[size=15pt]THE IGBO LANDING[/size]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo_Landing

Igbo Landing (alternatively written as Ibo Landing, Ebo Landing, or Ebos Landing) is a historic site in the sand and marshes of Dunbar Creek in St. Simons Island, Glynn County, Georgia (USA). It was the setting of the final scene of an 1803 resistance of enslaved Igbo people brought from West Africa on slave ships. Its moral value as a story of resistance towards slavery has symbolic importance in African American folklore and literary history.

In May 1803 a shipload of seized West Africans, upon surviving the middle passage, were landed by US-paid captors in Savannah by slave ship, to be auctioned off at one of the local slave markets. The ship's enslaved passengers included a number of Igbo people from what is now Nigeria. The Igbo were known by planters and slavers of the American South for being fiercely independent and more unwilling to tolerate chattel slavery. The group of Igbo slaves were bought by agents of John Couper and Thomas Spalding for forced labour on their plantations in St. Simons Island.

The chained slaves were packed under the deck of a small vessel named the Morovia to be shipped to the island (other sources write the voyage took place aboard The Schooner York). During this voyage the Igbo slaves rose up in rebellion, taking control of the ship and drowning their captors in the process, causing the grounding of the Morovia in Dunbar Creek at the site now locally known as Ebo Landing [Igbo landing].

The following sequence of events is unclear as there are several versions concerning the revolt's development, some of which are considered mythological. Roswell King, a white overseer on the nearby Pierce Butler plantation, wrote one of the only contemporary accounts of the incident which states that as soon as the Igbos landed on St. Simons Island they took to the swamp, committing suicide by walking into Dunbar Creek. A 19th century Savannah-written account of the event lists the surname Patterson for the captain of the ship and Roswell King as the person who recovered the bodies of the drowned.


Historical context

Igbo Landing was the final scene of events which, in the heyday of slavery in the United States in 1803, amounted to a "major act of resistance" and as such these events have led to enduring symbolic importance in African American folklore and literary history.

Currently although the site bears no official historical marker, and a controversial sewage disposal plant was built beside the historical site in the 1940s, it is still routinely visited by historians and tourists. The event has recently been incorporated into the history curriculum in Coastal Georgia Schools.


Mythology and folklore

The story of the Igbo slaves who chose death over a life of slavery is a recurring story that has taken deep roots in African American and Gullah folklore. As is typical of oral histories, the facts have evolved over time, in many cases taking on mythological aspects.


Myth of the water walking Africans

Floyd White, an elderly African-American interviewed by the Federal Writers Project in the 1930s is recorded as saying:

''Heard about the Ibo’s Landing? That’s the place where they bring the Ibos over in a slave ship and when they get here, they ain’t like it and so they all start singing and they march right down in the river to march back to Africa, but they ain’t able to get there. They gets drown''.[6]


A typical Gullah telling of the events, incorporating many of the recurrent themes that are common to most myths surrounding the Igbo Landing, is recorded by Linda S. Watts:

''The West Africans upon assessing their situation resolved to risk their lives by walking home over the water rather than submit to the living death that awaited them in American slavery. As the tale has it, the tribes people disembark from the ship, and as a group, turned around and walked along the water, traveling in the opposite direction from the arrival port. As they took this march together, the West Africans joined in song. They are reported to have sung a hymn in which the lyrics assert that the water spirits will take them home. While versions of this story vary in nuance, all attest to the courage in rebellion displayed by the enslaved Igbo.''[7]


Myth of the flying Africans

Another popular legend associated with Igbo Landing known as the myth of the flying Africans was recorded from various oral sources in the 1930s by members of the Federal Writers Project. In these cases, the Africans are reputed to have grown wings or turned themselves into vultures, before flying back home to freedom in Africa. Wallace Quarterman, an African-American born in 1844 who was interviewed in 1930, when asked if he had heard about the Igbo landing states:

