The Sankofa Bird is a mythical African bird which is pictured facing forward with its head turned backwards, having an egg in its mouth.  The word Sankofa comes from a Ghana language and means “to retrieve” or “go back and fetch it”.  Interpreted, it represents the idea of learning from the past and moving forward into the future.  The egg, specifically, signifies the youth who are our future.  It is the responsibility of adults in the village to ensure youth are taught accurate truth that prepares them for a productive future.  To do this, we must go back and fetch accurate truth that is too often missing or distorted in our schools.  

In 2023 I accompanied eight Savannah travelers to Sierra Leone as we endeavored to “go back and fetch” accurate truth.  There is a direct cultural and linguistic connection between the local Gullah Geechee community in Savannah and the West Coast country of Africa called Sierra Leone.  Many Africans who were captured and transported to the colonies to South Georgia came by way of Bunce Island near Freetown, Sierra Leone. The purpose of our journey was to experience the connection of language and culture. In this season of Thanksgiving and of giving, we went to receive Africa’s gift.  We were not disappointed. 

Amadu Massally coordinated our trip on the Sierra Leone end.  Massally is owner of Fambul Tik, a community organization that focuses on reconnecting Sierra Leone with descendants of Africa.   The words Fambul Tik, means Family Tree in English.  And, Massally has made it his business to extend the Sierra Leone family tree throughout the African Diaspora.  He is especially keen on the connection between Sierra Leone and the Low country.   Using his expert knowledge, Massally organized our journey into three primary sections:  captivity and slavery, resistance, and abolition.  Three of his very knowledgeable employees, Alusine Kabbah, Sia Christiana Gbessengumbu, and Mohamed Jalloh were our consistent companions throughout our journey.  Our visit to Bunce Island constituted the captivity and slavery aspect and was our first stop after resting from our 18 hour flight from Savannah to Freetown.

Captivity & Enslavement

Bunce Island once housed the largest British slave castle on the Rice Coast of West Africa.  English slave traders settled on the island and established the slave castle in 1670.   A sign on the Island informs the reader that large numbers of captured Africans were shipped from Bunce Island to South Carolina and Georgia and that rice planters paid high prices for Africans from this region due to their skills and knowledge of rice planting.  Before continuing into the depths of Bunce Island, we paused to honor the ancestors with a Libation ceremony.  If you’ve attended a Gullah Geechee cultural gathering in the Low country, you may have participated in a Libation ceremony where liquid (usually water) is poured into a plant as the leader recognizes the ancestors from Africa who were captured:  those who lived and those who died by illness, by choice, or were murdered. Then, the officiant leads the audience in calling out names of Africans in America who’ve transitioned from life to death – both those we’ve only read about and those ancestral family members.  The eldest in our group, Bro. Hanif Haynes led us in the Libation Ceremony by the waters at the entryway to Bunce Island.  A unique factor about the Bunce Island experience is that instead of having a door of “no return”, there was a “jetty of no return”!  The jetty is the path on which Africans were marched down to get to small boats that would take them to the larger ships.  The captured Africans knew once they reached the end of the jetty, they would never see their homeland again.

As the slave trade bourgeoned, more and more ships could be seen near the shores of Bunce Island to transport the captured Africans.  John Newton was one Englishman who made a lot of money on his numerous journeys to Bunce Island as a slave trader.  It was on one such journey in 1772 that Newton experienced an epiphany and wrote a poem that became a very popular Christian hymn, sung with reverence in many churches, particularly Black churches. In fact, President Obama led the congregation in this song as clergy and others stood on their feet during his eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the slain pastor of Mother Emmanuel AME Church.  The song? “Amazing Grace.” While standing amidst the ruins on Bunce Island, our guide, Peter, led us in a chorus of that same song, Amazing Grace. Consider the multilayered irony:  a white slave trader wrote the words to that song perhaps while enroute between Bunce Island and the Low country.  The song was sung at a funeral for one of nine people slaughtered at Mother Emanual AME Church because of racial hatred.  Mother Emmanual AME Church is located in Charleston, a location that profited from the Bunce Island-to-southern colonies slave trade that Newton participated in.  Two hundred and fifty-three years later, a group of nine Savannah travelers sang a verse of this very same song while on Bunce Island. Amazing Grace went full circle!

Our next stop was Rogbonko Village where sweet grass baskets are sewn and sold.  To get to that village, required a 5 hour drive down dirt roads, passing many villages.  Some villages had schools and we saw children outside for recreation.  Many villages had no signs of a formal educational institution. Such was the case with Rogbonko Village.  We were greeted with music, song, and dance by the villagers – young and elderly.  We danced and sang with them as we were led to a section of the village that had been prepared for us to engage in bartering for sweet grass basket products.  It was quite the experience!  Village Chief Moriai Kamara took time to meet and greet us.  We were thankful that our Fambul Tik companions were present to interpret for us and guide us through the seemingly chaotic transaction of purchasing products from very enthusiastic sellers!  As we were leaving, the absence of a formal educational building was noted and we discussed the academic void that would rob children of becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc.  As I contemplated that, however, I had to admire the fact that the villagers had successfully maintained a simple lifestyle that had been passed down for generations.  There was no gun violence, no need to participate in the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program and summarize crimes into Part I and Part II categories.  The children may not graduate with degrees in medicine, art, or theatre.  However, they will develop the competency of healing with nature’s offerings, the art of creating beautiful crafts, and the skill of making musical instruments and music for the soul.  They will be nurtured and trained within the safety of their community. These factors may seem minute and meaningless to us; however, these skills and practices have served to sustain people in that village for hundreds of years.

