The Gullah Geechee are descendants of slaves from the "Rice Coast" region of West Africa.  The "Rice Coast" encompasses the countries of Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Liberia.  Slaves were brought across the Atlantic Ocean, to the coast of South America, then into a major slave-trade port in Charlestowne, South Carolina (known today as Charleston), and, to a lesser degree, to the slave trade port in Savannah, Georgia (Pollitzer, 2005).



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Following abolition, the West African slaves remained on the sea islands along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia (as well as Southern Coastal North Carolina and Northern Coastal Florida) (PBS: NOW with Bill Moyers, 2003).  Due to their relative isolation from the people and culture on the mainland, the West Africans developed the unique culture that is known today as Gullah Geechee (Opala, 2012). Geographically speaking, the term "Gullah" is used north of the Savannah River, while the term "Geechee" is used south of the Savannah River (Pollitzer, 2005).  In 2006 the United States Congress designated the coastal area from Wilmington, NC to Jacksonville, FL as a Cultural Heritage Corridor.  According to the National Park Service website, "the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor is one of forty congressionally designated National Heritage Areas. National Heritage Areas are places where natural, cultural, historic, and scenic resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally important landscape arising from patterns of human activity shaped by geography" (National Park Service, Department of the Interior, 2012).  Congress chose to recognize the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor in order to honor and preserve the influence Africans had on the culture of the United States today.  Recognition as a National Heritage Area allows the Gullah/Geechee culture and people to maintain ownership of their land, with the National Park Service acting as a partner to help identify and maintain the area's influence on American culture (National Park Service, Department of the Interior, 2012).