''Ain't you heard about them? Well, at that time Mr. Blue he was the overseer and . . . Mr. Blue he go down one morning with a long whip for to whip them good. . . . Anyway, he whipped them good and they got together and stuck that hoe in the field and then . . . rose up in the sky and turned themselves into buzzards and flew right back to Africa. . . . Everybody knows about them.''[4]


As Professor Terri L. Snyder notes:

''The flying African folktale probably has its historical roots in an 1803 collective suicide by newly imported slaves. A group of Igbo (variously, Ebo or Igbo) captives who had survived the middle passage were sold near Savannah, Georgia, and reloaded onto a small ship bound for St. Simon's Island. Off the coast of the island, the enslaved cargo, who had "suffered much by mismanagement," "rose" from their confinement in the small vessel, and revolted against the crew, forcing them into the water where they drowned. After the ship ran aground, the Igbos "took to the marsh" and drowned themselves—an act that most scholars have understood as a deliberate, collective suicide. The site of their fatal immersion was named Ebos Landing. The fate of those Igbo in 1803 gave rise to a distinctive regional folklore and a place name.''[6]


Reported haunting

The Igbo Landing site and surrounding marshes in Dunbar Creek are claimed to be haunted by the souls of the perished Igbo slaves.


Influence on arts and literature

The actual historical events pertaining to the Igbo slave escape in Dunbar Creek, and the associated myth and pathos, have inspired and influenced the works of a number of African American artists.

Examples include Nobel laureate Toni Morrison who used the myth of the flying Africans as the basis for her novel Song of Solomon and Alex Haley who retells the story in Roots. The events also strongly influence the Paule Marshall novel Praisesong for the Widow, and are retold from the context of the surviving Gullah in the Julie Dash feature-length film Daughters of the Dust. Other contemporary artists that allude to, or have integrated the complete tale of the Flying Africans in their work include Joseph Zobel, Maryse Conde, Jamaica Kincaid and Toni Cade Bambara.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo_Landing





Igbo Resistance To Slavery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo_people_in_Jamaica


Rebellions

Igbo slaves, along with 'Angolas' and 'Congoes' were most prone to be runaways. In slave runaway advertisements held in Jamaica workhouses in 1803, out of 1046 Africans, 284 were described as 'Eboes and Mocoes', 185 'Congoes', 259 'Angolas', 101 'Mandingoes', 70 Coromantees, 60 'Chamba' of Sierra Leone, 57 'Nagoes and Pawpaws', and 30 'scattering'. 187 were 'unclassified' and 488 were 'American born negroes and mulattoes'.


Some popular slave rebellions involving Igbo people include:

The 1815 Igbo conspiracy in Jamaica's Saint Elizabeth Parish which involved around 250 Igbo slaves, described as one of the revolts that contributed to a climate for abolition. A letter by the Governor of Manchester to Bathurst on April 13, 1816 quoted the leaders of the rebellion on trial as saying "that 'he had all the Eboes in his hand', meaning to insinuate that all the Negroes from that Country were under his control". The plot was thwarted and several slaves were executed.

The 1816 Black River rebellion plot which according to Lewis (1834:227—28) only people of 'Eboe' origin were involved. This plot was uncovered on March 22, 1816 by a novelist and absentee planter named Matthew Gregory 'Monk' Lewis, when he had recorded what Hayward (1985) calls a proto-Calypso revolutionary hymn, sung by a group of Igbo slaves led by the 'King of the Eboes'. They sung:

Oh me Good friend, Mr. Wilberforce, make we free!
God Almighty thank ye! God Almighty thank ye!
God Almighty, make we free!
Buckra in this country no make we free:
What Negro for to do? What Negro for to do?
Take force by force! Take force by force!



'Mr. Wilberforce' was in reference to William Wilberforce, a British politician who was a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. 'Buckra' was a term introduced by Igbo and Efik slaves in Jamaica to refer to white slave masters.

