United we Stand: The “infamous” Igbo Landing
The story of the “drowned” igbo captives was depicted by Songstress,Beyonce,in her song “Love Drought”.
In May 1803 a shipload of captive West Africans, upon surviving the middle passage, were landed by U.S.-paid captors in savannah by slave ship, to be auctioned off at one of the local slave markets. The ship’s enslaved passengers included a number of Igbo people from Nigeria. The Igbo were known by planters and slavers of the American South for being fiercely independent and resistant to chattel slavery.
The group of 75 Igbo slaves were bought by agents of John Couper and Thomas Spaldingfor forced labor on their plantations in St. Simons Island for $100 each.The chained slaves were packed under the deck of a small vessel named the Schooner York to be shipped to the island (other sources say the voyage took place aboardThe Morovia)
During this voyage the Igbo slaves rose up in rebellion, taking control of the ship and drowning their captors in the process causing the grounding of the Morovia in Dunbar Creek at the site now locally knownas IGBO LANDING.
It is said that the igbos went ashore and subsequently, under the direction of a high Igbo chief among them, walked in unison into the creek singing in the Igbo language “The Water Spirit brought us, the Water Spirit will take us home”. They thereby accepted the protection of their God, Chukwu and death over the alternative of slavery.
