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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

Been prepping for the holiday season! New pieces available now in the Etsy shop, like the sweetgrass and pine straw rings and assorted bracelets and necklaces. And, there are blue bottle and multicolor bottle trees available while supplies last. gullahshop.etsy.com

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

Thank you to the researchers, scientists, historians, and Dr. Bonaparte for their work, which I used to compile this thread.

Sources:

time.com/6727306/blac...

youtu.be/SE34K88LUek?...

ir.vanderbilt.edu/items/720085...

musc.libguides.com/c.php?g=7870...

time.com

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

By shifting births from homes to hospitals and redefined pregnancy as a medical condition—rather than a natural process—the “medicalization of childbirth” exploited existing social biases against women, immigrants, and people of color like South Carolina’s granny midwives. #HiddenHistory

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

Evidence from the period showed midwife-attended births often had better outcomes than hospital births, where procedures like forceps delivery could cause injury.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

Between 1900 and 1940, the majority of birthworkers in the state were Black and called “granny midwives” or “grand midwives.” The medical establishment’s smear campaigns against midwives portrayed traditional birthworkers as untrained, unhygienic, and a threat to maternal and infant health.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

Abrogation is the act of canceling, nullifying, or repealing something, almost always in an official or legal context. This happened across the U.S., but in South Carolina, it disproportionately affected African-American women.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

In “The Persecution and Prosecution of Granny Midwives in South Carolina, 1900-1940,” medical sociologist Alicia D. Bonaparte, PhD, referred to the concerted effort by doctors to take over the field of childbirth from midwives as abrogation.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

Midwives charged significantly lower fees, which gave them a competitive advantage, especially among lower-income families who were a large portion of their clientele. My grandmother Anna Smith was a #Gullah #Geechee midwife/rootworker in Georgetown, S.C.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

Black folks often didn’t have access to hospitals and physicians due to means and location and, if accessed, subjected to racism, discrimination, and substandard care in segregated facilities, obtaining care from trusted members of the community as granny midwives instead was vital.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

For African American communities in the South in the late 1800s and well into the 20th Century, #midwives were trusted and well-respected health lcare practitioners that were relied upon for general healing for the family as well as for providing maternal and infant care during labor and delivery.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

Prior to the intervention of physicians and hospitals, most women delivered unassisted or assisted by a relative or a #midwife. That changed in the early 20th century when physicians sought to gain a monopoly on the profitable field of #obstetrics.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 15d

It’s officially Spooky-Ooky Season so I’m rewatching #AgathaAllAlong. One of the main characters is an African-American witch Jennifer Kale, who is a midwife/rootworker. Her story resonated w/ me because what happened to this fictional character—a white male doctor ended her career—is based in fact.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 18d

Gullah is the oldest English-based creole language spoken in the U.S. Created by the ancestors of Gullah Geechee people, Gullah words like “juke” and “tote” were derived from West and West Central African languages.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 24d

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 24d

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 24d

Love this Gullah Pictorals art project done Mr. Cribb’s 8th Grade Social Studies class at Ralph Chandler Middle School in Greenville County, SC.!

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 27d

Learn more about the Gullah language from Sunn M’Cheaux, who is Harvard University’s first and only Gullah language instructor, Bubba Sunn teaches a curriculum based on extensive research and his own personal Gullah/Geechee knowledge and experience.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Gullah Geechee enters the academy

Podcast Episode · Subtitle · 12/18/2019 · 22m

podcasts.apple.com

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 27d

Gullah has survived centuries and given birth to Afro-Seminole Creole, the Gullah dialect, & donated words that are commonly used in standard American English. The Gullah dialect is still spoken throughout the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor that runs along the coast of NC,SC, GA, & FL.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 27d

By eradicating the language of the oppressed, colonizers could dismantle their identity, weaken their resistance, and force assimilation. That didn’t work so well with Gullah Geechee, who despite the horrors of enslavement and Jim Crow, maintained our culture and language.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 27d

But why did Europeans suppress the language of those they oppressed—like the African ancestors of the Gullah Geechee? It was a calculated strategy to dismantle the cultures under their thumb, consolidate political & economic power, & demoralize people.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 27d

When I call Gullah a creole, I’m using the linguistics definition of the word, which is when 2 or more languages are combined to create a new complete one with its own grammar and vocabulary that lasts more than a generation and becomes the first language of a community.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 27d

Gullah, or Geechee, is the oldest English-based creole spoken in the U.S. It is a gumbo of English & African languages, with a smattering of words from Arabic, French, & languages spoken by the indigenous peoples of southeastern coastal U.S.

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · 27d

Gullah Museum of Georgetown co-founder Vermelle “Bunny” Smith Rodrigues’ native language wasn’t English—it was Gullah. She & other Gullah Geechees were once shamed for speaking it. Hear what she had to say about that in her own words. qrco.de/be47zm

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · Sep 11

Sources:

enslaved.org/fullStory/16...

uscatholic.org/articles/202...

slavedwellingproject.org/wp-content/u...

Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade

Explore or reconstruct the lives of individuals who were enslaved, owned slaves, or participated in the historical trade.

enslaved.org

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Gullah Museum of Georgetown @gullahsc.bsky.social · Sep 11

Thank you to the historians, researchers, and authors whose work is combined in the thread.

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