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lowcountry Defined  The Lowcountry Southeast is comprised of the coastal areas of South Carolina, Georgia and extreme northeast Florida where tidal marshes made rice cultivation possible. Many of the enslaved Africans who were brought to these areas brought with them the rice-growing skills necessary to build and maintain the massive rice plantations of the Colonial and Antebellum Lowcountry.
Those enslaved Africans also brought with them a resistance to malaria which was endemic to tidal marsh areas of the Southeast. Because planting families did not have this resistance to malaria, they spent the largest portion of the year living inland, leaving enslaved Africans with minimal oversight and thus, minimal acculturation.
It was through this isolation, and the continuing infusion of more people from the homeland, that enslaved Africans were able to retain their language, culture, beliefs and traditions. Today, those traditions survive as part of the rich Gullah-Geechee culture.
[1] Photo credit: African American woman, half-length portrait, facing slightly right, Library of Congress Image Number: LC-USZ62-124739. No known restrictions on publication.
Further Reading Read more about the Gullah-Geechee culture at the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
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