known
as Air's
property until recently Air's property
Arrangements kept Family Properties from
being sold because families depended on
the land and each
other but today developers are using
legal loopholes to acquire A's property
sometimes for pennies on the dollar
whether the people living there want to
sell or
[Music]
not we visited Willie Hayward a local
attorney who helps skulla families
protect their property when the
ancestors acquired it this was not uh a
very desirable place to live because of
the lack of air conditioning uh
mosquitoes alligators
uh and lack of uh access lack of bridges
and so on and so forth and roads but now
that has changed so that progress lack
of a better word uh has brought in uh
folks who now uh want to divest gagi
people of that land uh for uh
development purposes what's the extent
of the threat right now to the actual
land I mean how much land are we talking
about having been lost in the past few
years areas that I see that in my
opinion that were 90%
above gichi folks that are now less than
10 uh at that one of the interesting
things that we picked up on is that you
know just one owner who owns one small
part of it can kind of force the entire
thing to be sold how does that even work
the law allows that allow just simply
all you have to do is
allege uh that you have an interest that
interest may be 100th of a
percent Air's properties are divided
into shares with each family member
holding a certain portion of
ownership the law allows anyone owning
part of an Air's property to force the
other owners to sell the entire property
by going to a judge and asking for their
dollar value of their
share technically other airs who want to
keep the land could buy out their share
but in reality few have the means to
purchase that share on the open market
it's just too
expensive and because there are so many
owners the land often can't be
subdivided the only practical solution
is to sell the land at a court auction
or just go along with development what's
unique about the gichi people we have
more ears outside of South Carolina in
many cases these ears have lost contact
with South Carolina never been to South
Carolina don't know anything about South
Carolina but uh legally they have an
interest in that
property in the end gulla people are
forced off the land they own to make way
for Resort communities they can't afford
to live in
Adolf Brown is a real estate broker on
Hilton Head
Island here's um a piece right now as
you see there's a for sale sign this is
all Air you can almost tell it by um the
mobile homes like you'll see you know a
bunch of mobile homes you know together
that's a good indication that you're on
a track of land that's
airpr he showed us a piece of A's
property he's planning to develop some
distant relatives who live out of state
recently decided they wanted to work
with adol to develop the land forcing
the sale of the entire property and
displacing relatives who live there some
of the people don't want to sell obvious
because they they've lived here their
whole lives you could see there's a lot
of mobile homes so they're 19 in total
that you know there's going to be an
issue with and so you know what do we do
what do they what do they
do their only option would be to buy
those relatives out but they don't have
the means to do so
waterfront property here can go for
$800,000 an
acre Adolf moved to Hilton Head from New
York 10 years ago when he discovered he
owned shares of an Air's property some
of the work you've done it's kind of got
you a bad rep on the island right now
yeah yeah yeah it has it has the island
a lot of the Islanders think I'm the I'm
the bad guy I'm the the the city slicker
bamboozler dude you know what I mean
people here feel like their their entire
culture is being sold along with this
property that the gull culture is is
basically fading away as more developers
buy up these these lands through through
A's property right I mean do you do you
understand that anger I understand the
anger and I understand the gull of
culture my grandmother was a midwife on
Hilton Head so almost every
African-American of uh that was born
from in the' 60s 50s 40s she brought
them into the world the problem comes in
when the world changes my family doesn't
barter with food they go to regular jobs
and have N9 to fives and have gone to
college and they work 4 500 companies
now so it's kind of I mean you can see
the division like I'm sure there are
people who think of this as like like a
boon just like they won the lottery
almost and there's others who think of
it as I'm losing my way of life I'm
losing my home right I'm and trying to
rectify those two situations I mean what
solution can you come up
with the only solution I've ever seen is
to develop it and I give people this
analogy of the American Indians that
were you know downtown Wall Street they
had the TPS there they had the little
communities could you imagine today
they're being 20 acres that's uh Indian
reserve in Wall Street yeah but that it
can't happen that was hundreds of years
ago what I'm saying is either you have
to be Progressive or it will you you
will get run over taxed out moved out
eventually it will
happen up the coast the once quiet
community of Mount Pleasant recently
became the ninth fastest growing city in
the
country the Phillips Community settled
by former slaves of the Philips
Plantation is one of two gulla
communities left
there so we're in Phillips Community
right now which is a a gulla Community
uh right outside Charleston and this
kind of used to be a really isolated
area but now basically what you have is
all these developments that have sprung
up around it so it's kind of like a
donut hole so it's only really a
question of Time how much longer the
people here here can hold out before
they're either priced out or their homes
are bought out from underneath
them Lawrence Palmer has spent his whole
life here when I was growing up was a
close-nit community someone got a house
to be built everybody joined in and help
that person build that
house don't have to pay a dime and time
to come around to you or the community
get together and do the same thing to
you and now it seems like a lot of
people are trying to get this property
right here oh yeah they are moving in
very swiftly and are people trying to
actively get your land right now are
they trying to buy your lands oh yeah
they try to buy my property several time
and I told him no it's not for sale when
I should die I hope that some of the
family member would step up and uh try
to keep it for the future generation
this community was one big family but
now the community is far divided
everybody
is more like an individual number one
looking out for number one heck was the
[Music]
rest as the push to cell keeps on
building the gulla are running out of
options if we look at the situation on
FY Allen right now a lot of the native
people are gone the fewu pockets
of of gagi on St Simon is drying up like
the water of California
today it's all but non-existent how can
we stop this we don't really have a
community on
I I guess we have maybe a few
neighborhoods but not a real community
and I think we need to develop them and
that's one way to stop people from
encroaching on your land we need to meet
with each other we don't we want to meet
right after the funeral when the
emotions are out of control there's a
serious erosion of trust too within the
black community without trust we can't
we definitely can't be unified I mean in
my family we lost a lot of land but but
the thing of it is is like I started
something new I started buying land and
I wanted because I know the importance
of land and I want to keep it in the
family I want to keep it going this is
something that we all need to take with
us and to explore ways in which we can
do that and one of the ways that we may
have to do this is the African spirit
and let see whether or not the African
Spirit can come and bring
some knowledge or wisdom into this
problem that we are having as a culture
and as a as a
people than
in addition to these Community meetings
the gulla turn to Traditions rooted in
those their ancestors brought here more
than 200 years
ago with the name of God most gracious
most merciful we give thanks and praises
to God Almighty Lord of all the world
master of the day of judgment the do we
worship and thy Aid we deceit show we
the great way the way of those in to go
astray I
mean in some respects it's a genderation
story one group pushed out by a
wealthier one but given the land and
people involved a piece of American
history is being
lost and when it's gone it's gone
[Music]