Gullah/Geechee TV Nayshun Nyews Ep 148-Harriet Tubman Combahee Raid
by Gullah/Geechee Nation
by Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation (www.QueenQuet.com)
Woke up dis mawnin wid my mind, stayed pun freedum! is ringing in my soul today because that is what my spirit has been moving to since I awakened. I rose early in order to finish my work online and proceed out to my work in the field. I also didn't want to miss the meeting of the Friends of Fort Fremont because this particular fort has been a space that I connected to when my family first told me that we had a fort on my home island of St. Helena. Not long after that, I worked with someone who was then a journalist in Beaufort County, SC to bring enlightenment and awareness to this historic treasure that was beneath graffiti and vines at the island's end. Given that the fort had not been active in ages, destructioneers had set their eyes on the area that encompassed it and wanted to subdivide it into lots and create a planned unit development. So, we needed to act to insure that this place and space was remembered, restored, and not demolished. The county heard the firing off of the letters and emails and the Beaufort County Rural and Critical Lands Board purchased this historic space for everyone to learn from and enjoy.
The Friends of Fort Fremont have now assembled to build an interpretive center at the location of the fort. I listened closely to every word of its story on this historic date that tends to unfortunately go by without the history of it being told much less having it interpreted at historic spaces and placed on kiosk for others to be aware of. June 2nd is the date that Mama Moses Harriet Ross Tubman also known as "General Tubman" worked shoulder to shoulder with Colonel Montgomery as they led the "Combahee River Raid" just up the road a piece and along the waters that now flow under the only bridge in the world named in her honor.
I thought about the many awards that I have been presented with bearing Harriet Tubman's name and image. I remembered when I first uncovered the records of her living in the City of Beaufort, SC and having a laundry co-op and a bakery. I remember when it appeared that no one else knew or took much interest in this aspect of Beaufort history, but me. I remember being a re-enactor in the parade in Beaufort and I walked as Harriet Tubman along side two men who were there to portray Nathaniel Heyward and Gullah Statesman Robert Smalls. We ended the parade teaching the children at Beaufort Elementary who each of these people were and their significance to our county and to the history of America. I remember going home each of those times with songs in my soul.
I continued to work with other historians around the country to get the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom established, we continued to discuss the strength and multifaceted roles of Harriet Tubman and how these have been down played and ignored. We would no longer allow her significance to be ignored! So, we pushed on as she would have done and finally we got the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom established and proceeded with getting her recognized nationally via the Harriet Tubman Study as well. The study now gave us a chance to revisit all that I had uncovered before and to bring it to the table with the records of her work in Maryland and New York.
As more and more pages were amassed about this powerful woman, amongst these were the records of what took place on June 2, 1863. On this date, Harriet Tubman became the first woman to plan and guide a significant armed raid during the United States Civil War. Harriet Tubman and the 2nd Regiment South Carolina Volunteer Infantry which was an all Black regiment that contained many native Gullah/Geechees destroyed millions of dollars worth of Confederate supplies and freed close to 800 people from bondage in the rice fields along the river which divides Beaufort and Colleton Counties today.
According to the dispatch which appeared on the front page of a Boston newspaper called, The Commonwealth on Friday, July 10, 1863:
Col. Montgomery and his gallant band of 300 black soldiers, under the guidance of a black woman, dashed into the enemy’s country, struck a bold and effective blow, destroying millions of dollars worth of commissary stores, cotton and lordly dwellings, and striking terror into the heart of rebeldom, brought off near 800 slaves and thousands of dollars worth of property, without losing a man or receiving a scratch. It was a glorious consummation.
After they were all fairly well disposed of in the Beaufort charge, they were addressed in strains of thrilling eloquence by their gallant deliverer, to which they responded in a song. “There is a white robe for thee,” a song so appropriate and so heartfelt and cordial as to bring unbidden tears.
The Colonel was followed by a speech from the black woman, who led the raid and under whose inspiration it was originated and conducted. For sound sense and real native eloquence, her address would do honor to any man, and it created a great sensation...
Since the rebellion she had devoted herself to her great work of delivering the bondman, with an energy and sagacity that cannot be exceeded. Many and many times she has penetrated the enemy’s lines and discovered their situation and condition, and escaped without injury, but not without extreme hazard.
