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The History of Rice Cultivation on the Southeastern Coast - Ep 165
2.8k Plays1 year ago
On this episode of A Life in Ruins, Carlton takes a well-earned break while Connor and David chat. They start out chatting about David’s new tattoo and some Lord of the Rings lore. They do talk some anthropology concerning the effects of tattoos on the body and the experience itself, and also how Boromir applies to anthropology.
The last two-thirds of the show, David discusses the history of rice cultivation, with a focus on the Southeastern Coast of the United States and the West Coast of Africa. This is a very heavy topic and they do their best to talk about the anthropology of rice, the African diaspora and the modern day implications and expressions of this history. Please be warned that while atrocities are not specifically delved into, it might be triggering to some people.
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Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/ruins/165
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
You're
Crumb Chaos: Nature Valley Bars
00:00:01
Speaker
listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. So, like, Nature Valley Bar is kind of like what I was saying. Like, has anyone ever opened a Nature Valley Bar and not gotten crumbs on the floor? If so, please let me know. And also, like, when you take a bite out of it, how do you not get crumbs on your shirt or on the floor? Like, if that, how, why would they make the packaging like that?
00:00:30
Speaker
It's an atrocity. It is a war crime that they can't get it to hold together. They're like, get some honey or something. Do something. It's ridiculous. It's just peanut butter flavored madness.
Episode 165 Introduction
00:00:45
Speaker
Anyway, how are you doing? Doing good. Should mention this is episode 165 of Life in Ruins podcast, where we investigate the careers and research of those living a life in ruins.
00:00:59
Speaker
It's me, David. Carlton is currently... You know, I'm not sure. Carlton's indisposed. Yeah, currently indisposed. So it's just me and David talking today. I mean, I am doing well in this lovely scorching heat and layering me. How are you doing?
00:01:17
Speaker
I'm
David's Move: Escaping Humidity
00:01:17
Speaker
good. I moved to Wyoming for the summer because I wanted to avoid the scorching humidity of Tennessee, and I am loving it. I'm getting the vitamin D. I wake up kind of cold and shivering, which is my favorite feeling. It's like a beautiful thing. My favorite feeling, but yeah, it's nice. Beautiful thing. Yeah, it's nice to have you out front. It's been great. Obviously, you guys have heard about some archeology stuff we've done this summer. There's some more on the docket that we'll talk about later.
00:01:46
Speaker
It's not too bad. Not too bad. Not too bad. Not too bad. You
The Meaning of Tattoos
00:01:50
Speaker
do have something big going on tomorrow though, which is kind of, or 7 13, which is important and anthropological and, and very cool. Do you mind kind of briefness on what's what's going to happen?
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Also, by the way, we're about to talk about a heavy topic after this. We're kind of just trying to ease into that before we just start off right off the bat with it. But yeah, tomorrow, I don't know why it's like this is like a, I don't know, tattoos are just like,
00:02:23
Speaker
spiritual is the word I would use but they're like important to me would be like the simplest term and like the process of getting a tattoo and the forethought of what one do I want and like I get tattoos and periods I'm getting a tattoo tomorrow whether I get tattoos and periods of my life where
00:02:42
Speaker
Like I want to remember it. Like when I, I got my first one and I was in grad school and I was like, fuck it. I'm going to go get a tattoo in Fort Collins. The other one I got reminds me of Wyoming. That one reminds me of being born in New York. Another one is that growing up in Nashville as well, the mammoth tattoo. Cause I love paleo, paleo stuff. But yeah, the hands I got after a significant life event, the other ones as well. But the, my point of this is like.
00:03:07
Speaker
It is like the pain of a tattoo and you've had some like it, it feels like a constant sunburn. Would
Pain and Adrenaline: Tattoo Experience
00:03:14
Speaker
that, was that describe it? Yeah, I would say that. And it puts your body kind of into this weird, weird state. I don't know how to describe it, but it's like, it feels like primal or something like that. Cause you're just like suffering, but there's like adrenaline kind of coming through it at the same point.
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah, and kind of like I wrote in that post, it's almost like, not that it forces me to dissociate when it's painful, but the pain of it gives me the opportunity to just be out. I can be grounded and feel all the pain, or I can dissociate and think about something else while the tattoo is going on. And usually I'm ruminating on something that
00:04:01
Speaker
the reason why I'm getting the tattoo or not. But yeah, it's like you can actively choose to dissociate or you can actively stay in that primal state of like, ow. Yeah. And I think my, my general, what happens to me is I stay like present. I'm like forced to be there like that. Just the pain is just forcing you to be present in that moment. Feel your skin, feel your muscles, et cetera. Have maybe slightly awkward conversations with your tattoo artist.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's important. Yeah, it's just I always feel like it's Slightly awkward sometimes you can get into like a good groove with them not that like tattoo artists are weird or anything like that, but they're just like Permanently marking your body and you're paying them a lot of money to do it So it's kind of like this really really strange relationship that you guys have
00:04:51
Speaker
yeah no you're right and like it helps when you get a rapport with the same artist but i move around so much i've only had the same artist for three tattoos so same yeah one artist is only done i've had three
00:05:07
Speaker
Three artists, yeah. Yeah, I didn't know that, but yeah. Oh, two, no, three, three artists, yeah, but it's like... Gotcha. But I'm hoping, like, in the future, if I stay in a place to build that rapport, because it is important, and you can really work on your dialogue and communication with people and really get what you want out of a tattoo, I think, when you establish that rapport.
