Daufuskie Island - History

History

The island's recorded history traces back to Pre Revolutionary War times. It was the site of a skirmish called the "Daufuskie Fight" during the Yemassee War of 1715–1717. The island was home to a sizable population of Gullah inhabitants from the end of the Civil War until very recently. Gullah are the descendants of freed slaves. The 1988 Jimmy Buffett song, "The Prince Of Tides" laments the urbanization of the island and loss of the Gullah.The song can be found on Jimmy Buffett's album, "Hot Water." The 1972 Pat Conroy book The Water is Wide was set on Daufuskie, fictionalized as "Yamacraw Island." The book recounts Mr. Conroy's experiences teaching on the island in the 1960s.

The Daufuskie Island Historical Foundation (www.daufuskieislandhistoricalfoundation.org) has a museum with historical artifacts of the island as well as a display with information about the Gullah history of the island.

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