Mama Moses Harriet Tubman surveyed the area herself as she was known to do as the true scout that she was. She was willing to lead the 150 "Negro troops" in the raid as long as Colonel Montgomery was in charge of it. According to "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman" (p. 39.):
The Combahee strategy was formulated by Harriet Tubman as an outcome of her penetrations of the enemy lines and her belief that the Combahee River countryside was ripe for a successful invasion. She was asked by General Hunter “if she would go with several gunboats up the Combahee River, the object of the expedition being to take up the torpedoes placed by the rebels in the river, to destroy railroads and bridges, and to cut off supplies from the rebel troops. She said she would go if Col. Montgomery was to be appointed commander of the expedition…Accordingly, Col. Montgomery was appointed to the command, and Harriet, with several men under her, the principal of whom was J. Plowden…accompanied the expedition."
The success that this united force had together turned the tide of the Civil War and allowed Harriet Tubman and the troops to return to Beaufort County, SC. Although they never provided her an appropriate military title after this, we could easily call her "Colonel Tubman" since that was the leading role that she played in this triumphant journey up the river. Accounts of that day even state that she also made her way to her station at my home island of St. Helena. So, it is not surprising that the flow of the tide onto St. Helena's shores awoke me this morning with songs of freedom in my mind just as Colonel Mama Moses Harriet Tubman sang a song of freedom upon the Combahee. I pray that these sounds from our souls get into the hearts and the minds of others. Not another day should sail by without the story of her outstanding role as a soldier that went to the front lines for the freedom of our people-of Gullah/Geechee people-is told! Like the fort, Harriet Tubman's story still stands strong and the songs of freedom flow on!
DR. Umar Ifatunde: SACRED GROUNDS -- The Harriet Tubman Ceremony
Tenki Tenki Colonel Mama Moses Harriet Ross Tubman!
Pan-African Family Empowerment Network
“Connecting & Empowering All Branches of Our African Family Tree.”
A Vanishing History: Gullah Geechee Nation
“Encroachment,” by Pete Marovich.
1. Things ain’t looking too good for the home team: Gullah/Geechee famliles like Eddie Grant, Jr.’s on Hilton Head Island, (left), have been able to keep their land. But many other families near them have fallen like dominoes in the face of upscale development, gentrification, and skyrocketing property taxes.
2. If land rich, but cash poor Gullah/Geechee families lose the land passed down to them by their ancestors, they face becoming homeless, or permanently displaced because they simply can’t afford to replace the highly-coveted land they’ve lived on for generations.
3. Your donation will provide seed money for creating a long-term financial solution to Gullah/Geechee land retention. Fish frys; bake sales; yard sales; dinners; raffles; non-renewable timber harvesting; and the sale of agricultural products and seafood just won’t be enough to cover ever-increasing future tax assessments.
4. An Annual Taxpayer Lottery will be established to give one-time, one-year tax payment grants to allow Gullah/Geechee households to transition to paying their taxes in installments. That will prevent them from ever facing the possibly of the sale of their land at a Delinquent Tax Sale or auction! No fees will be charged to enter the Taxpayer Lottery. But entrants must take a taxpayer class, and save two installment payments on their taxes to be eligible.
5. You can help reverse the flood of African-American land loss: In 1910, Blacks owned an estimated 15-million acres of farmland, and between 3-million and 4-million non-farm acres of land. But by 1997, their farmland ownership plummeted to just 2.4-million acres, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. In 1999, the Agriculture, Economics, and Land Ownership Survey of the USDA arm of the Census Bureau, found just 68,000 rural Black landowners with 7.7-million acres of land, or less than 1% of all privately held land in the U.S.!
6. Much-needed support and referral services for families in need of legal assistance will be funded by your donations.
7. Displaced families will receive help with relocation to affordable housing.
8. Homes and land lost during Delinquent Tax Sales will be redeemed and kept by their original owners.
9. Property owners will be educated about various methods of saving to pay their taxes; lowering their taxes; tax exemptions; and how to apply for Installment Property Tax Payments where they’re allowed by state law and county ordinances.
10. You’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve helped to preserve Gullah/Geechee land for present and future generations.
For all of the reasons above and more, this is a worthy cause! So hurry and make your tax-deductible donation today! IF YOU”RE LOOKING FOR AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE–THIS IS IT!!!!
To read more about how PAFEN is helping Gullah/Geechee landowners right now, click here: ‘Our Angel’: New group seeks to help Gullah families reclaim their property.
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