Issue/Publication: California Magazine, November/ December 2008

Web Links

Just after daybreak, alligators, tusked boar, thick snakes, and feral cattle roam across its long North-South roads.  An hour later, local Gullah patriarch Julius Bailey, revs up his yellow school bus to pick up the few children still living on the island, Population 60, to the ferry landing.  From there the sleepy-eye kids and the adults who work on the mainland, stream the twenty minutes across the estuarine marsh waters that separate Sapelo Island to its corresponding dock in Meridien, Georgia..

Awaken by cocks crowing, I’ve been sitting in rocking chair on the long porch since before dawn, nursing a mug of hot, espresso strength coffee, watching this daily a activity whose rhythms’ are by now predictable to me, this being my fourth visit to this tropical paradise.  As gray light turns to blue sky, twittering and cheeping morning birds swoop down onto the front lawn, pecking away for worms, bugs, and seedlings.

It’s only late April and yet it’s already a warm Georgia day, a nice respite from the near-freezing temperatures of the day before at the Festival of Books in Charlottesville, West Virginia.  In late morning,  I bike down the same roads once occupied by the wild animals of the morning.  The rare driver always waves at me, whether coming at me or passing by.  I’ve learned to wave back as people acknowledge each other here.

A sharp left takes me past towards the restored thirteen bedroom, neo-classical, Old Reynolds Mansion (of the tobacco fortune), now a retreat & conference center run by the University of Georgia and a popular weekend wedding venue; past the old quarters and workshops of the Reynolds staff, now classrooms and research offices, and past its head turning ubiquitous fountain with four granite turkeys facing the four directions and one posing in full plumage astride the top. Then, I turn hard right by the double tennis courts and cruise alongside a marsh where I spot the white and red stripe historic lighthouse. Finally, after arcing over a short, bridge, I park my bike just short of a long, quiet beach facing the Atlantic, where the mild surf breaks along the shore like on a Hawai’ian beach. 

Only there’s nobody here but me. I walk amidst unbroken seashells and swim in its shallow waters.  I sing gospel songs aloud, arms outstretched.

I’m staying in the Wallows, a spacious, six-room guest house operated by Cornelia and Julius Cornelia Bailey, the matriarch and patriarch of Hog Hammock, an African American Geechee community whose origins trace back to 1789, when a consortium of Frenchmen purchased the island and brought in African slaves to work it.

Their plantation, inexplicably named Chocolate, survives to this day in the form of half-wall ruins of the smaller workhouses and living quarters.  The building material here, as throughout many of the earlier European settlements along Georgia’s coast, were made from shells harvested from the many rings of tabby mounds left by the original indigenous inhabitants and mixed in with sand, lime, and water.  Nearby, a rebuilt expansive barn from the 1830s perches on the edge of the estuarine channel.  On the three occasions I’ve visited this site with Cornelia Bailey, we’ve always had it to ourselves.

But my first visit here in 2000, and thus my first time to the site of a Southern plantation, had caused a surprising full-body revulsion and an depth of anger, one much deeper than from my previous readings of the atrocities of the institution of slavery, readings disturbing enough to lead me into the Civil Rights movement.  Being on the actual grounds somehow makes it more personal, three-dimensional, and well – so real.

A nearby site, named Hanging Bull, symbolizes these two narratives of this part of the South. Most historic and tourist literature ascribe the site’s name to a bull blown up into a tree by a long-ago hurricane.  Yet, Cornelia Bailey informs me, the established Geechee oral tradition holds that it was because a very strong African American male had been strung up and hung to death there.  Large, muscular, hardworking slave males were referred to as “bulls” by their Masters, she adds.

Just to the east, across a small channel, lies an uninhabited island named Black Beard’s island.  This infamous pirate and his ships were known to have laid low here in-between grabbing treasure.  He is reputed to have buried some of his gold coins, goblets, and jewels on the island.

