12/09/2024
AFRICAN AMERICAN/GULLAH GEECHEE FISHING ~ A thing of the past on the GA coast.
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Post-civil war African-Americans developed communities in Georgia where traditional fishing practices created family fleets, processing plants, and other self-sustaining fisheries work. The decline in African-American fishermen since that period has been attributed to increased fishing costs, little access to capital, and a reluctance to have children work in labor-intensive fisheries professions.
Additionally, fluctuations in commercial landings may have had a negative influence. This study tested these hypotheses by comparing first-hand accounts from current and former African-American fishermen and their families with trends in Georgia fisheries data (1950-2015). Analyses of the histories and landings data indicated that African-Americans fished the most abundant species during the years described by the participants (1950-1985) and that reasons for fishing or not fishing could be classified into 8 major themes related to work experience, Gullah Geechee values, and generational shifts.
Traditional fisheries were once ubiquitous in coastal areas where seafood collection, processing, and consumption all occurred in the same place. In coastal African-American communities along the Gullah Geechee Corridor, subsistence fishing and the connection to fisheries careers predates options for occupational choice for African-Americans. It predates emancipation when owners allowed enslaved Africans to fish, hunt, and farm to supplement the rations owners were legally required to provide.
Post-emancipation, fishing as a means of subsistence and trade among African-Americans was related to coastal living and early access to sea occupations through the Merchant Marine.
Independent African-American communities that developed in coastal Georgia after the Civil War formed vibrant, fishery-driven Gullah Geechee enclaves like Pin Point, Sandfly, Harris Neck, and Eulonia until the middle of the 20th century. The fishing, crabbing, and sh*****ng skills that developed in the slave economy fostered self-employment for African-Americans during Reconstruction and contributed heavily to sustaining families with little other means of support, particularly after the economic collapse of the South. These unincorporated areas grew into self-sufficient coastal communities where traditional fishing skills and practices were passed down through generations. In these communities, families fished and ate local catch, and the traditions performed between these tasks represented the larger culture. The proceeds of fishery work supported family fleets, processing plants, and other self-sustaining fisheries employment.
City records in Savannah evince the role of African-Americans in the fisheries profession; eight of the seventeen registered fish sellers in the 1880 Savannah city directory in were listed as colored. African-American fishery participation was higher in the early part of the 20th century than it is now and matched a national increase in the number of persons claiming fishing as an occupation until 1920.
An example of this trend was Mr. John Anderson, an African-American native of Pin Point (Georgia) who opened and operated an oyster house there until his death in 1929. Though his building burned down after his death, his enterprise preceded the A.S. Varn factory, a European-American owned crab and oyster processing center built near the same site in 1950. Even as Georgia’s fisheries became less artisanal and more industrialized, African-Americans comprised the majority of the workforce in seafood processing in some areas, including McIntosh County, Savannah, and Thunderbolt, Georgia. On the nearby Thunderbolt riverfront, many African-American shrimpers also captained vessels operating out of the docks but African-Americans also took the less favorable jobs in the canning and seafood processing factories. In fact, these roles were commonly assumed by women as is consistent in the post harvesting activities of many fisheries. Industrialization in fishing marginalized women's participation to low pay processing like heading or heading, filleting, or canning and across cultures processing is consistently documented their contribution to the fishing enterprise.
By 1923, shore fisheries in South Carolina and Georgia were largely confined to Savannah and Charleston where the market demand was located.
Prior to the 1930s, more African-Americans worked in the Georgia oyster fishery than in any other. In the early 1900s, many African-American families in the Savannah area relied on the lucrative oyster for their primary income. However, overharvesting, degrading water quality, and changes in consumer demand redirected the African-American fishing community to shrimps, blue crab, menhaden, and other species.
Observations at any commercial or recreational dock today will show that fishing is no longer a prominent vocational pursuit in the African-American community, and those who continue to fish relegate the activity to recreation or subsistence. Popular hypotheses of the cause for this migration away from fishing-related professions by African-Americans in Georgia have been largely derived from research.
The absence of cultural and gender-specific influences also neglects the unique presence of Gullah Geechee culture in the area. Further, no research has compared the decline in fishing to changes in fisheries productivity over time.
African-Americans had less access to capital and were unable to invest in technology that would have allowed them to compete with other fishermen and larger companies.
Tales of Landings and Legacies: African Americans in Georgia's Coastal Fisheries
D.L. Hoskins-Brown
National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