Conversing with Tattoo Artists
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, my last guy in Augusta, him and I connected on like he had just adopted a dog. And then the conversation went into like how he tried to commit suicide at one point. And like we talked about depression. Well, cause he asked why I was in my head of what was going on. And then we started to talk about anxiety and depression. And I remember like the girl that was next to us like kind of looked over and he was like, just wait till you do it.
00:05:55
Speaker
the way you said it. But yeah, it's just catharsis is the word. Like it's just the pain of the tattoo hurts. But when you're done, you're like, okay, I have to accept this permanent decision I made. The endorphins hit you. And you're like, I've now changed my body because you're not born with it.
00:06:16
Speaker
And like you can't grow new things except like a beard or longer hair and you can get an accident and your nose can get cut off in like a medieval battle. But like you consciously add a tattoo to your body, which is, I mean, it gets to this plastic surgery too. But yeah, it's like force. It's like chosen mutilation. I wouldn't call it maybe mutilation. Is it like too strong of a word? But it's modification. Yeah. Modification of that.
00:06:38
Speaker
I think that part is fun. I think the aftercare, like a couple weeks after, is some of the worst and most uncomfortable time. It's itchy. Yeah, especially if you have it in like a place that is like visible so you can't, you're not supposed to get it sunburned. You're not supposed to cover it with anything at the same point. Your body, doesn't it release like some sort of, like oozes for a while. It's basically trying to repair the damage that has been
Tattoo Aftercare Challenges
00:07:07
Speaker
done.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, it literally punctures your epidermis down into your dermis where it fills the ink. So your body is like, it's not pus. I don't know what it is, but yeah, like it sweats out. What is it? It's the material that like eventually forms a scar or a scab or the material. That's blue. It's plasma, right? Uh, maybe I don't know the word. I just know it. Like it's kind of gross and.
00:07:32
Speaker
When I had it on my forearm, like it would end up on the table at work. And I was like, Oh, leave like a snail trail. Well, Connor's looking that up. Yeah. So the tattoos anthropologically, like they've been around forever. I think the oldest one that I can remember is Tennessee.
00:07:48
Speaker
3,000 years ago Deeter Wolf found some ink on the bottom of some deer bones that were like made into needles and like that's just the one that we know of how many things in the past have we not just microscopically looked for ink on the tips of them wasn't there one in like wasn't there one in like Utah or something that's pushing it back a little bit but they're like it's not not confirmed possibly I just haven't kept up with it
00:08:13
Speaker
Yeah. There is plasma that is oozing out of your body and that's what creates this gab. So it's like this clear liquid and you'll also lose like ink too. I was sleeping in like white sheets afterwards and I just absolutely destroyed them. It was like, it was the worst decision ever. Yeah. I didn't think about that. It just gets on the table when I was working, but yeah, this one's going to be on my upper forearm. So I don't think I have to worry about it.
00:08:38
Speaker
But yeah, it's just like, it's therapy for me would be the word. Like I get it to like release in the same sense that I guess people cut themselves to like feel something or like release like pain or feel pain. I don't know exactly why people cut themselves. I just know like there's something that it does. Yeah. And a tattoo mimics that also Flint napping for me too. Like I constantly cut myself. So I'm, I'm present and grounded in my body because it hurts. I think
00:09:07
Speaker
like really long hikes do that for me too when you're like forced to like be with your own thoughts for long periods of time while working or causing pain to your legs like
00:09:20
Speaker
That feels like primal to me, I mean, which is obviously because we've been moving around for all millions of years. We've been humans and pre-humans. Yeah. No, that's a good point. Yeah. Like we just hiked the other day and if it pushes your body, so you're kind of like, you have to push through the pain.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, it was a real pain in the ass at like 10,000 feet. Especially after you've had Guillain-Barre. Yeah. Did we mention, I mean, I don't want to talk about myself, but we were going to talk about what it is. Although I've made a post about this by the time this episode comes out, but yeah, I'm going to get Boromir, like the death of Boromir, put it on my arm from the Lord of the Rings. Like
Boromir's Role in LOTR: Misunderstood Hero
00:10:03
Speaker
he's got, he's kneeling and he's got the three arrows in his chest. I think Boromir,
00:10:08
Speaker
Uh, well, like the three words, I think it was like brave, flawed and human is Boromir and like, we're all humans. So we're all flawed and like as brave as we want to be, or like, you know, good at what we do or whatever you want to say. Like we all have our flaws, but Boromir is like the one, there are other human characters in the fellowship of the ring, like in Bree and at the printing pony and stuff, but he's the only main human character in the story because Aragorn technically is like.
