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‘Comyas’ forever changed the heirs of Mitchelville - The Civil War: 150 Years Later - TheState.com (http://www.thestate.com/2011/02/20/1703991/comyas-forever-changed-the-heirs.html#RSS=local - broken link)
Sunday, Feb. 20, 2011
‘Comyas’ forever changed the heirs of Mitchelville
By EMORY S. CAMPBELL
HILTON HEAD — When a group of timber businessmen from Georgia purchased two-thirds of Hilton Head Island in 1950, the island was populated by about 1,500 black people.
These people are widely known as Gullahs, because of their West African tribal ancestry, and likeness to the Gola, an African tribe. The families occupied roughly a third of the island’s acreage, most purchased immediately after the American Civil War.
The Gullah people were descendants of freed slaves, some of whom came from the Town of Mitchelville, a small settlement on Hilton Head Island established by the Union in 1862.
The timber businessmen overlooked this historic community of individuals, scattered throughout the Island with their own unique characteristics, including their ways of life, speech, food, artwork and crafts, and social values.
After clearing the lush forest of the sea pines timber, for which they had come to the island, the newly formed company changed its purpose to resort development. Basically, it cordoned off properties throughout the island into gated communities, closing out access to beaches and other historic sites.
Prior to the developers’ arrival, the island’s 12 miles of beaches were untouched, except for occasional fishing and church picnics.
The Korean War soon would end in 1953 and, two years later, the American civil rights movement would begin. However, for nearly a century since the end of the Civil War, the Gullah people on Hilton Head Island had formed a microcosm of most Southern black communities. They were uniquely isolated on a bridgeless island. But, like other black Southerners, they also were excluded from mainstream society by racial segregation.
The newcomers — who the Gullahs would term “Comyas,” or “Come here’s” — found a determined people who successfully had developed a number of sustainable family-connected neighborhoods. Gullah residences were linked by essential well-built institutions — one-room schoolhouses, family-owned grocers, praise houses and churches. Marsh tackies — Gullah-named horses — plowed farms and fish catches were transported to the Savannah market by self-made bateau, or wooden boats.
The social history of the South dictated the rate at which the vision of the developers interfaced with that of the Gullahs.
Perhaps any faint hopes for the two groups to collaborate and plan an improved island community for all were dash ed early. A local state legislator proposed a zoning ordinance, on behalf of the developers, to regulate housing standards. Gullah leaders saw the proposal as a scheme to restrict their relatively new freedom. Leaders vehemently opposed the measure, and mistrust and suspicion of the Comyas persisted thereafter.
The developer’s vision soon morphed into an exclusive island, emphasizing gated communities. By the time it was incorporated as a town in 1983, the term “World Class Resort” continuously was used to describe the island.
Except for electricity, which became accessible to the entire island in 1950, all other utility services, even today, are accessible only in the areas planned by developers. Public service districts were established to service newly developed areas, consistently bypassing Gullah neighborhoods.
A new population of high-income Americans was attracted to the exclusive gated communities. The original population — its property affected by adjacent resorts and increased tax assessments — steadily was forced to relinquish its traditional lifestyle and family property.
Today, the island’s Gullah population has increased to more than 2,000. However, land ownership among Gullah families has dwindled to less than 1,000 acres.
‘Comyas’ forever changed the heirs of Mitchelville - The Civil War: 150 Years Later - TheState.com (http://www.thestate.com/2011/02/20/1703991/comyas-forever-changed-the-heirs.html#RSS=local - broken link)
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