Gullah/Geechee Queen’s Chronicle: Stay een de Field

Gullah/Geechee Nation ♦ May 26, 2025 ♦ Leave a comment

I touched my ancestors hands as I touched the same field that they toiled in and fought for. I felt the heat on my face and knew that they were smiling as I paid homage to them for their vision and strength to ensure that their generations of descendants would have land to keep their families safe on and to thrive on. In memorial to them, I did as the song and “stayed een de field.”

As I thought of the many ancestors that my late aunt was always proudly speaking of, I could see in my mind the black and white and sepia toned photos of soldiers. I could hear her at the family reunion being concerned about the exact way to hang the US flag near our family flag that also blew high in the sky. She would also let it be known that we had someone that fought in every war. I was more concerned about whether or not what they had done had benefitted our family in some critical way. As I stopped to think about that, I realized that the ones that folks failed to honor were the ones that I have always sought to make sure were not left out of the honors-the women of the family. While the men were off during the Civil War and for many others wars thereafter, the women held onto the land. They toiled it and they fed the children from it. Many times they also had to feed elders that were also in their care. So, as I thought about them, I felt the sun beam down on me again and then a gentle breeze came that made all the difference in the world and I felt that warmth that I used to feel from my grandma. I knew the many grandmas before her that I never got to meet were with me and they appreciated being remembered.

As I bent my back to reset the okra and moved from row to row, I felt the sun hit my backside and the heat radiated down my thighs. I almost laughed because this immediately brought my late stepfather to mind and how he often said that he would “Warm their behinds!” He was speaking about the beating that children would get if they didn’t do the right thing or do what their parents and elders taught them to do. He could really get warm when he told those stories. He also got warm and sometimes laughed when he told of his military days and what they went through. They fought to make it and to make it back home to the Sea Islands.

I then thought of how warm the US Colored Troops were as they marched and they fought on and for these Sea Islands, I prayed that they were finally at peace and didn’t have to study war no more. I gave thanks for those who came together with their families and purchased land and I thank GOD that my family still holds onto that land today. So, I got warm again but not from the sun this time. This time it was because I started thinking about those women of my family with small children and the thousands of other Gullah/Geechee women with small children that worked the land by hand like I still do. I thought of how they protected the land when others tried to encroach upon them when they thought the men were away and how they stood proudly and firmly and held on to the land and to the family.

Slowly as I walked across the field, I could see in my mind’s eye small beautiful and handsome Black children and I realized these were the Gullah/Geechee children that are not usually thanked for their service nor given the credit that they are due. Had it not been for the children leading them, “Memorial Day” which we call “Decoration Day” in the Gullah/Geechee Nation may not have existed. Many are unaware that the roots of this holiday stemmed from Charleston, SC in the Gullah/Geechee Nation on May 1, 1865 as 3,000 Gullah/Geechee children led another 7000 people to the “Washington Race Horse and Jockey Club” grounds which had been converted to an outdoor prison during the United States Civil War.  Gullah/Geechee men gave proper burial to those that had been placed in a mass grave at this site and the community came together to decorate them posthumously.  Disya bin staat ob Decoration Day and memorializin de Gullah/Geechee way!

I paused to give a moment of silence for all of them that were there in 1865 and for all of my ancestors that made it back home alive and got a chance to sit on porches and look out over their land. I gave thanks that as I touched the same soil in which they had toiled that I could do more than salute them. I am thankful to touch an ancestors hand.

by Queen Quet, Chieftess of the the Gullah/Geechee Nation www.QueenQuet.com

Stay een de field chillun!