Igbo Landing (alternatively written as
Ibo Landing,
Ebo Landing, or
Ebos Landing) is a historic site in the sand and marshes of Dunbar Creek in
St. Simons Island,
Glynn County, Georgia. It was the setting of the final scene of an 1803 resistance of
enslaved Igbo people brought from West Africa on slave ships. Its moral value as a story of resistance towards slavery has symbolic importance in
African American folklore and literary history.
History
In May 1803 a shipload of seized West Africans, upon surviving the
middle passage, were landed by US-paid captors in
Savannah by
slave ship, to be auctioned off at one of the local slave markets. The ship's enslaved passengers included a number of Igbo people from what is now
Nigeria. The Igbo were known by planters and slavers of the American South for being fiercely independent and more unwilling to tolerate
chattel slavery.
[3][4] The group of 75 Igbo slaves were bought by agents of John Couper and
Thomas Spalding for forced labour on their plantations in St. Simons Island for $100 each.
[5] The chained slaves were packed under the deck of a small vessel named the
The Schooner York[2][1] to be shipped to the island (other sources write the voyage took place aboard
The Morovia[6]). During this voyage the Igbo slaves rose up in rebellion taking control of the ship and drowning their captors in the process causing the grounding of the Morovia in Dunbar Creek at the site now locally known as Ebo Landing. The following sequence of events is unclear as there are several versions concerning the revolt's development, some of which are considered mythological. Apparently the Africans went ashore and subsequently, under the direction of a high Igbo chief who was among them walked in unison into the creek singing in Igbo language "The Water Spirit brought us, the Water Spirit will take us home", thereby accepting the protection of their God,
Chukwu and death over the alternative of slavery.
[7] Roswell King, a white overseer on the nearby
Pierce Butler plantation, wrote one of the only contemporary accounts of the incident which states that as soon as the Igbo landed on St. Simons Island they took to the swamp, committing suicide by walking into Dunbar Creek.
[4] A 19th century Savannah-written account of the event lists the surname Patterson for the captain of the ship and Roswell King as the person who recovered the bodies of the drowned.
[8] A letter describing the event written by William Mein, a slave dealer from Mein, Mackay and Co. of Savannah states that the Igbo walked into the marsh, where 10 to 12 drowned, while some were "salvaged" by bounty hunters who received $10 a head from Spalding and Couper.
[5] Survivors of the Igbo rebellion were taken to Cannon’s Point on St. Simons Island and
Sapelo Island where they passed on their recollections of the events.
[7][9]
Historical context
Igbo Landing was the final scene of events which, in the heyday of
slavery in the United States in 1803, amounted to a "major act of resistance" and as such these events have led to enduring symbolic importance in African American folklore and literary history.
[10] The mutiny by the Igbo tribes people has been referred to as the first freedom march in the history of America.
[5] Although the events had been put off as mere Afro-American folktale for more than two centuries, research since 1980 has verified the factual basis of the legend and its historical content.
[7]
Currently although the site bears no official historical marker, and a controversial sewage disposal plant
[11] was built beside the historical site in the 1940s, it is still routinely visited by historians and tourists.
[12] The event has recently been incorporated into the history curriculum in Coastal Georgia Schools.
[12]
Mythology and folklore
The story of the Igbo slaves who chose death over a life of slavery is a recurring story that has taken deep roots in African American and
Gullah folklore. As is typical of oral histories, the facts have evolved over time, in many cases taking on mythological aspects.
Myth of the water walking Africans
Floyd White, an elderly African American interviewed by the
Federal Writers Project[13] in the 1930s is recorded as saying:
Heard about the Ibo’s Landing? That’s the place where they bring the Ibos over in a slave ship and when they get here, they ain’t like it and so they all start singing and they march right down in the river to march back to Africa, but they ain’t able to get there. They gets drown.
[8]
A typical Gullah telling of the events, incorporating many of the recurrent themes that are common to most myths surrounding the Igbo Landing, is recorded by Linda S. Watts:
The West Africans upon assessing their situation resolved to risk their lives by walking home over the water rather than submit to the living death that awaited them in American slavery. As the tale has it, the tribes people disembark from the ship, and as a group, turned around and walked along the water, traveling in the opposite direction from the arrival port. As they took this march together, the West Africans joined in song. They are reported to have sung a hymn in which the lyrics assert that the water spirits will take them home. While versions of this story vary in nuance, all attest to the courage in rebellion displayed by the enslaved Igbo.
[10]
Myth of the flying Africans
Another popular legend associated with Igbo Landing known as the myth of the flying Africans was recorded from various oral sources in the 1930s by members of the
Federal Writers Project.
[13][14] In these cases, the Africans are reputed to have grown wings or turned themselves into vultures,
[15] before flying back home to freedom in Africa. Wallace Quarterman, an African-American born in 1844
[8] who was interviewed in 1930, when asked if he had heard about the Igbo landing states:
Ain't you heard about them? Well, at that time Mr. Blue he was the overseer and . . . Mr. Blue he go down one morning with a long whip for to whip them good. . . . Anyway, he whipped them good and they got together and stuck that hoe in the field and then . . . rose up in the sky and turned themselves into buzzards and flew right back to Africa. . . . Everybody knows about them.
[4]
As Professor Terri L. Snyder notes:
The flying African folktale probably has its historical roots in an 1803 collective suicide by newly imported slaves. A group of Igbo (variously, Ebo or Igbo) captives who had survived the middle passage were sold near Savannah, Georgia, and reloaded onto a small ship bound for St. Simon's Island. Off the coast of the island, the enslaved cargo, who had "suffered much by mismanagement," "rose" from their confinement in the small vessel, and revolted against the crew, forcing them into the water where they drowned. After the ship ran aground, the Igbos "took to the marsh" and drowned themselves—an act that most scholars have understood as a deliberate, collective suicide. The site of their fatal immersion was named Ebos Landing. The fate of those Igbo in 1803 gave rise to a distinctive regional folklore and a place name.
[8]
Reported haunting
The Igbo Landing site and surrounding marshes in Dunbar Creek are claimed to be haunted by the souls of the perished Igbo slaves.
[2][6][16]
Influence on arts and literature
The actual historical events pertaining to the Igbo slave escape in Dunbar Creek, and the associated myth and
pathos, have inspired and influenced the works of a number of African American artists.
Examples include
Nobel laureate
Toni Morrison who used the myth of the flying Africans as the basis for her novel
Song of Solomon[4] and
Alex Haley who retells the story in
Roots.
[11] The events also strongly influence the
Paule Marshall novel
Praisesong for the Widow, and are retold from the context of the surviving Gullah in the
Julie Dash feature-length film
Daughters of the Dust.
[10] Other contemporary artists that allude to, or have integrated the complete tale of the Flying Africans in their work include
Joseph Zobel,
Maryse Conde,
Jamaica Kincaid and
Toni Cade Bambara.
[14]
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