cherryblossom
06-19-2009, 03:59 PM
Ebos Landing
The story that gives Ebos Landing its name is one of the most colorful and enduring tales in Ebos Landing Georgia's rich literary history. Better known as the "Myth of the Flying Africans," this narrative has been told and embellished for 200 years in the form of local legends, children's stories, movies, novels, and television shows. Based on an actual historical event, this remarkable tale of an Ebo (or Igbo) slave rebellion on St. Simons Island has become a powerful metaphor of African American courage, longing, and conviction.
The historical roots of the flying Africans legend can be traced back to the spring of 1803, when a group of Igbo slaves arrived in Savannah after enduring the nightmare of the Middle Passage. The Igbo (from what is now the nation of Nigeria, in central West Africa) were renowned throughout the American South for being fiercely independent and unwilling to tolerate the humiliations of chattel slavery. The Igbo who became known as the flying Africans were purchased at the slave market in Savannah by agents working on behalf of John Couper and Thomas Spalding. Loaded aboard a small vessel, the Igbo were confined below deck for the trip down the coast to St. Simons. During the course of the journey, however, the Igbo rose up in rebellion against the white agents, who jumped overboard and were drowned.
What happened next is a striking example of the ways in which African American slaves and white slave masters interpreted "history" in starkly different terms. One of the only contemporary written accounts of the event was by Roswell King, a white overseer on the nearby plantation of Pierce Butler. King recounted that as soon as the Igbo landed on St. Simons Island, they "took to the swamp"—committing suicide by walking into Dunbar Creek. From King's perspective the salient feature of the story was the loss of a substantial financial investment for Couper and Spalding.
African American oral tradition, on the other hand, has preserved a very different account of the events that transpired that day. As with all oral histories, the facts of the story have evolved as storytellers elaborated the tale over the years, such that there are now dozens of variations on the original episode. In the late 1930s, more than 100 years after the Igbo uprising on St. Simons, members of the Federal Writers Project collected oral histories in the Sea Islands (many of which can now be found in Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes)......"
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2895
The story that gives Ebos Landing its name is one of the most colorful and enduring tales in Ebos Landing Georgia's rich literary history. Better known as the "Myth of the Flying Africans," this narrative has been told and embellished for 200 years in the form of local legends, children's stories, movies, novels, and television shows. Based on an actual historical event, this remarkable tale of an Ebo (or Igbo) slave rebellion on St. Simons Island has become a powerful metaphor of African American courage, longing, and conviction.
The historical roots of the flying Africans legend can be traced back to the spring of 1803, when a group of Igbo slaves arrived in Savannah after enduring the nightmare of the Middle Passage. The Igbo (from what is now the nation of Nigeria, in central West Africa) were renowned throughout the American South for being fiercely independent and unwilling to tolerate the humiliations of chattel slavery. The Igbo who became known as the flying Africans were purchased at the slave market in Savannah by agents working on behalf of John Couper and Thomas Spalding. Loaded aboard a small vessel, the Igbo were confined below deck for the trip down the coast to St. Simons. During the course of the journey, however, the Igbo rose up in rebellion against the white agents, who jumped overboard and were drowned.
What happened next is a striking example of the ways in which African American slaves and white slave masters interpreted "history" in starkly different terms. One of the only contemporary written accounts of the event was by Roswell King, a white overseer on the nearby plantation of Pierce Butler. King recounted that as soon as the Igbo landed on St. Simons Island, they "took to the swamp"—committing suicide by walking into Dunbar Creek. From King's perspective the salient feature of the story was the loss of a substantial financial investment for Couper and Spalding.
African American oral tradition, on the other hand, has preserved a very different account of the events that transpired that day. As with all oral histories, the facts of the story have evolved as storytellers elaborated the tale over the years, such that there are now dozens of variations on the original episode. In the late 1930s, more than 100 years after the Igbo uprising on St. Simons, members of the Federal Writers Project collected oral histories in the Sea Islands (many of which can now be found in Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes)......"
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2895