The “Igbo Landing” story was an act of resistance against slavery when approximately 75 Igbo enslaved people rose in rebellion, took control of a slave ship, drowned their captors, and in the process caused the grounding of the ship. The group revolted instead of submitting to slavery marched into the water while singing in Igbo, drowning themselves

Igbo Landing is now a historic site at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island, Glynn County, Georgia. However, in 1803 it was the location of one of the largest mass suicides of enslaved people when Igbo captives from Nigeria were taken to the Georgia coast. In May 1803, the Igbo and other West African captives arrived in Savannah, Georgia, on the slave ship the Wanderer. The enslaved people were purchased for an approx. $100 each by enslaved merchants John Couper and Thomas Spalding to be resold to plantations on St. Simons Island. The enslaved people were packed under deck of a coastal vessel, the York, which would take them to St. Simons. During the journey, approx. 75 Igbo enslaved people rose in rebellion, took control of the ship, drowned their captors, and in the process caused the grounding of the ship in Dunbar Creek.

What happened next is still unclear but it is known the Igbo marched ashore, singing, led by their high chief. Then under his leadership, they walked into the waters of Dunbar Creek, committing mass suicide. Roswell King, a white overseer on the nearby Pierce Butler plantation, wrote the first witness account of the incident. King and another man identified only as Captain Patterson found many of the drowned bodies. Apparently only part of the 75 Igbo rebels drowned. Thirteen bodies were found, however others remained missing, and some may have survived the suicide. Thus, making the actual death numbers unclear.

Although the numbers aren’t clear, the deaths continue to be a powerful story of Black people’s resistance against being enslaved.

The Igbo Landing took on enormous symbolic importance in local Black American folklore. The rebellion and subsequent suicide by the Igbo people was called by many locals the first freedom march in the history of the United States. After the incident local people alleged that the Landing and surrounding marshes in Dunbar Creek where the Igbo people committed suicide were haunted by the souls of the dead Igbo enslaved people. The story of Igbo, who seemingly chose death over enslavement which had long been part of Gullah folklore, and was finally recorded from various oral sources in the 1930s by members of the Federal Writers Project.

While many historians for centuries have cast doubt on the Igbo Landing mass suicide, suggesting that the entire incident was more legend than fact, the accounts Roswell King and others provided at the time were verified by post-1980 research which used modern scientific techniques to reconstruct the episode and confirm the basis of the longstanding oral accounts.

Sources:

Momodu, S. (2016, October 25). Igbo Landing Mass Suicide (1803). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/events-african-american-history/igbo-landing-mass-suicide-1803/

Goodwine, The Legacy of Ibo Landing: Gullah Roots of African American Culture (Atlanta: Clarity Press, Inc., 1998).

Igbo Landing,” New Georgia Encyclopedia, http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/ebos-landing

“Igbo Landing,” Glynn County, Georgia History and Lore, http://www.glynncounty.com/History_and_Lore/Ebo_Landing/; Marquetta L.

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