Lowcountry Reflection
I could write here a reflection on my energetic connection to this land, about the comfort I feel being here; this is true. But what is louder in my head is this feeling of surrender to all that is bad. In the current backdrop of this country’s, this world’s, this planet’s, situation, I am struggling with finding the energy to keep my head above water. Their fetishization, libidinal coercion and fascism, clarifies itself every day. In reaction, I want to bury myself in friendship, in desire, in alcohol, in drugs. I’m looking to flee, both from This Place and from reality. I yearn for fugitivity.
Throughout this reflection, I won’t be citing my prior research–it’s mostly experiential. Currently, I’m experimenting with fact-finding in cultural memory. Most of these findings come through experience rather than books, a decent shift from what I’m used to doing as research. Experimenting with fact-finding in cultural memory is of utmost value to readers, writers, and live-er’s. We are punching up to a system that does not only want to devalue cultural memory, but also well-researched facts. What would be the sense of me arguing that my experience is true, if it is already null and void to the competitive project of fascism? If you want to learn more, Google is free.
Another important caveat was the scope of this trip; oftentimes, I like to see dancing, listen to music, having dining experiences, and most favorably research court records. Because of Covid, I could only drive around.
I situate my current reflection against the backdrop of these feelings, of my headspace, of my capacity. In the moments in which I could use this trip as research, I struggled to access any concept of what was Here. For some time, I’ve been exhilarated to learn about Gullah Geechee culture in-person. From what I can tell, the Gullah Geechee people may be the only folks left in the United States that have maintained their ties to African tradition in such explicit ways, maybe besides people in New Orleans. Yes, one could make the argument that gospel and Negro Spirituals, jazz, and even hip hop are all derivative of African-ness;[1] I would happily agree! However, in comparison to diasporic communities throughout the Caribbean and South America, there doesn’t seem to be a community in the US that preserves its ties to African culture so explicitly in language, music, dance, food, and religious tradition. Lowcountry was my presumed site for this.
Rice planting was the king crop in Lowcountry. Often cited as dangerous, the crop requires cultivation in sitting water filled with snakes and the propensity for consequential illness. To cultivate by farmhand, one has to use a sharp tool to swipe the crop at its root. Complex irrigation systems are required to keep the rice plentiful and harvestable. Out of the big three–sugar, cotton, and rice–rice was the crop about which I knew little. In Lowcountry though, rice seemed to dictate everything about life for both the slaveholders and the enslaved. Since rice was so difficult, slaveholders decided to populate their enslaved populations with people from Sierra Leone who were familiar with the harvesting and irrigation systems of the difficult crop. Unlike cotton and sugar, the enslaved dictated the order of operations for the crop. Their power was in their crop, and consequentially, their food.
For the enslaved, sites of resistance were oftentimes discovered in moments of collective fleeing, or as it is popularly known, stealing away. In New Orleans, for example, the enslaved practiced their ancestral traditions during their Sunday gatherings in Congo Square, a/k/a Louis Armstrong Park. Under the distraction of a market, the enslaved would use bartering, song, and dance, to discuss the ways in which they could resist and revolt. I would make the argument that even without the explicit discussion, this gathering was in it of itself fugitivity.
I want to make the connection between this type of collective gathering to the enslaved in Lowcountry and their power over crop. Of course, conversations happen in the fields and in the kitchen–but what does it mean for language when the thing over which the enslaved held power was discussed in their language? How could those conversations be used as sites as both banal and active resistance? What could they get away with when discussing rice in their native language about, presumably, their native crop?
I could be over-thinking it; maybe this connection between language and crop is overly complicated. However, the current-day Gullah Geechee people are the only African-diasporic folks in the United States that still speak in an African-derived language, almost patois-like. Based on what I know from other enslaved populations, I’m inclined to think there is a reason for that differentiation from others in the US. I’m placing the onus on rice.
Moving on from rice, which for some could be a particularly dry reflection (my parents sure thought so!), I think it’s important to discuss the outright erasure of the history of the area. Energetically, the water gave me a cold sweat. The water was warm, but for some reason I was chilled, almost feverish, when I walked in the water. At first, I thought this was due to the connection to ancestor, them making themselves known to me in a welcoming and comforting way. However, after meditating further, the water feels sick with their pain. The whole land felt noisy, cacophonous, dizzying.
Most loud was Hilton Head, where it felt like I was in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg where the gentrification destroyed any of what existed prior. There are new developments throughout the land with big signs naming it a certain “Plantation,” like Hilton Head Plantation, “voted the best housing community.” Now, I’m not sure the history of this “housing community,” but I can presume that because Hilton Head Island was plantation country, this community existed on planation land. I would even go as far to say that the ownership probably has legacy tied to slaveowners.
This island was once populated by emancipated Gullah, a place where they flocked upon emancipation to build their community. Their settlements existed on streets including Mitchelville Road–now where half-million housing developments now tour over the land–and Squire Pope Road, where trailer parks sprawl across the community. Out of the few hours driving around, I saw maybe 3 Black people, one of which was shouting “All Lives Matter!” on the street. It is sickening that a place once existed as a Black settlement where they could cultivate community and emancipation, exists now as a place for wealthy White folk. I know this is not new trauma for most colonized communities, so this shouldn’t have surprised and/or disheartened me. In my current headspace however, where I am yearning for foundation and placement, I was left dissatisfied and disgusted.
I’ve been feeling burned lately on the destruction that fascism has done to memory. Not only am I upset about the outright war between the two, I’m also finding it difficult to find foundation in memory. I desire greatly to return to Home and memory and re-memory is a difficult place to quench that desire. Turning to geographic placement has helped in the past; this time is different. I’m unsure if it’s my general feelings of pessimism, ancestors reacting to my pessimism, or ancestors as loud as they normally are. Maybe they’re reacting to the energetic upheaval we’re all currently experiencing. Regardless, things were off in Lowcountry.
[1] Forgive me if “African-ness” is an improper term–I’m still trying to access this idea conceptually and linguistically.