00:10:38
Speaker
above human with his ancestry and all that. But yeah, Boromir is like mortal and he gets misunderstood because in the movie, he's kind of made to look like a dick. But the way I describe it is Tolkien writes an expanded amount about Boromir in the books for sure. Absolutely. Because it's just, you know, it's a book you can expand, but you kind of have to read between the lines to understand the point of his character. Whereas in the Fellowship of the Ring movie,
00:11:07
Speaker
Peter Jackson just like to the point shows you that Boromir is flawed. He's tempted by the ring. And that's why Aragorn is reluctant to be king because he sees himself in Boromir. But at the same time, Boromir wants to use the ring for good purposes to defend Gondor against Mordor and that selflessness turns into selfishness as he's tempted by the ring.
00:11:30
Speaker
Yeah and he's such a he's very complex and like you said you get like one little glimpse into the complexity that is Boromir. You really get the you think of him as just wanting the ring being selfish but when you really contextualize it into the larger thing and like the pressure he's under from his from
00:11:52
Speaker
his father and like the pressure of the stewards and defending the free world yeah yeah and and and that the stewards are not real kings they are like just kind of caretakers of gondor because they're not kings so there's like all these really complex things that he's that it's like being forced upon him like he's a prince like all but in name essentially yeah yeah he has like yeah denethor's crazy
00:12:19
Speaker
yeah so there's the other bit too where it's like he and we'll get to the point of this episode here soon but look Boromir is like yeah he's he's a prince all but in name like he's his father's like technically like the
00:12:33
Speaker
the interim king of Gondor, the steward, and Boromir will ascend to that throne when the father passes it to him. So when he finds out that Strider is Aragorn, he like not only at the Council of Elaron gets shut down to like use the ring to
00:12:50
Speaker
You know, for good purposes to fight Mordor, but he also like has to now soak in in the same like five minutes of that meeting, be like, Oh, my legitimacy is the ruling Gondor is over to this like two ragged guy from the North.
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah. What would have happened? I mean, this is kind of a sidebar. Like what would have happened if they had both? Well, I guess Faramir does survive. Like what, what is their standing in Gondor following that? Because they, are they just like a, like a ruling class below, say, Aragorn and his progeny or? That's a good question. I guess they would still just be like noblemen, like a upper class, like administrative people. I don't know.
00:13:36
Speaker
But that's a big downgrade from like what he potentially would have been, which is like the, the steward of Gondor. Yeah. So with that, like abdication, essentially what that was, what that would be if he could give it to Aragorn in the book, it's like competing forms of masculinity. Like Boromir is the strong and like courageous warrior and like,
00:14:03
Speaker
we'd say like perfect son whereas Aragorn is like complex and he's involved in like a love story and is reluctant to use power or like wield power so it's that but at the end where Frodo like you know is scared of Boromir because he where's the other thing Boromir throughout the story like
00:14:24
Speaker
He was like attentive to Marian Pippen, teaching them how to fight, like in the movie at least. And then like after Gandalf dies, he's like, give them a moment for pity's sake. Like after they just went through Moria and everyone's like, no, we got to press on. So like he's caring and like he's so caring that the ring consumes him in that sense. And that gets lost in the movie, I think. Definitely.
00:14:45
Speaker
At the end, when Frodo gets scared that he's trying to take the ring, he immediately feels bad and then he sacrifices himself to save Merry and Pippin and Frodo, at least the ones he knew were around him. In his death, he repents for his sins, if that makes sense? And Aragorn then is like, okay, men aren't so flawed that I can't be their king. And he's less scared of his temptations than two. Would you agree with that?
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's that's beautifully put. And I really like the design that you have. It's kind of I don't know how to describe it in our terms because I guess minimalist. Yeah, but it's like it's like it's not abstract, but it's like, yeah, it's I guess minimalist is right that you're just you're capturing bits and pieces of it with like no really intense detail to it. But you understand what it is when you see it.
00:15:41
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And we had totemic tattoo Danny. Here were his last name. Uh, Carlton interviewed him on the podcast a couple, couple months ago. Anyway, yeah, it's just the tattoo to me symbolizes like we all have flaws, but like we're all human and like all of my tattoos have to do with anthropology and being human. So it just adds to the theme. And I love Lord of the rings means a lot to me. So that's just why I got it.
00:16:08
Speaker
Well, that's really cool, man. Thanks for sharing with me. Mine are only band tattoos, and that's just who I am as a person, so... On that note...
00:16:17
Speaker
On that note, we're going to end this segment, but David, do you want to give us a little teaser for the next? Yeah. We were trying to decide if it would be better to soften the blow of this topic by talking about the tattoo first or lighten the load afterwards, but we decided to do it first. So if that is kind of jarring to you either way, we at least thought about it.
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah, so we're going to talk about, I am working for, or how would I say this? I'm freelance writing for a company and the topic is about the African diaspora and specifically rice cultivation in the southern coast or the southeastern coast, like South Carolina and Georgia, and the topic like largely
00:16:59
Speaker
revolves around the African diaspora and the slave trade. So yeah, just a warning for people in the next segment. It will be heavy. There's stuff that might be triggering just as a warning. So with that warning, we will be right back.