For the history buff, one reason that Sapelo remains a special slice of time and history is that it’s hard to get to.  There’s no connecting highway bridge like there is to the neighboring island of San Simons to the South and the well-known Hilton Head Island resorts on the far northern end of these barrier islands.  The tightly scheduled ferry, a new Catamaran style boat, the Katie Underwood – named after Sapelo’s last certified midwife - is the only way on and off Sapelo.  Even then, the Ferry’s crew will check your name against a list of invited visitors and ask just exactly whom on the island you’re staying with before letting you stay on board.

And except for the 450 so privately owned acres comprising the Geechee community, Hog Hammock, in the center of the island, the rest of the island is divided into two protected areas: a state nature preserve covers most of the northern portion and a research center, the University of Georgia Marine Institute, covers most of the southern end

But it’s Sapelo’s relative anonymity that most protects it, sealing the island in a kind of living amber, a rare slice of Americana that may not survive much longer in its still authentic state. Sapelo is under constant assault from the tourism industry and the development minded.  Cornelia informs me that they’ve defeated recent proposals for a connector highway from the mainland, but expect bridge proponents to keep lobbying the legislature.

Naturalists love this place.  Even from my porch, a rocking chair bird watcher can spy on a wide variety of species that flit through daily with colorful local names like kanoe, pojo, and chakalaka.   The local fauna is a sensual mix of pine, magnolia, wisteria, cassina, and  pecan trees with winding Cherokee bean plant, pearly white everlasting flowers,  and white Cherokee roses. Besides the morning critters, armadillos, deer, and even coyotes live on the island.  Butterflies of all kind wander by all day and huge bumblebees slowly drift by, inches from your face, without a care in the world.

For hunters, there is a brief bow-and-arrow hunting season to thin the deer population. For fishing enthusiasts, sea life abounds, as I discovered one morning, when a group of us stretched a wide net along the surf (locally known as “sein’in') and dragged in scores of leaping shrimp, mullets, crabs, and even a shark.  That evening, we supped with the local community’s Saturday night fish grill.  The next day, the Baileys served up the traditional low-country boil (crab, shrimp, corn, smoked sausage, potatoes, yam) with sides of cast-iron cornbread and fresh picked collar greens modestly seasoned with fatback pork.  Yet, for another meal, we feasted on Julius’ shrimp and gravy over thick-grain grits, a side of hot biscuits, and his slow-cooked baby back ribs.

And if you know where to look at low tide (I’m sworn to secrecy), there are bountiful oyster beds, roots and rocks obscured by layers of delicious oysters ripe for the picking and that are best eaten raw.  One night I helped the Baileys shuck a bucketful, slurping down a slight salty piece every few minutes. In-between, I played with their two-step grandkids.  JJ couldn’t help running his fingers playfully through my straight hair, a novelty to him, and even tugging at it to make sure it was real.

Sapelo’s fauna and fauna and estuarine ecology are pretty well protected, by the State, the University, and the locals who love rusticity just fine, thank you.  But the endangered habitat and species that no state or federal agency is particularly looking out for, are actually the few remaining members of Hog Hammock's Geechee community. Where once the Geechee numbered in the hundreds, possibly up to two thousand at it height, they now number sixty. 

If America had a National Cultural Heritage Preservation designation, Hog Hammock would certainly rank among the Top 10.  But there isn’t such a protection designation and since my last visit two-and-one-half years ago, three spacious vacation homes have been built within sight of Hog Wallow.  Other new ones are nestled throughout the island.

My first visit was in 2000, one of a group of writers, mostly African American women, who had invited me to join them.  At my suggestion, we arrived on the first Sunday of May, when many off-island Sapelonians returned to worship at their historic First African Baptist Church, usually shuttered the rest of the year.

Dressed in our Sunday best, we quietly occupied a rear pew, joining the singing of old time gospel songs and shouting amen’s and hallelujahs to the fiery cadences of the preacher.  The men preached and male elders sat at the front, yet it was clear that the women kept things organized and moving right along.  Later, we joined the friendly after-service Sunday meal, a traditional feast of fried chicken, mac and cheese, collard greens, soft drinks, and pie or cake.

