A Form of Skilled Labor: Entrepreneurial Gullah Geechee Women and "Head Carrying"

EHFA 136

The use of "head carrying" by enslaved women along the Gullah Geechee corridor in South Carolina and Georgia was a West African cultural tradition that survived the Middle Passage. This skill allowed entrepreneurial Gullah Geechee women to carry heavy loads of goods on their heads without the need to use their hands, thus enabling the women to conduct quick monetary transactions for these goods in different locations throughout urban areas such as Charleston, South Carolina. This style of vending made it difficult for city officials to regulate these enslaved women, and by the Antebellum period, they had become integral to the economic culture of the Charleston marketplace. Through an investigation of images, city records, and traveler accounts, Cromwell's research demonstrates how head carrying acted as a form of skilled labor that permitted enslaved Gullah Geechee businesswomen to efficiently move goods from their rural Island counterparts into the city centers and to participate in the marketplace as independent economic actors.