Rice Cultivation and African Diaspora
00:17:16
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 165 of a life ruins podcast. David and I are here. We did start talk, start off talking about a lot of the rings and tattoos, but we are going to do something, talk about something anthropological today, a little bit of mix of anthropology and archeology. So David, do you want to set the stage and start driving?
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I can't name the specifics of who I'm writing this for, like the specific site, but the gist of it is that it has to do with rice cultivation and like a plantation in the South. And what I had to read about is the background on
00:17:59
Speaker
you know, the history of rice and rice cultivation. And then, of course, like the Atlantic slave trade and all of that. And it's just I said like an atrocity at the beginning of the episode talking about a Nature Valley bar, but like this is obviously like a literal atrocity. And I just want to preface this and like you as well. We're not black Americans, nor are we African-Americans. So it is
00:18:28
Speaker
Just I want to throw that out there. If you're not watching the video version, this is the first time you're hearing us. But I think it's like, you know, this is stuff that as white people we need to know about because it's something we need to correct and, you know, be aware of.
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah, and we're trying to best represent, based on what people have studied and what has been published in the world, best represent those experiences knowing that we are coming from a place of bias. So we just want to acknowledge that and upfront and just be straight about that.
00:19:04
Speaker
So if you have any issues or want to make up some points that we need to correct in the next episode, please email us and let us know. So I guess I'll just start with this.
00:19:18
Speaker
We normally would imagine cotton being like the most or tobacco, the most exported thing in the United States, or at least in the colonies, but actually it was like by far rice. And I didn't know that because rice isn't really a staple American food anymore. It's I would say corn.
00:19:38
Speaker
And I mean, in other cultures, rice is the main course of the meal, like the staple. But in, in Southern food, there's like wild rice and like rice and beans and things like that. But that largely has to do with what we're going to talk about. But I would just say it's, it's interesting that it was such an exported crop, but we don't, I mean, I'm not exported, but it was such a, the most like lucrative crop, I'd say, I think a staple of the South. Yeah. Staple crop down there.
00:20:07
Speaker
I have the notes right here. I could find the word for it, but it is like, yeah, rice was by far the most, like it was the biggest crop at the time before. I mean, I think cotton might've taken it over later, but I assume it was rice still. And like the interesting thing about this is that the enslaved people that worked the swamps and islands and like inland rivers
00:20:33
Speaker
that where the rice marshes are in coastal Georgia and South Carolina were from West Africa where there's a huge rice cultivation culture already.
Expertise of Enslaved Africans in Rice Cultivation
00:20:44
Speaker
So it ended up that the slave traders, or I guess human traffickers we should say at this point,
00:20:51
Speaker
were selecting for people who had that knowledge of rice cultivation because they noticed that some were way better at it than others. Unfortunately, that's how it says it in the text here and that there's more to that later. But yes, it's just that from these specific places in Africa, they knew those people would make
00:21:13
Speaker
for better rice cultivators on their plantations. And the slave traders knew that because they would make more money selling to people in the South for that reason. Does that make sense?
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, so there's a focus on selecting people from West Africa with certain skills, specifically on rice, to ultimately get back to the South to sell because they will make more money as part of that process. Yeah, no, exactly. And this more comes in later.
00:21:45
Speaker
But I just want to say this too on that note. Obviously today, like we wouldn't classify people based on their ability to, or their physical appearance and correlate that with how they are going to cultivate rice. But the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British had like, I can't remember the word here that they used in the text, but it was like,
00:22:06
Speaker
Colloquialism is the thing go with but they knew that like this type of person Would be better at like, you know the from this area. They're more slender from this area They're more that it's just it's just terrible and it's it's something like a European construct So I'm getting I'm getting ahead of myself But I guess I need to start with it was debated as to where rice is from normally we would associate it with Asia or the Middle East and They thought or India as well
00:22:36
Speaker
and there's like a rose sativa, I think it's a species name, and then a rose asiatica. There's Asian rice, there's Indian rice, and then that stuff was brought to Europe.
00:22:48
Speaker
But there was a debate as to why there were so much rice cultivation in Western Africa. And the common thought at the time was like, oh, the Portuguese brought it to them. And that's when they got good at it. The Portuguese taught them how to do it. Or the Muslims taught them when they had the kingdom of Mali. But really, archeologically, when you look at it and through historical texts, rice is kind of one of those things that was independently
00:23:15
Speaker
not independently invented, but independently domesticated in multiple places about the same time. And in Western Africa, there's a specific type of red rice is what it's called. And it grows there. And there's massive rice cultivation cultures all throughout Nigeria, Tanzania. There was a place called Senegambia, which is now Senegal and Gambia.
