Igbo Landing

Igbo Landing — sometimes spelled Ebo Landing — is the unmarked tidal site on Dunbar Creek where, in 1803, a group of enslaved Igbo people drowned themselves rather than submit to a life of slavery. The site has no signage, no marker, no museum: by design, the Gullah-Geechee community considers it a sacred place and prefers it not be developed.

For travellers interested in the history, the more substantive experience is to visit the St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition's exhibits at the Maritime Center and the Harrington School, both of which interpret the landing and the wider history of African and African-American life on the Sea Islands. The landing itself is most often visited as a quiet kayaking detour by water.

things to do sight
A story
In May 1803, a group of around 75 Igbo captives from what is now Nigeria mutinied aboard the schooner York as it neared Dunbar Creek and, refusing enslavement, walked into the marsh together singing. The episode entered Gullah-Geechee tradition as a mass act of defiance and is now commemorated as a sacred site, although it remains essentially unmarked on the ground.

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