Later, we were told that the original church, in the woods near Raccoon Bluff, had been build by the off-spring of their first ancestor, Balili, an enslaved African Muslim who knew how to cultivate rice, and had been specially purchased from a Caribbean slave owner to start the rice growing industry on Sapelo.  Balili succeeded and because of his family’s importance to the local industry, his children were able to convince the master to allow the community to build a church for themselves.  Ostensibly Christian, yet the church was surreptitiously designed within the strictures of Islam.  The congregation faced East towards Mecca and Medina, for example.  Men and women sat on different sides of the church separated by the middle aisle.  Women who reached puberty were required to wear long-sleeves and a head covering while in Church. 
            Balili himself was observed to piously pray three times a day in public, behavior mistaken by his masters as that of a good Christian convert.  But, ostensibly praying twice more in private, once in the morning and once in the evening, he was actually fulfilling the requisite five times of daily prayer as a devout Muslim.

University of Georgia students have faithfully restored this historic First African Baptist Church back to its original state, including the use of wooden nails only.  Recently, the church escaped destruction when a hurricane felled a number of old oak tress all around it.  “Miraculous,” is how Cornelia describes it.

But Balili was more than an agricultural expert on rice, he was an educated man literate in old Arabic script.  Many years later, his personal journal surfaced, and is now archived in the University of Georgia, Athens, as the second earliest find of writing by an African American slave.  Many of Sapelo’s Geechee, like the Cornelia, trace their ancestry to him.

I was prompted to delve more into Geechee ways when during a break in one of our writing days of my first visit, I was discussing my piece about Chinese medicinal or chi soups, and in particular, a recipe involving the use of cow brain as the main ingredient.  My writing colleagues, urbanites all, made friendly but still uggh!  facial expressions. Cornelia Bailey, who was sitting with us simply said, “Yeah, we ate cow brain soup, too!  And for healing.”

And just like that we became friends, couldn’t stop talking to each other that day and others, and have remained friends since.  For like my mother and her Toisan people of China’s Pearl River Delta, Cornelia and her Geechee forbears not only made nutritious and healing soups from cow brains, smelly forest herbs, and other unusual ingredients, but they lived self-reliant, close to the land, in kinship in one place for generations, and spoke a dialect unique to their people, one often characterized as embarrassingly country.  And Geechee grew and ate rice as a staple, too!

According to Cornelia, the Geechee and the Gullah, another African American lineage, both came to American via Angola.  “Gullah” likely derives from Angola, and “Geechee” certainly from the Kissi tribe of Sierra Leone. In a visit to the Kissi a few years back, Cornelia noted similarities in basket weaving patterns, food including okra, folk beliefs, and linguistics. In both places, midwives counted the number of “knocks” in the afterbirth to determine the number of children a mother will have in her lifetime.  The Kissi expression “Big Eye’ means one’s eyes are bigger than their stomach and “Long Eye” means one who is greedy, expressions common to the Geechee as well.  As child, Cornelia remembers that oranges were always peeled, but the white membrane were left on to seal the juice until it  was to be eaten.  She saw Kissi children selling the same pre-peeled oranges on the streets of Sierra Leone.  The Kissi still bury their sick in the sand up to their necks for three days, in the belief that the earth will suck out the toxins causing the sickness.  Cornelia recalls this same practice from her childhood – and that people left healed.

The only time the Geechee community left the island was during the Civil War of 1960-1865, when they were force-marched as slaves deeper into the South, away from the advancing Union Army.  After the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War, many walked back to Sapelo Island, the only home they’ve every known.  They purchased land and established several thriving communities, Hog Hammock, Raccoon Bluff, Shell Hammock, Belle Marsh and Lumber Landing. After World War II, many left the island to find jobs on the mainland. Hog Hammock is the last surviving community.

Today, the remaining community members have laid the foundations of an eco-tourism industry that may revitalize the Geechee community.  The Baileys, for example, have their spacious Hog Wallow Inn, a smaller cottage for rent, and a small but thriving grocery store.  Francine Stewart, a retired schoolteacher, provides a very informative van tour.  The Bailey’s and their adult children also offer a van tour or horse drawn wagon ride, horseback riding, bicycling, fishing expeditions, and kayak tours in and around the island.

