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The Ibo Landing story, linked most often to Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island, Georgia, is widely recognized as an important origin point for the flying Africans myth. Based on a bold rejection of enslavement through mass suicide, the myth has long served as an enduring symbol of resistance, empowerment, and dignity for the descendants of African slaves.
The Africans who lived in the coastal communities of Georgia were made up of a cultural and ethnic mixture, many from the Niger delta in the Bight of Biafra. As a result of the shorthand of those involved in the slave trade, these people were all grouped under the names Ibo, Ebo, or Igbo. The site takes its name from this categorization.
A letter from slave trader William Mein (of Mein, Mackay and Co. of Savannah) to plantation owner Pierce Butler, dated May 24, 1803, and held in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania attaches the myth to both a specific place and date in history. Mein sold the Ibo slaves to Thomas Spalding and James Couper upon their arrival aboard the York at Skidaway Island. According to Mein’s account, the vessel departed for St. Simon’s Island but then the Ibo slaves rebelled. The white sailors abandoned ship but drowned in their attempts to reach the shore. Upon landing on the coast, the Ibos journeyed to the Dunbar Creek marsh, where they eventually succumbed to the conditions and died.
While Mein’s letter, one of the only known historical accounts of the slave uprising, provides a spatial and temporal understanding of the event, it is the iterations passed down through the African American oral tradition that claim the most persistent and widespread legacy. Mein’s account ends where arguably the most salient portion of the myth begins for African Americans, the portion widely acknowledged as the primary American source of the flying Africans myth. In one version of the tradition, the enslaved Africans, in a united front against bondage, turned and walked back to Africa across the Atlantic Ocean. In another version, the Ibo flew back to their home continent.
Many accounts of the Ibo Landing events and the flying Africans tale were recorded during the late 1930s by workers with the Federal Writers Project. Several of these accounts appear in Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes. These accounts and their subsequent publication have been criticized by scholars for the biases brought to the project by the interviewers.
The Ibo Landing myth is still present in American culture, figuring prominently in novels including Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, as well as in Julie Dash’s film Daughters of the Dust and Cornelia Walker Bailey’s God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man.
While the Africans involved in the legend are viewed as symbols of resistance and bravery, they are also considered restless spirits robbed of a proper burial. During the summer of 2002, the St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition responded to this notion, inviting Chukwuemeka Onyesoh from Nigeria to designate Ibo Landing as holy ground. A ceremony was performed to put the souls of the enslaved to rest. This event was attended not only by elder Igbo tribesmen, but also by participants from the United States and throughout the Caribbean.
Today, the legend remains strong for many islanders. The spot is hallowed ground for several locals, as some residents refuse to fish or crab in Dunbar Creek due to their belief that their ancestors remain present in the space. It is claimed that the clanging of chains and cries can be heard at the creek nightly.
Nicole M. Morris
See also Flying Africans
Further Reading
Brown, Ras Michael. 2012. African-American Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dance, Daryl Cumber, ed. 2002. From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore: An Anthology. New York: W. W. Norton.
Joyner, Charles, Guy Benton Johnson, Muriel Barrow Bell, and Malcolm Bell. 1986. Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Morgan, Philip, ed. 2011. African American Life in the Georgia Lowcountry. Athens: University of Georgia Press.