00:23:37
Speaker
There's the Wolof of the Osanagambia, the Mande speakers in Sierra Leone, the Akan, or the Coromanti, which are from the Golden Ivory Coasts, the Gibye from the Gold Coast, and Benin in the Yoruba, which is a
00:23:54
Speaker
I think a more well-known group of people come from southwestern Nigeria, and the Chamba or the Kamba are from the bite of Biafra. Apparently, it's now northwestern Nigeria and Cameroon. Anyway, all these culture groups in the past, like their ancestors, had domesticated rice, and it was a big culture there.
00:24:19
Speaker
like that debate as to whether the Portuguese did it or brought it there or not, kind of now archaeologically confirmed that it was independently cultivated by these people already. And it's just one of those things where Europeans were like, there's no way they possibly did this by themselves. And that was really
00:24:35
Speaker
It was a bummer to read that. Like that was the thought at the time. Yeah. And yeah, it was even like, well, the Portuguese probably brought Asian rice from Portugal down the West coast, or maybe like the Gama brought it back from India. And that's how they got it. Or even that it floated to Africa. That was like back then, even a thing. Yeah.
00:24:55
Speaker
Cultivating rice is very labor intensive. You have to be in like swampy water. You get prunes on your feet constantly. There's bleaches and all sorts of stuff in the water. But these people in Western Africa were very good at it because they had already known how to cultivate rice for centuries. And it also just so happens that West Africa
00:25:15
Speaker
is a lot closer to the Caribbean and North America than the North Atlantic slave trade happened to coincide with that, whereas the South Atlantic slave trade mostly went to Brazil. I also want to say that
00:25:31
Speaker
I would say only 20% of the enslaved people, it might be less than that, of the enslaved people during the slave trade went to the United States. Most of it went to Brazil. I would say I think it's upwards of 70% and then the Caribbean. I might be wrong, the numbers are usually different, but the point being Brazil is the number one place where enslaved people were imported to.
00:25:57
Speaker
not to say that gives America a pass that we were better at it. It's just like the reality of it is that the numbers were, there is kind of a perception that like the United States is the most egregious of that, but there seems to be, there's, it's more complicated than that. And that, that the Portuguese were taking people and kidnapping them and taking them to Brazil.
00:26:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's why Brazil is so mixed today, especially like mostly a black ancestry because it's a bummer. They're all just trafficked here against their will and they live here now and are still oppressed in the Caribbean and here. And of course, that's why the Caribbean is
00:26:34
Speaker
extremely black as well. And the Southern United States is because of this rice and cotton cultivation. I want to talk about the Gullah Geechee that we might save that for the next segment, because that's a big thing. If you guys are familiar with Gullah Gullah Island, it was a show and we were kids. The Gullah Geechee is a specific culture.
00:26:51
Speaker
So, in summary, you have independently domesticated rice in West Africa and a culture surrounding rice cultivation and then an abuse by Europeans of those people and dispersing them into places that they were not taken too willingly, essentially.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yes, that is correct. And yeah, the Caribbean was initially for the British and the Dutch and the Spanish too, but the British and the Dutch were the more intensive sugar cane croppers, sharecroppers. I don't know what the word would be, plantation owners, whites. A lot of people were brought to the Caribbean to do this labor intensive work that the indigenous used to do, but they died from disease and were seen as less
00:27:42
Speaker
strong as African slaves, and that is also a major bummer. I know that's a fast understatement, but the reason I bring this up is a lot of these enslaved people that were brought to South Carolina and Georgia came from the Caribbean, not just Africa directly, because once the Caribbean got completely overpopulated with enslaved people and there wasn't any more room to cultivate sugarcane,
00:28:11
Speaker
The British specifically brought them from Barbados. Barbados was like one of the most brutal, sugarcane producing places and brought them to Southern United States. And another interesting thing too is when the British landed and started their colony in Jamestown, that Virginia was like where they were at was kind of marshy and not great. And they deemed like all the land south of that really to like South Carolina and Georgia.
00:28:38
Speaker
to be like, or North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia was just, how would you describe the word? I know the word they use in the text is Pacific, but like shitty is the word I would like to- Inhospitable? Yeah, not so much inhospitable. It just wasn't like pleasant, nice land. It was marshy and like full of mosquitoes and gross. So they were like, I leave that to the Spanish. And then of course later on, they were like, we're going to take that from the Spanish.
00:29:05
Speaker
And because of that shitty, marshy environment, Rice thrived there. So that's why they were like in drove trafficking enslaved people from the Caribbean into the Southern United States and people were still being trafficked from Africa to the United States as well up until
00:29:24
Speaker
the 1800s. It kind of died down, I believe, in the 1800s as opposed to the 1600s and 1700s because there was already established a population that could, you know, like it was, they didn't need to get more from Africa. There was enough here, unfortunately. That also is a much more complex topic than I'm oversimplifying it. But
00:29:44
Speaker
What I want to get at in the next segment is how this rice cultivation culture led to a lot of Southern culture and what we would think of. I mean, just Galagala Island was something I was aware of the Galagichi before this, but
00:30:00
Speaker
anthropologically, it's fascinating how all this stuff played out. But yeah, just to hammer this in, rice was the biggest crop at the time, I think either before tobacco and cotton took over in terms of price, but rice was the most intensively cultivated thing because it was a staple food down there for
00:30:22
Speaker
not just white people, but also to feed all the enslaved. Yeah. So they had to bring the Portuguese initially started it. Well, there was the Muslim slave trade from Africa. The Portuguese then also started it. The Spanish then shipped them from Africa to Europe and then the Portuguese did. And then Spanish brought them to the Americas. And then the British immediately were like, Oh wow, this is a great, I'm not going to do the accent. This is too heavy.
