Ibo Landing

Sunrise on St. Simons Island, Georgia. (“Sunrise on St. Simons Island (Georgia) – Tuesday July 26, 2016” by Corey Seeman is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.)

“…they strode confidently, unhurriedly, past the ships lying in the sunrise.”1

Ihsan Bracy

What happened at Ibo Landing

Ibo Landing, also known as Igbo or Ebo Landing, is a hallowed site. In 1803, a group of enslaved Nigerians were on a ship bound for St. Simons—a sea island off the coast of Georgia. The group revolted and they were able to gain control of the ship, running it aground in Dunbar Creek on St. Simons. Instead of submitting to recapture and a life of enslavement, they joined hands and walked into the sea to drown together.2

This story is a cornerstone of Gullah Geechee culture and it has enormous symbolic importance. While it is desperately sad, it also tells of resistance, strength and the different meanings of freedom. The Africans who walked into the waters at Ibo Landing may have still had chains upon them, but they died free.

Author Ihsan Bracy’s book ibo landing

Geechee author Ihsan Bracy wrote a book entitled ibo landing that includes 22 short stories, one of which is also titled “ibo landing.” It is Bracy’s telling of the mass suicide at Ibo Landing, as told to him by his Elders when he was young. He wrote all of these short stories based off of his life, childhood and Gullah cultural stories, and he wrote it for his own children. He wanted to pass the legacy of these stories onto them, as he explains in the interview at the bottom of this webpage.

Though the story “ibo landing” is only a few pages long, written in short, prose-like sentences, it conveys an entire world. The words locate the reader within the world of the slave ship, a witness to the horrors, painting a ghost of an understanding of what the desperation and anguish must have felt like. Though the ending of the story is a mass suicide, in Bracy’s depiction it is also a beautifully devastating victory. In juxtaposition to the world of enslavement, it was just that. These are the final lines of the story:

as they reached the place of waves, each one would reach to grab the hand of the one before.

razzberry watched from the hill. it was through him the story was remembered and the truth told. stepping over wave after wave, they strode confidently, unhurriedly, past the ships lying in the sunrise.

*

nearly everyone in the vicinity of ibo landing that day came to see, before the silent band was lost from sight.3

Interview with the Author

In an interview with Ihsan Bracy, the author describes how important it was to him that he wrote about the legacies of his Geechee heritage. Part of Bracy’s literary style is the non-use of capital letters; this interview reflects that style and has been left in its original form.4

Who are you?

“i am a forty-six year old afrikan american brother of geechee ancestry, born in staunton, virginia and raised in brooklyn, new york. i am an urban child of the city, raised with southern sensibilities.”

Why did you write ibo landing?

“growing up with a large extended family, there were always tales told. ibo landing grew out of the stories i heard when i was a little boy. one day while looking at my three children, i realized that i wanted to pass this legacy down to them. ibo landing provided a way for me to ensure this inheritance for them.”

What did you discover in the writing of ibo landing?

“i discovered not only the ancestral voices within me, but finally understood my place in the context of my family, a sense of continuum with which i see myself and now my children. i also appreciated for the first time the inheritance of love, wisdom and humor that is truly my birthright, passed on to me by the warmth of my family.”

Ihsan Bracy Reading “ibo landing”

At 8:20 in this video, Ihsan Bracy reads his story “ibo landing.” This video was filmed during a literary salon hosted by the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC) on March 13, 2005 in Harlem, New York.

A recording that includes author Ihsan Bracy reading his story “ibo landing” beginning at 8:20 in the video.
(Recording by the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC.com), March 13, 2005 in Harlem, NY)

Next Page:

There isn’t a Conclusion
There’s only an uncertain yet hopeful path forward.

Footnotes

  1. Ihsan Bracy, “ibo landing,” in The Legacy of Ibo Landing: Gullah Roots of African American Culture, eds. Marquetta L. Goodwine and the Clarity Press Gullah Project (Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, 1998), 14-18.
  2. Samuel Momodu, “Igbo Landing Mass Suicide (1803),” BlackPast, October 25, 2016, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/events-african-american-history/igbo-landing-mass-suicide-1803/
  3. Bracy, “ibo landing,” 18.
  4. “Ishan Bracy,” Coolgrove Books, accessed March 16, 2022, https://coolgrove.com/books/ihsan-bracy/

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