by Zada Johnson, Ph.D.

IGBO LANDING CONFERENCE CELEBRATES AFRICAN CONNECTIONS TO GULLAH/GEECHEE PEOPLE AND EXPLORES BIRTHPLACE OF CHICAGO DEFENDER FOUNDER ROBERT S. ABBOTT

Photo Credit: Destiné Visuals

During Memorial Day weekend, The Igbo Landing Foundation held its second annual Igbo Landing Commemoration conference to celebrate Igbo cultural connections to the Gullah Geechee people on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Local cultural bearers and scholars came together to explore the Igbo influences on the Gullah Geechee with panel discussions, cultural ceremonies, film screenings, and guided tours. Along with its explorations of African cultural contributions to the sea islands, the conference highlighted St. Simons Island native Chicago Defender founder Robert S. Abbott.

Photo Credit: Destiné Visuals

The conference commemorated Igbo Landing, a small strip of marshland near the island’s Dunbar Creek, where a cargo of 75 enslaved West Africans of Igbo ethnicity were brought to be sold to St. Simons Island slaveholders in 1803. According to local narratives, the Igbo captives resisted their enslavement by collectively marching into the waters of the creek, chanting, “The water brought us here; the water will take us away.” At least ten Igbo captives drowned, preferring death over the bondage that awaited them in the U.S. South.

Today, Gullah Geechee descendants of the Igbo and other West/Central African groups have kept this story of resistance alive in their oral traditions and cultural practices.

Dunbar Creek, the site where the Igbo resistance and drowning occurred, would eventually be known as “Igbo Landing” (also referred to locally as Ebos Landing or Ibo Landing), and the tragic events that occurred there would become a recurring theme in African-American folklore and literature.

Among these descendents of the Igbo and Gullah Geechee is Robert S. Abbott, founder of the Chicago Defender. Abbott was born on St. Simons Island in 1870 and his family history on the island dates back to the 1840s when his father Thomas Abbott worked as a butler on the Stevens plantation near Fort Frederica.

Photo Credit: Destiné Visuals

During the conference, participants visited Fort Frederica and the nearby African American burial grounds where Abbott’s father and aunts are buried. Led by conference co-organizer and great grand niece of Robert Abbott, Myiti Sengstacke-Rice, conference participants toured the Abbott family burial grounds and learned about Gullah Geechee burial traditions. This includes an exhibit about the Gullah Geechee people of St. Simons island featuring a bronze bust of Abbott and information about the nation-wide impact of the Chicago Defender.

During the closing session, conference organizers and participants reflected on the importance of preserving the story of Igbo Landing and further building cultural connections between Igbo and Gullah Geechee peoples. The Igbo Landing Foundation seeks to have Igbo Landing designated as a national historic site with educational programming for community and school groups.

For more information, visit https://igbolandingfoundation.org.