Culture

Among Igbo cultural items in Jamaica were the Eboe, or Ibo drums popular throughout all of Jamaican music. Food was also influenced, for example the Igbo word 'mba' meaning 'yam root' was used to describe a type of yam in Jamaica called 'himba'. Igbo and Akan slaves affected drinking culture among the black population in Jamaica, using alcohol in ritual and libation. In Igboland as well as on the Gold Coast, palm wine was used on these occasions and had to be substituted by rum in Jamaica because of the absence of palm wine. Jonkonnu, a parade that is held in many West Indian nations, has been attributed to the Njoku Ji 'yam-spirit cult', Okonko and Ekpe of the Igbo, and several masquerades of the Kalabari and Igbo have similar appearance to those of Jonkonnu maskers.

Much of Jamaican mannerisms and gestures themselves have a wider African origin and an Igbo origin. Some examples of such behaviours are evident in the influences of the Igbo language in patois with actions such as 'sucking-teeth' coming from the Igbo 'ima osu' or 'imu oso' and 'cutting-eye' from Igbo 'iro anya'. There was also a suggestion of the Igbo introducing communication through eye movements...

Wikipedia is not reliable source, it can be edited.

We are still fighting that today. Nobody can enslave us

Wish the gambari slaves can join us in the fight. But those cowards prefer to feed from the crumbs @ their fulani masters dirty feet.

We are unstampeeded we ndi Igbo. I love being Igbo in my next world if its possible.

my people and our stubborn spirit,nothing beats us to dat.

I feel heroism and greatness being an Igbo.

If you are not an Igbo,you won't feel same,neither will you understand it.Thats why,we are the talk of town,in Nigeria.

We will liberate Africa,and the black race.

God bless Igboland.

Interesting

The Brits faced same opposition in the East during their colonization of Nigeria. The Igbo man naturally hates being used like a fool. Proud to be Nwafor Igbo

pashaun:
Wikipedia is not reliable source, it can be edited.

If there is any part of the information you dispute, kindly let me know so we can explore it beyond wikipedia.

too long

missdebs:
too long

Not as long as your Brazilian hair is it?

I smell Front page

The "UNITED STATE OF IGBOLAND"

Nice write up...

i remain faithful as an igboman,
not because of personality and greed.
but because i am ready to die as an igboman,
i wil come back as an igboman,
i wil foreva remain as an igboman.
be brave like my fellow igbos heroes
fight and defeat others who is a threat to an igboman
victory is ours alwys

i remain faithful to the entire igboland

Proudly Igbo I know am supposed to be here.

igbo people are warriors right from time op nice one pls educate the rest of nigerians if oyibo cannot handle igbos is it common tribes in nigeria can handle us.They must bow for igbo tribe you cant test them or else you want mess your life up...

tawa89:
I smell Front page

If reincarnation be possible, from the East, the land of the great and egalitarian igbos , I'll sure return.

pashaun:
Wikipedia is not reliable source, it can be edited.

Says the nairalander who have never been to Wikipedia before.

Igbo Amaka, Igbo ga-adi.Chineke biko goziereme ala Igbo.

Proudly Igbo

That was an era when the Igboman understood what is meant by being Igbo. This generation of Igbos are very selfish, very individualistic and highly not ready to fight for the Nigerian Presidency. Igbos of this generation should learn to be more like their heroes past.

Igbo kwenu!

Igbo Africans in Virginia, explored their impact on Virginia, centering on the death of Ambrose Madison, grandfather of President James Madison, who was poisoned in 1732 by three of his slaves who were Igbo.


http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/513

BlackPikiN:
Igbo Africans in Virginia, explored their impact on Virginia, centering on the death of Ambrose Madison, grandfather of President James Madison, who was poisoned in 1732 by three of his slaves who were Igbo.


http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/513

Interesting!

Zonacom:
The Brits faced same opposition in the East during their colonization of Nigeria. The Igbo man naturally hates being used like a fool. Proud to be Nwafor Igbo

Be specific about the part of the East that the Brits face opposition. The defunct East was not made up of only Igbo.

Kudos to igbo people in those days...u will hardly find such bravery among the igbos of nowadays oooooo... Igbos of this days don taste life, don know how sweet life is...

Once an igbo man will always be an igbo man even till yr 3030..

So proud to be an igbo man

God bless ala indi igbo
God bless nigeria awhole