Resistance

As mentioned, Bunce Island represented the captivity and slavery element of our experience. The trek to Old Yagala represented the resistance element.  Stories are told of the Stono Rebellion and Demark Veasy’s Revolt.  Articles have been written about Bear Creek Maroon near Savannah and other maroons—particularly in the Caribbean.  Very little attention has been given to acts of resistance on the Continent. 

The mountain of Old Yagala is near the Village of Kabala.  To get there, we again passed many, many villages.  One village was called Tyler Perry Town!  A common site were porches.  The concept of porches is from Africa.  Africans are communal people and the front porch serves as a gathering place for the community.  I noticed that almost all dwellings had a porch – from the large home with obvious amenities to the small thatched hut with cut out window space.     Making the journey to Old Yagala requires “blessings” from two chiefs. We first visited Paramount Chief Gbawura Mansaray III, of Wara Wara Yagala Chiefdom.  He performed a Kola Ceremony, wishing us peace and unity and a safe journey up the Mountain (at the time we had no appreciation for the significance of his prayers for a successful journey up and down the mountain!)  The second chief we visited was the Town Chief of Yagala Village, Chief Pa Korioi Marah.  Only the elders of our group were required to meet with him.  I was among the three elders in our group.

According to Massally, archaeological excavations reveal two distinct periods of occupation on the mountain: an initial occupation late in the first millennium or early second millennium A.D.  and a later occupation during the late 18th/ early 19th century.  The second occupation is clearly associated with the Limba people of modern-day Sierra Leone.  It was during the second occupation that Old Yagala served as a defensive location against slave trade invaders.  The location of the ancestral settlement is at the top of “an almost inaccessible crag of plutonic grano-diorite” and was perched 800-ft above the modern settlement at the bottom of the mountain. The ingenious Africans built communities that lasted for decades – until 1952 when the settlement was deserted.  Their houses were built of stone, and they used great boulders and rocks to create the fortress.  From this vantage point, they could see potential invaders ten-twenty miles away – long before they reached the mountain. This allowed them time to prepare to hide or fight. The evidence of the longevity of their strategic community is the burial spot for five chiefs.  

As we hiked up that mountain, two very learned men led the way and shared the history of the people who lived there.  I realized I was in the company of two African griots!  That was a powerful realization and experience!  They ran with ease.  We struggled with every step and were thankful for the children who went with us as guides – pulling and pushing us until we reached the plateau.  Along the way, we passed a stream that served as the water source for the ancestors who lived on the mountain.  We learned that this water source has never run dry.  The griots took us to the burial spot for the five chiefs and explained the necessity of a unique burial process due to the inability to dig deep graves on granite.  When a chief would die, his body was hung on a hammock over a dugout pit where it would remain until his successor died.  Then his bones were buried, and the body of the next chief was hung on the hammock and remained until the third chief died.  This process continued through five chiefs.  Being on top of that mountain – in that sacred space was an indescribable experience.

Abolition and Freedom

Back in Freetown, we were introduced to the last segment of our educational journey, abolition.  The area of Freetown was established by freed enslaved people who joined British forces during the American Revolutionary War (1765-1791). Africans were offered freedom in exchange for military support (Frey, 1991).  Two of the largest cities in the Southern part of the colonies, Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC, were under British control. Thousands of enslaved people escaped from plantations and fled to British lines to fight in exchange for freedom.  When the British evacuated and retreated to Canada, they took many formerly enslaved people with them and named them Black Loyalists. (Wikipedia contributors, 2022).  

In 1787, 4,000 Black Loyalists, assisted by British abolitionists, left Canada because the British did not make good on many of their promises.  They relocated to West Africa to form the Province of Freedom, Sierra Leone.  Five years later, in 1792, another 1,192 Black Loyalists relocated to Sierra Leone and the capital was renamed, Freetown.  Both groups became part of the Sierra Leone Creole people and founders of the nation of Sierra Leone (Knight & Manson, n.d.).   When they left for Africa, they retained aspects of ‘Africanisms’ from the Gullah Geechee culture they came from and took this culture with them.  The descendants of Black Loyalists are the Sierra Leone Creole people.

Around 1800 about 500-600 Jamaican Maroons arrived in Freetown to join the existing freed Blacks.  In 1808 Britain abolished slavery. Once this happened, many slave voyages were intercepted by the British Navy along the African Coast and the captured Africans were taken to Sierra Leone, which interestingly, became the first British colony in Africa the same year-1808.

On a circle in the middle of Freetown stands a tall, magnificent symbol of freedom – the Cotton Tree.  This tree is a kapok tree and is a historic symbol of Freetown.  Reportedly, the Cotton Tree gained significance in 1792 when the formerly enslaved Black Loyalists who settled in Freetown gathered to pray under it.  The tree is the oldest of its kind and remains one of Sierra Leone’s most famous landmarks.  We paused once again to honor the ancestors with Libation, led by Hanif Haynes, under that tree.

Music was a universal connector in every village we stopped at.  We danced, sang, and enjoyed the music played on various instruments.  It was only fitting, then, that before our journey ended, we’d meet a major contributor to music/art/theatre, etc. Charlie Haffner, founder of the 33-year old performance group, the Freetown Players.  Massally arranged for Charlie to come to our hotel for an intimate discussion with him.  What a treat!

Back Home:  From Sierra Leone to Savannah

After five action-packed days in Sierra Leone, we began our journey back to Savannah.  We tasted Mother Africa and were filled from the knowledge we learned, the experiences we engaged in, and the friends we made.  We returned different – we have a clearer perspective of our respective roles and responsibilities.  We went to Sierra Leone to fetch the gift of accurate knowledge and truth.  We returned ready to share, enriched by our experience and emboldened from the knowledge we gained.  We received Africa’s gift and our Sankofa journey is complete – for now, until next time.