The
preservation of
African culture by Gullah people has a lot to do with the actual
physical differences between Africans and Americans. The reason that the Gullah islands are so culturally intact was that white slaveowners didn't have the
immune systems to stay on the islands with the
slaves due to their carrying and being
immune to
malaria and other
tropical diseases. Most labor
supervision was done by other slaves.
Another important factor in keeping African tradition in Gullah culture has much to do with the reason that Africans were captured from the Rice Coast of Africa. They were being brought to North America to cultivate rice for the slavemasters. In order to grow rice as efficiently as they had in Africa they maintained much of the same methodology. Some of the primary tools used in harvesting rice are baskets and the traditional style of basket weaving was carried on. One of the ways that connections were established between the people of Sierra Leone and the Gullah were the nearly exact basketweaving styles of the two groups.
Another important cultural connection to Africa is the Gullah language. It was assumed by whites to be a bastardized version of English that the slaves resorted to because "their mouths couldn't assume the proper shapes" to speak proper English. It turns out that many words in Gullah are actually shared with an African language that is a common tongue for people from different regions who needed a common language to communicate at market and whatnot. It also served as a valuable tool to keep conversations between slaves secret because the slave master assumed that if they were speaking Gullah that they were not intelligent enough to conspire against him.