The Gullah Geechee worked in tandem and in mutual aid. The owners who had had them chained and stacked left them on the island on their own. Owners distanced themselves from the evidence of the fetid hold, the salt-soaked death on their skin, satisfied with the proceeds of their labor: indigo, rice, cotton. This absenteeism was common on the Sea Islands during slavery. The Africans who were left there became water people, people who lived by fishing and tides, but also people who understood water to be the most feasible path to escape.