Even the ornate Reynolds mansion offers its guests a number of ecological experiences, hiking and biking trail maps, and manages a campsite on the island.

SICARS, the Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society, arranges tours and accommodations on the island and is especially good with larger groups and day visits for students of all ages. SICARS, located across from the Wallow, sponsors an annual Cultural Day Festival in October (file://localhost/%2522http/::).  Drop-in visitors to this informative resource are always welcome.  I spent a lovely morning chatting with the interim director, Nettie Evans, and was invited to check my web mail there anytime.

With a rebounding sense of the uniqueness of Sapelo, some folks are moving back, and in the case of Michelle Nicole Johnson, a former journalist in her thirties, she recently “married into the community.”  Michelle serves as the volunteer General Manager of the small, blue color country library and has done a magnificent job of remodeling the humble building into a rich after school & evening program of studying, live reading, and computer learning purely on a volunteer and donation basis.  Michelle is starting a fundraising campaign for paid staffing and has a “wish list” for updated equipment and books for the children.  Michelle may be reached at HogHammock@gmail.com or by writing her at Hog Hammock Public Library, 1023 Hillery Lane, P.O. Box 69, Sapelo Island, GA 31327.

William Poy Lee '74 is the author of the memoir, The Eighth Promise: An American Son's Tribute to His Toisanese Mother, which was excerpted in California (January/February 2007). His article "The Yuppies of New China" appeared in the May/June 2007 issue.

LOGISTICS

GETTING THERE: Fly to Atlanta Airport and take a connector to Brunswick Airport. A shuttle or taxi can drive you the half-an-hour to the Ferry Dock at Meridien, just outside the better-known town of Darien.

THE FERRY:  Make sure to allow yourself at least a couple of hours from scheduled landing time at Brunswick to get to the Ferry on time. If not possible, book a hotel for the night at Brunswick or Darien and catch the first Ferry in the morning. For an updated ferry schedule, visit:  file://localhost/%2522http/::.  The ride is fifteen minutes long.

DRIVING: The SICARS website. file://localhost/%2522http/::, provides detailed driving directions.  Basically, take the I-95 exit to Darien.  Park your car alongside the dock – no meters.  Many combine a trip to Savannah, Georgia with a few days of Sapelo living.

ACCOMODATIONS: The Bailey’s Hog Wallow is a down home but comfortable inn with six rooms.  Cornelia personally purchased local antiques over the years to furnish each room in its own unique way.  The long porch with many rockers is a perfect place to sit, read, chat, star gaze, and bird watch.  The spacious combined kitchen and living room is the central social space with individual rooms privately arranged along a wing.  Cable TV provided.  Coin telephone in the living room – credit and prepaid cards.  To book, call Cornelia at home: 912-485-2206.  Around 8 PM-9PM is the best time to call her.  She’s old school, you have to catch her - messages don’t always get returned.  Check or cash only.  If booked, they’ll refer you to other islanders. SICARS is also another source of private home accommodations.

The Reynolds Mansion is a historical estate property and converted into a very tasteful retreat conference center “brimming with turn-of-the century ambiance, architecture and art.” All bookings require a two-night reservation with a minimum of 16 adults. The Reynolds Mansion can accommodate up to 29 guests in the 13 bedrooms and 11 baths.  Amenities include a long, cozy bar, billiards room, and a nice restaurant. For reservations, visit  www.ReynoldsOnSapelo.com or call Vickie Slack at 770-975-4291.

Camping:  Cabretta Island Beach’s campsite with showers can accommodate up to 25 campers.  Visit  www.ReynoldsOnSapelo.com to book.

Food:  Public restaurants come and go on the island and the Baileys run only a limited store. If staying with the Baileys, you may make prior arrangements to be served one homemade meal a day, usually supper.  Shop at one of many supermarkets in Brunswick (including a health food store) en route to the ferry.  The Baileys will also help you shop for “I forgot” and some food items during your stay.

<!--EndFragment-->