00:30:49
Speaker
this is a thriving market that we can take over. Like that's the British do everything. So that's why like the North Atlantic slave trade and the Dutch slave trade became so the most known one. And yeah, so in the next segment, let's get into the other stuff. And if this is like boring yet heavy for you guys, I'm sorry, but this, the next part will be cool.
00:31:12
Speaker
Yeah, and I do want to mention that we might not be using the most current terms and the most accurate representation of terms for enslaved people, the slave trade, and all of that. And we do apologize for that. We are not well versed in the exact terminology that is used today.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah, knowing that we take this very seriously and that that people's lives were absolutely ruined and it was a horrible horrible thing for the slave trade in general. So yeah, I just want to I just want to hammer that home and that this is a very
00:31:48
Speaker
serious topic and we do apologize in advance if we are not using the terms in the correct sort of fashion. I'm glad you brought that up too because I know it's now more proper to say enslaved person instead of slave. So if I slip and say slave, I'm terribly sorry. It's just a force of habit from how we were taught in school, but I will do my best. Yeah. Yeah. And with that, we will be right back.
00:32:13
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 165 of the Life Regromance Podcast. David and I are talking about rice. You had mentioned and teased in the previous segment something about the Gologichi. Do you mind explaining what that is or who they are? I have zero idea what this is a reference to.
00:32:33
Speaker
Yeah,
Origins of Gullah Geechee Culture
00:32:33
Speaker
I will explain that. But I have a note here that the African diaspora began when the Portuguese first trafficked people from West Africa in the 1500s. So I want to start that. And the African diaspora, what is used to describe the people who live in essentially the descendants of slaves that live or the enslaved persons that live in Brazil, South America, North America, the Caribbean all over. And there's also, you know, other diasporas as Ukrainian diaspora. Now there's a Jewish diaspora that just means
00:33:03
Speaker
People displaced from their homeland, but the African diaspora is by far probably the largest. Yeah. So yeah, the, the Gullah Geechee, it's a Creole that was like made in a Creole language.
00:33:17
Speaker
First, I need to kind of put some more stuff into context, though, but the coastal areas of Africa and the inland rivers where they were taking these people and capturing them became known as the Rice Coast because it was so much rice cultivated, but they brought people because they were good at cultivating rice, which is just such an odd thing to me to like. It even shows an example of like an auction sale, like a flyer being like that there we have
00:33:45
Speaker
I don't want to say the word. It's not the bad word, but it's the Spanish word for black is these ones are good at rice. Like it was just like in the thing as if it was like an advertisement for cattle. That's wild. Yeah. It's still, it's just so jarring. And I have a note here. The Atlantic slave trade peaked from 1760 to 1780 with an estimated 65,500 Africans brought to the Americas annually.
00:34:15
Speaker
That's an extreme amount of humans. Yeah. And there's lots of laws that it's called the Lord proprietors are like the people that the King granted land to, to make, you know, cultivate and have slaves essentially.
00:34:35
Speaker
And a lot of them, as I was saying, were brought from the Caribbean to America or to the United States. But Charleston was the first really big port where enslaved people were taken from Africa and sold here in the Americas. And that's where they were buying these.
00:34:54
Speaker
people who were more inclined to cultivate rice better. I don't know how to describe that. It's just such an odd thing to say. But the rice coast in Africa is, I have another thing here too. 39% of the enslaved people came from Angola, 20% from Senegambia. The Windward Coast is another one, 17%. Gold Coast, 13. Sierra Leone, 6%. And Benin in Madagascar is 4.5%. So Angola,
00:35:24
Speaker
had the most that will play a role here in a minute with the Gullah Geechee because they think it might be because Angola Gullah is the thing. But they had 39% of the slaves brought to Charleston were from Angola. So yeah, this creates a
00:35:43
Speaker
As the rice industry grows in the southern United States, the rice production increased exponentially, so so did the number of enslaved people that needed to do it. At some point, it became almost a 100 to 1 ratio of
00:36:03
Speaker
Blacks to whites, and I guess it's just the, in areas and the way that the plantation owners or administrators, it just says planters in the, in the text. So I'll just say planter the way they, you think of cotton being like the most brutal form. Cause that's what we're most used to seeing in American movies and media.
00:36:24
Speaker
But with rice cultivation, it's so labor intensive and needs so many people that the people, the planters were a lot more laxed with the rules and the punishments of the slaves and they are, I'm sorry, the enslaved peoples, and they were given
00:36:42
Speaker
free time. They had tasks that they did like you're doing this today, you're doing this today or this week, get this done. And when that task was done, they had the rest of the day to do what they wanted. And this gave them incentive to not run away or rebel and things like that, which again is sad, but also like it was just an interesting thing to learn. Cause I always thought that it was just absolutely brutal, which it is, but still it is. Yeah. But I guess they were, they were trying to play
00:37:09
Speaker
some sort of mind games or, you know, abuse them in a way that they wouldn't run away or provide incentive for, for not rebelling and all that stuff. Yeah, it's truly rough. The word I was looking for before was country marks would make ethnic distinctions of the enslaved. So they would look for tribal markings, different branding.
00:37:35
Speaker
symbols or clothing types or stigmatas to understand, okay, these people are from Gambia, these people are from River, but it also says here, and I hate reading this, but it was like, slaveholders desired physical attributes, they correlated to certain ethnic groups, size, strength, muscularity, agility, health, intelligence, temperament, and loyalty. It's just fucked. And then in general, they deemed ethnic groups from the Gold Coast to be strong, handsome, proud, and hardy.
00:38:02
Speaker
So based on like where they were from, it was more expensive or like they would seek out or not it being the shipment, not necessarily the person. And it said that the Senegambians were deemed the most intelligent and fit for domestic service. Like it's just such a, yeah, it's rough to read, but I will get into the stuff now.
00:38:27
Speaker
So these people are taken from all these different regions of the rice coasts where they had distinct cultures and things like that, but they were reduced down to, you're agile, you're strong, you're smarter than brought here. And the initial, I would say first generation had their native languages that they brought with them, which the, I named those before, like the Wolof and the Mande and the Akan speakers and the Yoruba.
00:38:52
Speaker
were brought here, and they all spoke those languages. And after a generation or two, they were kind of lost because English or Spanish became the one, or Portuguese and Brazil, the one that they knew most. But when new shipments were brought in from those areas, they also could learn the languages again. Of course, this is why in black culture and African-American culture, I know people go by both, so I want to say that.
00:39:16
Speaker
A lot of it is oral history. My friend that I was speaking with somebody recently who is trying to find their ancestry because they are Brazilian and wanting to know where they came from and they found out that it is Yoruba or they're Yoruba speaking. So anyway, they're brought to this country. They're trying to keep their practices and customs, but the people who were cultivating rice had that time at the end of the day to
00:39:44
Speaker
be human and they could, you know, tell stories and like practice their cooking and practice, you know, cultural cultural things. But the creolization of the language is people from Gambia and people from Nigeria don't necessarily speak the same language at all, not even the same language group. But there are, because it's a close area, cognates just like Portuguese and English or Portuguese, English and Spanish and of course, Spanish and Portuguese. So they were able to
00:40:11
Speaker
understand each other and keep traditions alive, but also mold them together to make creolization. And in coastal South Carolina and Georgia, the rice like islands and stuff were isolated from the rest of the mainland. And
Isolation and Cultural Formation
00:40:27
Speaker
that's where this Gullah Geechee culture kind of arises. And this is where the plantations or the rice farms were overwhelmingly black versus the amount of white people that lived there.
00:40:41
Speaker
And so during the rainy season, it said that the planters would go back to the mainland because they feared malaria. But also, this isn't just a thing from the time, but just the text and the Black anthropologist writing this was saying that Africans were just more predisposed to not getting malaria in that time so they could keep
00:41:02
Speaker
They were less predisposed to getting they still got it and were forced to stay there with all the malaria. But the white people went inland and a few people stayed to just oversee and make sure everything was going OK. And Gullah Geechee is a like distinct culture that formed on these islands after, you know, through all this rice cultivation. And it's it's a combination of
00:41:29
Speaker
Here, I'll just read this. So in South Carolina and Georgia, the Gullah Geechee Creole culture emerged alongside isolated islands in the mid-1700s, and the Gullah Geechee region encompassed the entire rice belt, extending all the way down to Florida. The Gullah was the term—the Gullah and the Geechee are two different people, but they combined them together. It's hyphenated. Gullah was the term referred to people in South Carolina.
00:41:53
Speaker
And it may be a shortened form of Angola. So the Gullah Angola, but Angolans, like I said before, were the most percentage wise brought to this area. And they were the earliest ethnic group brought to the Carolina colony as well. They also think it could be derived from the Gullah tribe of Sierra Leone and Liberia. And then the Geechee was the term used for those in Georgia, Northern Florida.
00:42:15
Speaker
and it may send from the Kisi tribe from the Sierra Leone. And due to the number of it says enslaved names linked to that ethnic group, or it may have resulted from rice plantations along the Oga Geechee River. So anthropologists have tried to link and figure this out. They have their own Creole language that's almost English, but it's also very African. And it's a mix of all those African languages. So linguists have gone back and tried to find this and they find a lot of cognates with
00:42:45
Speaker
people in Nigeria, in Benin, Ghana, and Togo. And in Nigeria and Cameroon, there was Pigeon English that was also well-established, and much of that Pigeon also transferred to America and influenced the Gullah Geechee cultures. So it is
00:43:04
Speaker
A isolated group of now black Americans who, when the Carolina industry, rice industry collapsed eventually, they just had all this land that was used to be rice farms and they continued rice farming. Some went after the civil war to go north to, you know, New York and Chicago to look for jobs, about half left.
00:43:26
Speaker
And then during the Depression, a lot came back and also to the 1900s, to the 2000s. And if anybody listening is part of the Gullah Geechee culture, please email us. It sounds so weird for me to talk about this as not being part of it and reading it anthropologically because these people still exist.
00:43:42
Speaker
But basically what I want to say is I have this highlighted. The studies above from these anthropologists show that the Gullah Geechee culture was syncretized is the word on the Carolina and Georgia coasts and the low country for many ethnic sources in Africa, primarily the rice coast. So
Preservation of African Traditions in Gullah Geechee Culture
00:43:59
Speaker
it is a linguistic and cultural group that is an amalgamation of customs from many different places in Africa.
00:44:10
Speaker
and where a Creole language was formed and their keeping.
00:44:14
Speaker
African traditions alive even to today that stem back from the North Atlantic slave trade. And also it says that the Gullah Geechee population is more closely linked genetically to Africa than any other African-American population in North America. So these islands in Coastal Georgia were some of the last to get imported enslaved peoples from Africa. Whereas like in Mississippi and Georgia and Tennessee, they were already existing enslaved people there.
00:44:43
Speaker
So, am I making sense? Sorry. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's fascinating how these cultures, these language families kind of coalesce together to create this culture that we now see and then got dispersed later. It's really kind of fascinating how it happens like that. Yeah, no, for real. And I've heard people that are Gullah Geechee speak and it is a really
00:45:13
Speaker
interesting language because it, I, I, the only example I can, I can put is like in Jamaica, people see how one like, how's it going? But in like Gullah Geechee language, it is like,
00:45:26
Speaker
Guin is like how you say like, what's up? And things are like, how's it going? And it's pigeon, but it's also some words are just straight up African. And the weaving that they do is traditionally African, but it also has influences from many different African areas that's combined together and their food and their traditions and stuff. And again, I just feel so uncomfortable talking about this as a non
00:45:51
Speaker
black Americans, specifically not even Gullah Geechee, but it is anthropologically very interesting how one, cause I know we're wrapping up here. I didn't know that the rice industry was so booming at the time. Like I just didn't know that I would have just gotten. Yeah. And then that again, I also didn't know, I just assumed rice came from China or Korea or Japan, which they also say that it might've been independently invented there too.
00:46:20
Speaker
But Africa, I did not know, had such an expansive rice cultivation culture for hundreds of years. And it's just interesting that people were trafficked from that area specifically because of that rice cultivation culture and brought to these isolated islands to cultivate rice. And so much of that African
00:46:41
Speaker
ancestry and culture and language is still preserved in those islands because, again, they weren't really hospitable and not the greatest land, and they were used just for rice cultivation. But when that industry fell, there's just hundreds or thousands of people that
00:46:58
Speaker
just live there and were able to keep their culture alive and also create such an interesting Creole culture based on an interesting Creole culture that they could from the atrocities that happened to their ancestors and, you know, them currently.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that will summarize up all that we've talked about in this. So thank you. Yeah, thanks for bringing it up and talking about that. And like David mentioned, if you are Kologichi or you are someone who studies that, please get in contact with us. We'd love to talk to you. And yeah, we don't even have to do it on the show. We're genuinely interested of how this happens, just what that culture is like.
00:47:43
Speaker
and your thoughts and opinions on it. So yeah, please, please reach out to us. Yeah, I mean, that was a hard episode, but I think there's interesting aspects to it for sure. Yeah, it's just anthropologically, unfortunately interesting. And especially like I was like, not that my jaw was dropped when I was reading this, but like the fact that this African-American linguist and anthropologist went any like,
00:48:10
Speaker
found that all these cognates existed between these two languages is really interesting and also i can't find the exact quote i don't want to misquote it but there were
00:48:24
Speaker
people from the islands in Georgia, South Carolina, I believe Galagichi specifically, that went to Ghana and Nigeria in the nineties and were able to understand some words because it was part of their songs that they've kept for so long, which, yeah, super cool. Um, that's unfortunate, but cool. Yeah. Well, thank you all for listening to this podcast. Uh, please rate review.
00:48:51
Speaker
Leave us a message, you know, all the normal stuff. I think that's about it. Yeah. Thanks for listening. We should be back on schedule next week with Carlton and have something going or interviewing someone here soon. I think either way, if you guys want a specific topic, let us know in the Instagram and the podcast video version will now be on the archeology podcast network YouTube. So you can watch in this episode, Connor stare as I look at notes, trying to not be canceled.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yeah. And when you go to the YouTube Darkyology podcast network, there's podcast section, there's a playlist section, hit the podcast section, you'll see some of our episodes kind of appearing there. There's some older ones in there currently, but all the new ones should be coming out there. So please watch, listen, and yeah. And I think with that, we are out.
00:49:51
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer.
00:50:19
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, Dig Tech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.